Political dynasties

Is there a legal definition for political dynasties?

Believe or not, a definition on POLITICAL DYNASTICISM was actually penned by a Justice of the Supreme Court in relation to a Supreme Court Resolution.

Justice Carpio, dissenting in Navarro vs. Ermita (G.R. No. 180050; April 12, 2011), defined “dynastic politics” as “a phenomenon that concentrates political power and public resources within the control of few families whose members alternately hold elective offices, deftly skirting term limits.”

Expressing his contempt on Congress for its inaction of a constitutional imperative and implying the need for a legislative enactment against POLITICAL DYNASTIES, he went on stating that political dynasticism's “exclusionary effect on access to public service led the framers of the 1987 Constitution to mandate that the State 'guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service' and that Congress 'prohibit political dynasties x x x.' To the Filipino people's misfortune, Congress' non-implementation of this constitutional directive is now aggravated by this Court's want only loose translation of the Constitution's apportionment standard of proportional representation. Thus, instead of ensuring compliance with the Constitution's mandate prohibiting political dynasties, this Court has turned complicit to local politicians' predilection for dynastic entrenchment.”

Though a dissenting opinion is not legally as assertive as a decision but as Justice Holmes once wrote, that,

“[A] dissent in a court of a last resort is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed.”

And to further justify the importance of a dissenting opinion, Justice Bocobo, concurring in Ereña vs. Vera (1943) of our own Supreme Court declared that a dissent in court, “bears within itself the puissant urge of reason and the driving impetus of justice, [and that,] it will eventually, after one or more searching re-examinations of the issues involved, gain ascendancy xxx. It is this possibility, among other considerations, that justifies the writing of dissenting opinions, and makes it particularly desirable and necessary xxx.”

The next question we have to consider then is this:

WILL IT HEAR US AND/OR DECIDE TO ADOPT THE CARPIO DEFINITION ON POLITICAL DYNASTICISM IF WE WOULD BRING THIS CONSTITUTIONAL DILEMMA TO THE SUPREME COURT? OR, AT LEAST, COMPEL CONGRESS TO FINALLY MAKE THAT LAW?