EDITORIAL - A new chief justice

President Duterte said he just followed seniority in appointing Supreme Court Associate Justice Teresita de Castro as the new chief justice. The President picked De Castro even if she has less than two months left before her retirement. And even if, for just 41 days in her new post, taxpayers will now have to give her much more than the pension that she would have originally received plus all the other perks of a retired chief justice.

No one is questioning De Castro’s competence or qualifications. One doesn’t get appointed to the Supreme Court without the requisite intellectual capability and expertise. She was also the most senior SC member in the running for the job – but only because the more senior magistrate, Antonio Carpio, had declined his nomination.

This is just one of the controversies bedeviling De Castro’s promotion. She has promised judicial reforms in 41 days, in a branch of government that has been in dire need of improvements for decades.

Some quarters argue that her appointment is illegal because she faces an impeachment complaint. But with just 41 days to serve, De Castro may rest assured of being spared from ouster.

Critics have pounced on her appointment because she is known as the archenemy of her predecessor, Maria Lourdes Sereno. Despite Sereno’s ouster and the expunging of her appointment as chief justice, she can no longer be stricken off Filipinos’ memory as the first woman and the youngest ever at age 52 to serve as top magistrate – and she did this for nearly six years, not just 41 days.

De Castro will be remembered for being one of the eight SC justices who voted to kick out Sereno through a mere quo warranto petition filed by the government’s chief lawyer. Carpio declined his nomination because having voted against the quo warranto case and wanting the removal of a chief justice to be by impeachment, as stipulated in the Constitution, he said he had to be consistent and did not want to benefit from Sereno’s ouster.

Because of the circumstances, De Castro has been branded by critics as the “endo” or end-of-contract chief justice and her appointment dubbed as the start of a revolving-door policy that makes SC justices beholden to the executive.

The Philippine judicial system is weak enough. De Castro has 41 days to show that her appointment has not aggravated that institutional weakness and undermined the rule of law.

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