Making the Supreme Court Answer for Its Sins

I BELIEVE IT IS high time that the Constitution-granted balance of power between the branches of government--executive, legislative and judiciary--be made to work as it was meant to be, and let the concerned justices in the present Supreme Court be made to answer for their sins, for their arrogance in the exercise of judicial power.

Even the conscientious justices themselves voiced out against the arrogance of the majority ruling the Supreme Court these days. And maybe for the first time in its history, the Supreme Court has abrogated unto itself power that does not belong to it, and in the process interfering with the lawful rights of the legislative and executive branches in exercising their Constitutionally mandated jobs.

And these sins of the Supreme Court must be stopped now otherwise the country will end up having a power-hungry High Court that cannot be checked by its co-equal branches in government; a High Court that lords over the executive and the legislative branches as it brandishes its judicial power to excesses. The Congress which have the obligation to exercise and impose this balance must act expeditiously to reign in a judicial branch out of control.

Meddling with the Executive Branch

The High Court started its campaign of politics when, in October 2010, it stopped the Executive department from revoking the midnight appointments of the Arroyo administration, interferring with the department's prerogative to remove midnight appointees as provided by law in order to weed out those who may become cradles of administrative headaches in the new administration. And the Supreme Court stepped in to assert its political power over the Executive department.

Another sin of the present Supreme Court was the convoluted ruling when it decided to declare the Truth Commission as unconstitutional, not through convincing reasoning and strong legal jurisprudence but through sheer majority of like-minded court justices. Its extension of political power again derailed the supreme will of the Filipino people in putting to rest the unresolved anomalies hounding the previous administration.

Meddling with the Legislative Branch

In September 2010, the Supreme Court exercised its bias towards political power when it stopped the impeachment proceedings that the House Committee on Justice initiated against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez in circumstances that raise to question the objectivity in the manner which the majority of justices have exercised judicial power. It came only later on that the granting of the Gutierrez petition to stop the House committee from doing its job had been done with even some of the justices unable to read the petition before the court en banc decided to grant the petition. It was a decision in haste to cover a favored one.

Covering for Its Own Members

The international incident that erupted with the discovery of plagiarism that associate justice Mariano del Castillo committed in writing a decision in a case has brought shame to the entire Philippine judicial system. But in order to justify the obvious commission of plagiarism, the High Court ruled in favor of an excuse as flimsy as an accidental delition of what supposed to be complete attribution of authors whose work got quoted in the decision. The ruling insulted the intelligence of the Filipino people. The move betrayed the arrogance of the Supreme Court in using its judicial power to grant favor to whoever it wants to grant it regardless of any consideration for honesty and impartiality.

Indecisiveness of Ruling

The classic proof on how indecisive the present Supreme Court has become is the many times it flip-flapped in their ruling for or against the cityhood claims of 16 municipalities, which in the latest ruling have been granted cityhood status after previous decisions constitute reversals of the more previous ones.

The current performance of the Supreme Court is far from giving the people a guarantee on the uprightness of its rulings, and the dependability of its integrity, intellectual honesty, and political independence. It is alarming indeed to see the High Court exercising political power, confident that it has the power of interpreting the law in their hands (and the number to ensure that), and in the process undermining the independence of the executive and legislative departments in performing their jobs.

The move of Ilocos Norte Representative Rodolfo Fariñas in contemplating the filing of an impeachment complaint against 15 justices of the High Court may be the only way the legislative department can assert its Constitution-granted power to put in check the political power that the Supreme Court has been exercising for itself lately.

At the end of the day, justice must be served for sins committed even at the door of the High Court.