Supreme Court defers ruling on Chief Justice

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court deferred ruling yesterday on the issue on whether President Arroyo is allowed under the law to name the successor of retiring Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

But Court Administrator and spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said the magistrates are scheduled to hold a special full court session at 9 a.m. today to decide on the consolidated petitions seeking to grant Mrs. Arroyo such authority.

Puno, who retires on May 17, will preside over the session but is expected to inhibit from the case, Marquez said.

An SC insider told The STAR that the majority of the 15 justices are expected to vote in favor of the petitions of the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa) and lawyers Arturo de Castro and Estelito Mendoza. The SC decided to hold off its ruling on the petitions yesterday as some justices were not yet ready with their positions, court insiders said.

The petitioners want the SC to compel the Judicial and Bar Council to submit a shortlist of candidates for the top SC post to President Arroyo and declare that she is allowed by the Constitution to appoint the next chief justice.

The petitioners said the ban on appointments under Section 15 Article VII does not cover the top SC post.

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) and Philippine Bar Association (PBA) are contesting the president’s authority to name Puno’s successor.

The Office of Solicitor General (OSG), for its part, insisted that President Arroyo is constitutionally allowed to appoint the successor of Puno and that the JBC has no authority to defer its submission of a shortlist of candidates to the President.

Solicitor General Alberto Agra argued that the election ban on midnight appointments under Section 15, Article VII of the Constitution does not cover the chief justice post based on “mathematics” and on the “deliberation of framers of the Charter.”

Agra explained that the appointment ban, which lasts from 109 to 115 days in regular elections, is longer than the 90-day period within which an SC justice must be appointed under Section 4, Article VII.

“If the midnight appointments ban were to be applied to appointments in the Supreme Court, at least 19 occasions may be conceived where the President will never be able to comply with her constitutional duty of filling up a vacancy in the Supreme Court,” Agra said.

“Surely, the framers of the 1987 Constitution, in deciding these dates and periods, could not have meant or intended to allow such an absurd situation to happen,” he stressed.

He added that framers of the Charter “made no mention or reference to the midnight appointments ban or its effects on such period (for appointment of Supreme Court justices), and vice versa.”

He said they had even extended the mandatory period of appointments from 60 to 90 days, “oblivious to the midnight appointments ban or period covered by it.”

The OSG chief stressed that the framers of the Charter could have expressly stated that the ban covers appointments in the judiciary - especially since they had included restrictions or limitations on the President’s power to appoint members of the SC to ensure independence.

And assuming that the judiciary is covered by the appointment ban during the polls, the OSG argued that there are compelling reasons to exempt the chief justice post from the ban.

The OSG stressed that the SC acts as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), which is “sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of the president and vice president.”

The OSG said recent history has shown that there is no vacancy in the post that has lasted for more than a day.

JBC can’t hold shortlist

The OSG said the JBC should be compelled to submit its shortlist of candidates to the President as a ministerial act.

It argued that the Constitution has not conferred legislative or judicial powers on the JBC to allow it to withhold the release of a shortlist.

But the SC cannot compel the JBC to exclude the names of nominees who have accepted their nominations on certain conditions, the OSG said.

The JBC has opted to await an SC ruling on the consolidated petitions before it decides when to submit a shortlist of nominees to the Palace.

The JBC has moved to the next stage of the selection process, which includes public interviews of candidates or getting advice from legal luminaries.

The candidates for the top SC post are Senior Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Renato Corona; Associate Justices Conchita Carpio-Morales, Arturo Brion and Teresita Leonardo-De Castro; and Sandiganbayan Acting Presiding Justice Edilberto Sandoval.

The issue on the appointment of Puno’s successor has triggered legal and political debates as it is the first time under the 1987 Constitution that the retirement of a chief justice falls on a period covered by election ban on appointments.