Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Baguio City
EN BANC
G.R. No. 191002 April 20, 2010
ARTURO M. DE CASTRO, Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC) and PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL – ARROYO, Respondents.
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G.R. No. 191032
JAIME N. SORIANO, Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC), Respondent.
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G.R. No. 191057
PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION ASSOCIATION (PHILCONSA), Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC), Respondent.
x – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -x
A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC
IN RE APPLICABILITY OF SECTION 15, ARTICLE VII OF THE CONSTITUTION TO APPOINTMENTS TO THE JUDICIARY, ESTELITO P. MENDOZA, Petitioner,
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G.R. No. 191149
JOHN G. PERALTA, Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC). Respondent.
PETER IRVING CORVERA; CHRISTIAN ROBERT S. LIM; ALFONSO V. TAN, JR.; NATIONAL UNION OF PEOPLE’S LAWYERS; MARLOU B. UBANO; INTEGRATED BAR OF THE PHILIPPINES-DAVAO DEL SUR CHAPTER, represented by its Immediate Past President, ATTY. ISRAELITO P. TORREON, and the latter in his own personal capacity as a MEMBER of the PHILIPPINE BAR; MITCHELL JOHN L. BOISER; BAGONG ALYANSANG BAYAN (BAYAN) CHAIRMAN DR. CAROLINA P. ARAULLO; BAYAN SECRETARY GENERAL RENATO M. REYES, JR.; CONFEDERATION FOR UNITY, RECOGNITION AND ADVANCE-MENT OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (COURAGE) CHAIRMAN FERDINAND GAITE; KALIPUNAN NG DAMAYANG MAHIHIRAP (KADAMAY) SECRETARY GENERAL GLORIA ARELLANO; ALYANSA NG NAGKAKAISANG KABATAAN NG SAMBAYANAN PARA SA KAUNLARAN (ANAKBAYAN) CHAIRMAN KEN LEONARD RAMOS; TAYO ANG PAG-ASA CONVENOR ALVIN PETERS; LEAGUE OF FILIPINO STUDENTS (LFS) CHAIRMAN JAMES MARK TERRY LACUANAN RIDON; NATIONAL UNION OF STUDENTS OF THE PHILIPPINES (NUSP) CHAIRMAN EINSTEIN RECEDES; COLLEGE EDITORS GUILD OF THE PHILIPPINES (CEGP) CHAIRMAN VIJAE ALQUISOLA; and STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT OF THE PHILIPPINES (SCMP) CHAIRMAN MA. CRISTINA ANGELA GUEVARRA; WALDEN F. BELLO and LORETTA ANN P. ROSALES; WOMEN TRIAL LAWYERS ORGANIZATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, represented by YOLANDA QUISUMBING-JAVELLANA; BELLEZA ALOJADO DEMAISIP; TERESITA GANDIONCO-OLEDAN; MA. VERENA KASILAG-VILLANUEVA; MARILYN STA. ROMANA; LEONILA DE JESUS; and GUINEVERE DE LEON; AQUILINO Q. PIMENTEL, JR.; Intervenors.
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G.R. No. 191342
ATTY. AMADOR Z. TOLENTINO, JR., (IBP Governor-Southern Luzon), and ATTY. ROLAND B. INTING (IBP Governor-Eastern Visayas), Petitioners,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL (JBC), Respondent.
x – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -x
G.R. No. 191420
PHILIPPINE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC., Petitioner,
vs.
JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL and HER EXCELLENCY GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO, Respondents.
R E S O L U T I O N
BERSAMIN, J.:
On March 17, 2010, the Court promulgated its decision, holding:
WHEREFORE, the Court:
1. Dismisses the petitions for certiorari and mandamus in G.R. No. 191002 and G.R. No. 191149, and the petition for mandamus in G.R. No. 191057 for being premature;
2. Dismisses the petitions for prohibition in G.R. No. 191032 and G.R. No. 191342 for lack of merit; and
3. Grants the petition in A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC and, accordingly, directs the Judicial and Bar Council:
(a) To resume its proceedings for the nomination of candidates to fill the vacancy to be created by the compulsory retirement of Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno by May 17, 2010;
(b) To prepare the short list of nominees for the position of Chief Justice;
(c) To submit to the incumbent President the short list of nominees for the position of Chief Justice on or before May 17, 2010; and
(d) To continue its proceedings for the nomination of candidates to fill other vacancies in the Judiciary and submit to the President the short list of nominees corresponding thereto in accordance with this decision.
SO ORDERED.
Motions for Reconsideration
Petitioners Jaime N. Soriano (G.R. No. 191032), Amador Z. Tolentino and Roland B. Inting (G.R. No. 191342), and Philippine Bar Association (G.R. No. 191420), as well as intervenors Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Davao del Sur (IBP-Davao del Sur, et al.); Christian Robert S. Lim; Peter Irving Corvera; Bagong Alyansang Bayan and others (BAYAN, et al.); Alfonso V. Tan, Jr.; the Women Trial Lawyers Organization of the Philippines (WTLOP); Marlou B. Ubano; Mitchell John L. Boiser; and Walden F. Bello and Loretta Ann P. Rosales (Bello, et al.), filed their respective motions for reconsideration. Also filing a motion for reconsideration was Senator Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr., whose belated intervention was allowed.
We summarize the arguments and submissions of the various motions for reconsideration, in the aforegiven order:
Soriano
1. The Court has not squarely ruled upon or addressed the issue of whether or not the power to designate the Chief Justice belonged to the Supreme Court en banc.
2. The Mendoza petition should have been dismissed, because it sought a mere declaratory judgment and did not involve a justiciable controversy.
3. All Justices of the Court should participate in the next deliberations. The mere fact that the Chief Justice sits as ex officio head of the JBC should not prevail over the more compelling state interest for him to participate as a Member of the Court.
Tolentino and Inting
1. A plain reading of Section 15, Article VII does not lead to an interpretation that exempts judicial appointments from the express ban on midnight appointments.
2. In excluding the Judiciary from the ban, the Court has made distinctions and has created exemptions when none exists.
3. The ban on midnight appointments is placed in Article VII, not in Article VIII, because it limits an executive, not a judicial, power.
4. Resort to the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission is superfluous, and is powerless to vary the terms of the clear prohibition.
5. The Court has given too much credit to the position taken by Justice Regalado. Thereby, the Court has raised the Constitution to the level of a venerated text whose intent can only be divined by its framers as to be outside the realm of understanding by the sovereign people that ratified it.
6. Valenzuela should not be reversed.
7. The petitioners, as taxpayers and lawyers, have the clear legal standing to question the illegal composition of the JBC.
Philippine Bar Association
1. The Court’s strained interpretation of the Constitution violates the basic principle that the Court should not formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than what is required by the precise facts of the case.
2. Considering that Section 15, Article VII is clear and straightforward, the only duty of the Court is to apply it. The provision expressly and clearly provides a general limitation on the appointing power of the President in prohibiting the appointment of any person to any position in the Government without any qualification and distinction.
3. The Court gravely erred in unilaterally ignoring the constitutional safeguard against midnight appointments.
4. The Constitution has installed two constitutional safeguards:- the prohibition against midnight appointments, and the creation of the JBC. It is not within the authority of the Court to prefer one over the other, for the Court’s duty is to apply the safeguards as they are, not as the Court likes them to be.
5. The Court has erred in failing to apply the basic principles of statutory construction in interpreting the Constitution.
6. The Court has erred in relying heavily on the title, chapter or section headings, despite precedents on statutory construction holding that such headings carried very little weight.
7. The Constitution has provided a general rule on midnight appointments, and the only exception is that on temporary appointments to executive positions.
8. The Court has erred in directing the JBC to resume the proceedings for the nomination of the candidates to fill the vacancy to be created by the compulsory retirement of Chief Justice Puno with a view to submitting the list of nominees for Chief Justice to President Arroyo on or before May 17, 2010. The Constitution grants the Court only the power of supervision over the JBC; hence, the Court cannot tell the JBC what to do, how to do it, or when to do it, especially in the absence of a real and justiciable case assailing any specific action or inaction of the JBC.
9. The Court has engaged in rendering an advisory opinion and has indulged in speculations.
10. The constitutional ban on appointments being already in effect, the Court’s directing the JBC to comply with the decision constitutes a culpable violation of the Constitution and the commission of an election offense.
11. The Court cannot reverse on the basis of a secondary authority a doctrine unanimously formulated by the Court en banc.
12. The practice has been for the most senior Justice to act as Chief Justice whenever the incumbent is indisposed. Thus, the appointment of the successor Chief Justice is not urgently necessary.
13. The principal purpose for the ban on midnight appointments is to arrest any attempt to prolong the outgoing President’s powers by means of proxies. The attempt of the incumbent President to appoint the next Chief Justice is undeniably intended to perpetuate her power beyond her term of office.
IBP-Davao del Sur, et al.
1. Its language being unambiguous, Section 15, Article VII of the Constitution applies to appointments to the Judiciary. Hence, no cogent reason exists to warrant the reversal of the Valenzuela pronouncement.
2. Section 16, Article VII of the Constitution provides for presidential appointments to the Constitutional Commissions and the JBC with the consent of the Commission on Appointments. Its phrase “other officers whose appointments are vested in him in this Constitution” is enough proof that the limitation on the appointing power of the President extends to appointments to the Judiciary. Thus, Section 14, Section 15, and Section 16 of Article VII apply to all presidential appointments in the Executive and Judicial Branches of the Government.
3. There is no evidence that the framers of the Constitution abhorred the idea of an Acting Chief Justice in all cases.
Lim
1. There is no justiciable controversy that warrants the Court’s exercise of judicial review.
2. The election ban under Section 15, Article VII applies to appointments to fill a vacancy in the Court and to other appointments to the Judiciary.
3. The creation of the JBC does not justify the removal of the safeguard under Section 15 of Article VII against midnight appointments in the Judiciary.
Corvera
1. The Court’s exclusion of appointments to the Judiciary from the Constitutional ban on midnight appointments is based on an interpretation beyond the plain and unequivocal language of the Constitution.
2. The intent of the ban on midnight appointments is to cover appointments in both the Executive and Judicial Departments. The application of the principle of verba legis (ordinary meaning) would have obviated dwelling on the organization and arrangement of the provisions of the Constitution. If there is any ambiguity in Section 15, Article VII, the intent behind the provision, which is to prevent political partisanship in all branches of the Government, should have controlled.
3. A plain reading is preferred to a contorted and strained interpretation based on compartmentalization and physical arrangement, especially considering that the Constitution must be interpreted as a whole.
4. Resort to the deliberations or to the personal interpretation of the framers of the Constitution should yield to the plain and unequivocal language of the Constitution.
5. There is no sufficient reason for reversing Valenzuela, a ruling that is reasonable and in accord with the Constitution.
BAYAN, et al.
1. The Court erred in granting the petition in A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC, because the petition did not present a justiciable controversy. The issues it raised were not yet ripe for adjudication, considering that the office of the Chief Justice was not yet vacant and that the JBC itself has yet to decide whether or not to submit a list of nominees to the President.
2. The collective wisdom of Valenzuela Court is more important and compelling than the opinion of Justice Regalado.
3. In ruling that Section 15, Article VII is in conflict with Section 4(1), Article VIII, the Court has violated the principle of ut magis valeat quam pereat (which mandates that the Constitution should be interpreted as a whole, such that any conflicting provisions are to be harmonized as to fully give effect to all). There is no conflict between the provisions; they complement each other.
4. The form and structure of the Constitution’s titles, chapters, sections, and draftsmanship carry little weight in statutory construction. The clear and plain language of Section 15, Article VII precludes interpretation.
Tan, Jr.
1. The factual antecedents do not present an actual case or controversy. The clash of legal rights and interests in the present case are merely anticipated. Even if it is anticipated with certainty, no actual vacancy in the position of the Chief Justice has yet occurred.
2. The ruling that Section 15, Article VII does not apply to a vacancy in the Court and the Judiciary runs in conflict with long standing principles and doctrines of statutory construction. The provision admits only one exception, temporary appointments in the Executive Department. Thus, the Court should not distinguish, because the law itself makes no distinction.
3. Valenzuela was erroneously reversed. The framers of the Constitution clearly intended the ban on midnight appointments to cover the members of the Judiciary. Hence, giving more weight to the opinion of Justice Regalado to reverse the en banc decision in Valenzuela was unwarranted.
4. Section 15, Article VII is not incompatible with Section 4(1), Article VIII. The 90-day mandate to fill any vacancy lasts until August 15, 2010, or a month and a half after the end of the ban. The next President has roughly the same time of 45 days as the incumbent President (i.e., 44 days) within which to scrutinize and study the qualifications of the next Chief Justice. Thus, the JBC has more than enough opportunity to examine the nominees without haste and political uncertainty.1avvphi1
5. When the constitutional ban is in place, the 90-day period under Section 4(1), Article VIII is suspended.
6. There is no basis to direct the JBC to submit the list of nominees on or before May 17, 2010. The directive to the JBC sanctions a culpable violation of the Constitution and constitutes an election offense.
7. There is no pressing necessity for the appointment of a Chief Justice, because the Court sits en banc, even when it acts as the sole judge of all contests relative to the election, returns and qualifications of the President and Vice-President. Fourteen other Members of the Court can validly comprise the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
WTLOP
1. The Court exceeded its jurisdiction in ordering the JBC to submit the list of nominees for Chief Justice to the President on or before May 17, 2010, and to continue its proceedings for the nomination of the candidates, because it granted a relief not prayed for; imposed on the JBC a deadline not provided by law or the Constitution; exercised control instead of mere supervision over the JBC; and lacked sufficient votes to reverse Valenzuela.
2. In interpreting Section 15, Article VII, the Court has ignored the basic principle of statutory construction to the effect that the literal meaning of the law must be applied when it is clear and unambiguous; and that we should not distinguish where the law does not distinguish.
3. There is no urgency to appoint the next Chief Justice, considering that the Judiciary Act of 1948 already provides that the power and duties of the office devolve on the most senior Associate Justice in case of a vacancy in the office of the Chief Justice.
Ubano
1. The language of Section 15, Article VII, being clear and unequivocal, needs no interpretation
2. The Constitution must be construed in its entirety, not by resort to the organization and arrangement of its provisions.
3. The opinion of Justice Regalado is irrelevant, because Section 15, Article VII and the pertinent records of the Constitutional Commission are clear and unambiguous.
4. The Court has erred in ordering the JBC to submit the list of nominees to the President by May 17, 2010 at the latest, because no specific law requires the JBC to submit the list of nominees even before the vacancy has occurred.
Boiser
1. Under Section 15, Article VII, the only exemption from the ban on midnight appointments is the temporary appointment to an executive position. The limitation is in keeping with the clear intent of the framers of the Constitution to place a restriction on the power of the outgoing Chief Executive to make appointments.
2. To exempt the appointment of the next Chief Justice from the ban on midnight appointments makes the appointee beholden to the outgoing Chief Executive, and compromises the independence of the Chief Justice by having the outgoing President be continually influential.
3. The Court’s reversal of Valenzuela without stating the sufficient reason violates the principle of stare decisis.
Bello, et al.
1. Section 15, Article VII does not distinguish as to the type of appointments an outgoing President is prohibited from making within the prescribed period. Plain textual reading and the records of the Constitutional Commission support the view that the ban on midnight appointments extends to judicial appointments.
2. Supervision of the JBC by the Court involves oversight. The subordinate subject to oversight must first act not in accord with prescribed rules before the act can be redone to conform to the prescribed rules.
3. The Court erred in granting the petition in A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC, because the petition did not present a justiciable controversy.
Pimentel
1. Any constitutional interpretative changes must be reasonable, rational, and conformable to the general intent of the Constitution as a limitation to the powers of Government and as a bastion for the protection of the rights of the people. Thus, in harmonizing seemingly conflicting provisions of the Constitution, the interpretation should always be one that protects the citizenry from an ever expanding grant of authority to its representatives.
2. The decision expands the constitutional powers of the President in a manner totally repugnant to republican constitutional democracy, and is tantamount to a judicial amendment of the Constitution without proper authority.
Comments
The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and the JBC separately represent in their respective comments, thus:
OSG
1. The JBC may be compelled to submit to the President a short list of its nominees for the position of Chief Justice.
2. The incumbent President has the power to appoint the next Chief Justice.
3. Section 15, Article VII does not apply to the Judiciary.
4. The principles of constitutional construction favor the exemption of the Judiciary from the ban on midnight appointments.1awph!1
5. The Court has the duty to consider and resolve all issues raised by the parties as well as other related matters.
JBC
1. The consolidated petitions should have been dismissed for prematurity, because the JBC has not yet decided at the time the petitions were filed whether the incumbent President has the power to appoint the new Chief Justice, and because the JBC, having yet to interview the candidates, has not submitted a short list to the President.
2. The statement in the decision that there is a doubt on whether a JBC short list is necessary for the President to appoint a Chief Justice should be struck down as bereft of constitutional and legal basis. The statement undermines the independence of the JBC.
3. The JBC will abide by the final decision of the Court, but in accord with its constitutional mandate and its implementing rules and regulations.
For his part, petitioner Estelito P. Mendoza (A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC) submits his comment even if the OSG and the JBC were the only ones the Court has required to do so. He states that the motions for reconsideration were directed at the administrative matter he initiated and which the Court resolved. His comment asserts:
1. The grounds of the motions for reconsideration were already resolved by the decision and the separate opinion.
2. The administrative matter he brought invoked the Court’s power of supervision over the JBC as provided by Section 8(1), Article VIII of the Constitution, as distinguished from the Court’s adjudicatory power under Section 1, Article VIII. In the former, the requisites for judicial review are not required, which was why Valenzuela was docketed as an administrative matter. Considering that the JBC itself has yet to take a position on when to submit the short list to the proper appointing authority, it has effectively solicited the exercise by the Court of its power of supervision over the JBC.
3. To apply Section 15, Article VII to Section 4(1) and Section 9, Article VIII is to amend the Constitution.
4. The portions of the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission quoted in the dissent of Justice Carpio Morales, as well as in some of the motions for reconsideration do not refer to either Section 15, Article VII or Section 4(1), Article VIII, but to Section 13, Article VII (on nepotism).
Ruling
We deny the motions for reconsideration for lack of merit, for all the matters being thereby raised and argued, not being new, have all been resolved by the decision of March 17, 2010.
Nonetheless, the Court opts to dwell on some matters only for the purpose of clarification and emphasis.
First: Most of the movants contend that the principle of stare decisis is controlling, and accordingly insist that the Court has erred in disobeying or abandoning Valenzuela.1
The contention has no basis.
Stare decisis derives its name from the Latin maxim stare decisis et non quieta movere, i.e., to adhere to precedent and not to unsettle things that are settled. It simply means that a principle underlying the decision in one case is deemed of imperative authority, controlling the decisions of like cases in the same court and in lower courts within the same jurisdiction, unless and until the decision in question is reversed or overruled by a court of competent authority. The decisions relied upon as precedents are commonly those of appellate courts, because the decisions of the trial courts may be appealed to higher courts and for that reason are probably not the best evidence of the rules of law laid down. 2
Judicial decisions assume the same authority as a statute itself and, until authoritatively abandoned, necessarily become, to the extent that they are applicable, the criteria that must control the actuations, not only of those called upon to abide by them, but also of those duty-bound to enforce obedience to them.3 In a hierarchical judicial system like ours, the decisions of the higher courts bind the lower courts, but the courts of co-ordinate authority do not bind each other. The one highest court does not bind itself, being invested with the innate authority to rule according to its best lights.4
The Court, as the highest court of the land, may be guided but is not controlled by precedent. Thus, the Court, especially with a new membership, is not obliged to follow blindly a particular decision that it determines, after re-examination, to call for a rectification.5 The adherence to precedents is strict and rigid in a common-law setting like the United Kingdom, where judges make law as binding as an Act of Parliament.6 But ours is not a common-law system; hence, judicial precedents are not always strictly and rigidly followed. A judicial pronouncement in an earlier decision may be followed as a precedent in a subsequent case only when its reasoning and justification are relevant, and the court in the latter case accepts such reasoning and justification to be applicable to the case. The application of the precedent is for the sake of convenience and stability.
For the intervenors to insist that Valenzuela ought not to be disobeyed, or abandoned, or reversed, and that its wisdom should guide, if not control, the Court in this case is, therefore, devoid of rationality and foundation. They seem to conveniently forget that the Constitution itself recognizes the innate authority of the Court en banc to modify or reverse a doctrine or principle of law laid down in any decision rendered en banc or in division.7
Second: Some intervenors are grossly misleading the public by their insistence that the Constitutional Commission extended to the Judiciary the ban on presidential appointments during the period stated in Section 15, Article VII.
The deliberations that the dissent of Justice Carpio Morales quoted from the records of the Constitutional Commission did not concern either Section 15, Article VII or Section 4(1), Article VIII, but only Section 13, Article VII, a provision on nepotism. The records of the Constitutional Commission show that Commissioner Hilario G. Davide, Jr. had proposed to include judges and justices related to the President within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity among the persons whom the President might not appoint during his or her tenure. In the end, however, Commissioner Davide, Jr. withdrew the proposal to include the Judiciary in Section 13, Article VII “(t)o avoid any further complication,”8 such that the final version of the second paragraph of Section 13, Article VII even completely omits any reference to the Judiciary, to wit:
Section 13. xxx
The spouse and relatives by consanguinity or affinity within the fourth civil degree of the President shall not during his tenure be appointed as Members of the Constitutional Commissions, or the Office of the Ombudsman, or as Secretaries, Undersecretaries, chairmen or heads of bureaus or offices, including government-owned or controlled corporations and their subsidiaries.
Last: The movants take the majority to task for holding that Section 15, Article VII does not apply to appointments in the Judiciary. They aver that the Court either ignored or refused to apply many principles of statutory construction.
The movants gravely err in their posture, and are themselves apparently contravening their avowed reliance on the principles of statutory construction.
For one, the movants, disregarding the absence from Section 15, Article VII of the express extension of the ban on appointments to the Judiciary, insist that the ban applied to the Judiciary under the principle of verba legis. That is self-contradiction at its worst.
Another instance is the movants’ unhesitating willingness to read into Section 4(1) and Section 9, both of Article VIII, the express applicability of the ban under Section 15, Article VII during the period provided therein, despite the silence of said provisions thereon. Yet, construction cannot supply the omission, for doing so would generally constitute an encroachment upon the field of the Constitutional Commission. Rather, Section 4(1) and Section 9 should be left as they are, given that their meaning is clear and explicit, and no words can be interpolated in them.9 Interpolation of words is unnecessary, because the law is more than likely to fail to express the legislative intent with the interpolation. In other words, the addition of new words may alter the thought intended to be conveyed. And, even where the meaning of the law is clear and sensible, either with or without the omitted word or words, interpolation is improper, because the primary source of the legislative intent is in the language of the law itself.10
Thus, the decision of March 17, 2010 has fittingly observed:
Had the framers intended to extend the prohibition contained in Section 15, Article VII to the appointment of Members of the Supreme Court, they could have explicitly done so. They could not have ignored the meticulous ordering of the provisions. They would have easily and surely written the prohibition made explicit in Section 15, Article VII as being equally applicable to the appointment of Members of the Supreme Court in Article VIII itself, most likely in Section 4 (1), Article VIII. That such specification was not done only reveals that the prohibition against the President or Acting President making appointments within two months before the next presidential elections and up to the end of the President’s or Acting President’s term does not refer to the Members of the Supreme Court.
We cannot permit the meaning of the Constitution to be stretched to any unintended point in order to suit the purposes of any quarter.
Final Word
It has been insinuated as part of the polemics attendant to the controversy we are resolving that because all the Members of the present Court were appointed by the incumbent President, a majority of them are now granting to her the authority to appoint the successor of the retiring Chief Justice.
The insinuation is misguided and utterly unfair.
The Members of the Court vote on the sole basis of their conscience and the merits of the issues. Any claim to the contrary proceeds from malice and condescension. Neither the outgoing President nor the present Members of the Court had arranged the current situation to happen and to evolve as it has. None of the Members of the Court could have prevented the Members composing the Court when she assumed the Presidency about a decade ago from retiring during her prolonged term and tenure, for their retirements were mandatory. Yet, she is now left with an imperative duty under the Constitution to fill up the vacancies created by such inexorable retirements within 90 days from their occurrence. Her official duty she must comply with. So must we ours who are tasked by the Constitution to settle the controversy.
ACCORDINGLY, the motions for reconsideration are denied with finality.
SO ORDERED.
LUCAS P. BERSAMIN
Associate Justice
WE CONCUR:
REYNATO S. PUNO
Chief Justice
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate Justice RENATO C. CORONA
Associate Justice
CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES
Associate Justice PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR.
Associate Justice
ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA
Associate Justice TERESITA J. LEONARDO-DE CASTRO
Associate Justice
ARTURO D. BRION
Associate Justice DIOSDADO M. PERALTA
Associate Justice
MARIANO C. DEL CASTILLO
Associate Justice ROBERTO A. ABAD
Associate Justice
MARTIN S. VILLARAMA, JR.
Associate Justice JOSE PORTUGAL PEREZ
Associate Justice
JOSE CATRAL MENDOZA
Associate Justice
C E R T I F I C A T I O N
Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, it is hereby certified that the conclusions in the above Resolution had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court.
REYNATO S. PUNO
Chief Justice
Footnotes
1 In Re Appointments Dated March 30, 1998 of Hon. Mateo A. Valenzuela and Hon. Placido B. Vallarta as Judges of the Regional Trial Court of Branch 62, Bago City and of Branch 24, Cabanatuan City, respectively, A.M. No. 98-5-01-SC, November 9, 1998, 298 SCRA 408.
2 Price & Bitner, Effective Legal Research, Little, Brown & Co., New York (1962), § 9.7.
3 Caltex (Phil.), Inc. v. Palomar, No. L-19650, September 29, 1966, 18 SCRA 247
4 E.g., Dias, Jurisprudence, Butterworths, London, 1985, Fifth Edition, p. 127.
5 Limketkai Sons Milling, Inc. v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 118509, September 5, 1996, 261 SCRA 464.
6 See Calabresi, A Common Law for the Age of Statutes, Harvard University Press, p. 4 (1982) and endnote 12 of the page, which essentially recounts that the strict application of the doctrine of stare decisis is true only in a common-law jurisdiction like England (citing Wise, The Doctrine of Stare Decisis, 21 Wayne Law Review, 1043, 1046-1047 (1975). Calabresi recalls that the English House of Lords decided in 1898 (London Tramways Co. v. London County Council, A.C. 375) that they could not alter precedents laid down by the House of Lords acting as the supreme court in previous cases, but that such precedents could only be altered by an Act of Parliament, for to do otherwise would mean that the courts would usurp legislative function; he mentions that in 1966, Lord Chancellor Gardiner announced in a Practice Statement a kind of general memorandum from the court that while: “Their Lordships regard the use of precedent as an indispensable foundation upon which to decide what is the law,” they “nevertheless recognize that too rigid adherence to precedent may lead to injustice in a particular case and also unduly restrict the proper development of the law. They propose, therefore, to modify their present practice and, while treating former decisions of this House as normally binding, to depart from a previous decision when it appears right to do so.” (Calabresi cites Leach, Revisionism in the House of Lords: The Bastion of Rigid Stare Decisis Falls, 80 Harvard Law Review, 797 (1967).
7 Section 4 (2), Article VIII, provides:
xxx
(3) Cases or matters heard by a division shall be decided or resolved with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon, and in no case, without the concurrence of at least three of such Members. When the required number is not obtained, the case shall be decided en banc; Provided, that no doctrine or principle of law laid down by the court in a decision rendered en banc or in division may be modified or reversed except by the court sitting en banc.
8 Record of the 1986 Constitutional Commission, Vol. 2, July 31, 1986, RCC No. 44. pp. 542-543.
9 Smith v. State, 66 Md. 215, 7 Atl. 49.
10 State ex rel Everding v. Simon, 20 Ore. 365, 26 Pac. 170.
The Lawphil Project – Arellano Law Foundation
DISSENTING OPINION
CARPIO MORALES, J.:
No compelling reason exists for the Court to deny a reconsideration of the assailed Decision. The various motions for reconsideration raise hollering substantial arguments and legitimately nagging questions which the Court must meet head on.
If this Court is to deserve or preserve its revered place not just in the hierarchy but also in history, passion for reason demands the issuance of an extended and extensive resolution that confronts the ramifications and repercussions of its assailed Decision. Only then can it offer an illumination that any self-respecting student of the law clamors and any adherent of the law deserves. Otherwise, it takes the risk of reeking of an objectionable air of supreme judicial arrogance.
It is thus imperative to settle the following issues and concerns:
Whether the incumbent President is constitutionally proscribed from appointing the successor of Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno upon his retirement on May 17, 2010 until the ban ends at 12:00 noon of June 30, 2010
1. In interpreting the subject constitutional provisions, the Decision disregarded established canons of statutory construction. Without explaining the inapplicability of each of the relevant rules, the Decision immediately placed premium on the arrangement and ordering of provisions, one of the weakest tools of construction, to arrive at its conclusion.
2. In reversing Valenzuela, the Decision held that the Valenzuela dictum did not firmly rest on ConCom deliberations, yet it did not offer to cite a material ConCom deliberation. It instead opted to rely on the memory of Justice Florenz Regalado which incidentally mentioned only the “Court of Appeals.” The Decision’s conclusion must rest on the strength of its own favorable Concom deliberation, none of which to date has been cited.
3. Instead of choosing which constitutional provision carves out an exception from the other provision, the most legally feasible interpretation (in the limited cases of temporary physical or legal impossibility of compliance, as expounded in my Dissenting Opinion) is to consider the appointments ban or other substantial obstacle as a temporary impossibility which excuses or releases the constitutional obligation of the Office of the President for the duration of the ban or obstacle.
In view of the temporary nature of the circumstance causing the impossibility of performance, the outgoing President is released from non-fulfillment of the obligation to appoint, and the duty devolves upon the new President. The delay in the fulfillment of the obligation becomes excusable, since the law cannot exact compliance with what is impossible. The 90-day period within which to appoint a member of the Court is thus suspended and the period could only start or resume to run when the temporary obstacle disappears (i.e., after the period of the appointments ban; when there is already a quorum in the JBC; or when there is already at least three applicants).
Whether the Judicial and Bar Council is obliged to submit to the President the shortlist of nominees for the position of Chief Justice (or Justice of this Court) on or before the occurrence of the vacancy.
1. The ruling in the Decision that obligates the JBC to submit the shortlist to the President on or before the occurrence of the vacancy in the Court runs counter to the Concom deliberations which explain that the 90-day period is allotted for both the nomination by the JBC and the appointment by the President. In the move to increase the period to 90 days, Commissioner Romulo stated that “[t]he sense of the Committee is that 60 days is awfully short and that the [Judicial and Bar] Council, as well as the President, may have difficulties with that.”
2. To require the JBC to submit to the President a shortlist of nominees on or before the occurrence of vacancy in the Court leads to preposterous results. It bears reiterating that the requirement is absurd when, inter alia, the vacancy is occasioned by the death of a member of the Court, in which case the JBC could never anticipate the death of a Justice, and could never submit a list to the President on or before the occurrence of vacancy.
3. The express allowance in the Constitution of a 90-day period of vacancy in the membership of the Court rebuts any public policy argument on avoiding a vacuum of even a single day without a duly appointed Chief Justice. Moreover, as pointed out in my Dissenting Opinion, the practice of having an acting Chief Justice in the interregnum is provided for by law, confirmed by tradition, and settled by jurisprudence to be an internal matter.
The Resolution of the majority, in denying the present Motions for Reconsideration, failed to rebut the foregoing crucial matters.
I, therefore, maintain my dissent and vote to GRANT the Motions for Reconsideration of the Decision of March 17, 2010 insofar as it holds that the incumbent President is not constitutionally proscribed from appointing the successor of Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno upon his retirement on May 17, 2010 until the ban ends at 12:00 noon of June 30, 2010 and that the Judicial and Bar Council is obliged to submit to the President the shortlist of nominees for the position of Chief Justice on or before May 17, 2010.
CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES
Associate Justice
The Lawphil Project – Arellano Law Foundation
CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION
BRION, J.:
The Motions for Reconsideration
After sifting through the motions for reconsideration, I found that the arguments are largely the same arguments that we have passed upon, in one form or another, in the various petitions. Essentially, the issues boil down to justiciability; the conflict of constitutional provisions; the merits of the cited constitutional deliberations; and the status and effect of the Valenzuela1 ruling. Even the motion for reconsideration of the Philippine Bar Association (G.R. No. 191420), whose petition I did not expressly touch upon in my Separate Opinion, basically dwells on these issues.
I have addressed most, if not all, of these issues and I submit my Separate Opinion2 as my basic response to the motions for reconsideration, supplemented by the discussions below.
As I reflected in my Separate Opinion (which three other Justices joined),3 the election appointment ban under Article VII, Section 15 of the Constitution should not apply to the appointment of Members of the Supreme Court whose period for appointment is separately provided for under Article VIII, Section 4(1). I shared this conclusion with the Court’s Decision although our reasons differed on some points.
I diverged fully from the Decision on the question of whether we should maintain or reverse our ruling in Valenzuela. I maintained that it is still good law; no reason exists to touch the ruling as its main focus – the application of the election ban on the appointment of lower court judges under Article VIII, Section 9 of the Constitution – is not even an issue in the present case and was discussed only because the petitions incorrectly cited the ruling as authority on the issue of the Chief Justice’s appointment. The Decision proposed to reverse Valenzuela but only secured the support of five (5) votes, while my Separate Opinion in support of Valenzuela had four (4) votes. Thus, on the whole, the Decision did not prevail in reversing Valenzuela, as it only had five (5) votes in a field of 12 participating Members of the Court. Valenzuela should therefore remain, as of the filing of this Opinion, as a valid precedent.
Acting on the present motions for reconsideration, I join the majority in denying the motions with respect to the Chief Justice issue, although we differ in some respects on the reasons supporting the denial. I dissent from the conclusion that the Valenzuela ruling should be reversed. My divergence from the majority’s reasons and conclusions compels me to write this Concurring and Dissenting Opinion.
The Basic Requisites / Justiciability
One marked difference between the Decision and my Separate Opinion is our approach on the basic requisites/justiciability issues. The Decision apparently glossed over this aspect of the case, while I fully explained why the De Castro4 and Peralta5 petitions should be dismissed outright. In my view, these petitions violated the most basic requirements of their chosen medium for review – a petition for certiorari and mandamus under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court.
The petitions commonly failed to allege that the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) performs judicial or quasi-judicial functions, an allegation that the petitions could not really make, since the JBC does not really undertake these functions and, for this reason, cannot be the subject of a petition for certiorari; hence, the petitions should be dismissed outright. They likewise failed to facially show any failure or refusal by the JBC to undertake a constitutional duty to justify the issuance of a writ of mandamus; they invoked judicial notice that we could not give because there was, and is, no JBC refusal to act.6 Thus, the mandamus aspects of these petitions should have also been dismissed outright. The ponencia, unfortunately, failed to fully discuss these legal infirmities.
The motions for reconsideration lay major emphasis on the alleged lack of an actual case or controversy that made the Chief Justice’s appointment a justiciable issue. They claim that the Court cannot exercise the power of judicial review where there is no clash of legal rights and interests or where this clash is merely anticipated, although the anticipated event shall come with certainty.7
What the movants apparently forgot, focused as they were on their respective petitions, is that the present case is not a single-petition case that rises or falls on the strength of that single petition. The present case involves various petitions and interventions,8 not necessarily pulling towards the same direction, although each one is focused on the issue of whether the election appointment ban under Article VII, Section 15 of the Constitution should apply to the appointment of the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Among the petitions filed were those of Tolentino (G.R. No. 191342), Soriano (G.R. No. 191032) and Mendoza (A.M. No. 10-2-5-SC). The first two are petitions for prohibition under Section 2 of Rule 65 of the Rules of Court.9 While they commonly share this medium of review, they differ in their supporting reasons. The Mendoza petition, on the other hand, is totally different – it is a petition presented as an administrative matter (A.M.) in the manner that the Valenzuela case was an A.M. case. As I pointed out in the Separate Opinion, the Court uses the A.M. docket designation on matters relating to its exercise of supervision over all courts and their personnel.10 I failed to note then, but I make of record now, that court rules and regulations – the outputs in the Court’s rulemaking function – are also docketed as A.M. cases.
That an actual case or controversy involving a clash of rights and interests exists is immediately and patently obvious in the Tolentino and Soriano petitions. At the time the petitions were filed, the JBC had started its six-phase nomination process that would culminate in the submission of a list of nominees to the President of the Philippines for appointive action. Tolentino and Soriano – lawyers and citizens with interest in the strict observance of the election ban – sought to prohibit the JBC from continuing with this process. The JBC had started to act, without any prodding from the Court, because of its duty to start the nomination process but was hampered by the petitions filed and the legal questions raised that only the Supreme Court can settle with finality.11 Thus, a clash of interests based on law existed between the petitioners and the JBC. To state the obvious, a decision in favor of Tolentino or Soriano would result in a writ of prohibition that would direct the JBC not to proceed with the nomination process.
The Mendoza petition cited the effect of a complete election ban on judicial appointments (in view of the already high level of vacancies and the backlog of cases) as basis, and submitted the question as an administrative matter that the Court, in the exercise of its supervisory authority over the Judiciary and the JBC itself, should act upon. At the same time, it cited the “public discourse and controversy” now taking place because of the application of the election ban on the appointment of the Chief Justice, pointing in this regard to the very same reasons mentioned in Valenzuela about the need to resolve the issue and avoid the recurrence of conflict between the Executive and the Judiciary, and the need to “avoid polemics concerning the matter.”12
I recognized in the Separate Opinion that, unlike in Valenzuela where an outright defiance of the election ban took place, no such obvious triggering event transpired in the Mendoza petition.13 Rather, the Mendoza petition looked to the supervisory power of the Court over judicial personnel and over the JBC as basis to secure a resolution of the election ban issue. The JBC, at that time, had indicated its intent to look up to the Court’s supervisory power and role as the final interpreter of the Constitution to guide it in responding to the challenges it confronts.14 To me, this was “a point no less critical, from the point of view of supervision, than the appointment of the two judges during the election ban period in Valenzuela.”15
In making this conclusion, I pointed out in my Separate Opinion the unavoidable surrounding realities evident from the confluence of events, namely: (1) an election to be held on May 10, 2010; (2) the retirement of the Chief Justice on May 17, 2010; (3) the lapse of the terms of the elective officials from the President to the congressmen on June 30, 2010; (4) the delay before the Congress can organize and send its JBC representatives; and (5) the expiration of the term of a non-elective JBC member in July 2010.16 All these – juxtaposed with the Court’s supervision over the JBC, the latter’s need for guidance, and the existence of an actual controversy on the same issues bedeviling the JBC – in my view, were sufficient to save the Mendoza petition from being a mere request for opinion or a petition for declaratory relief that falls under the jurisdiction of the lower court. This recognition is beyond the level of what this Court can do in handling a moot and academic case – usually, one that no longer presents a judiciable controversy but one that can still be ruled upon at the discretion of the court when the constitutional issue is of paramount public interest and controlling principles are needed to guide the bench, the bar and the public.17
To be sure, this approach in recognizing when a petition is actionable is novel. An overriding reason for this approach can be traced to the nature of the petition, as it rests on the Court’s supervisory authority and relates to the exercise of the Court’s administrative rather than its judicial functions (other than these two functions, the Court also has its rulemaking function under Article VIII, Section 5(5) of the Constitution). Strictly speaking, the Mendoza petition calls for directions from the Court in the exercise of its power of supervision over the JBC,18 not on the basis of the power of judicial review.19 In this sense, it does not need the actual clash of interests of the type that a judicial adjudication requires. All that must be shown is the active need for supervision to justify the Court’s intervention as supervising authority.
Under these circumstances, the Court’s recognition of the Mendoza petition was not an undue stretch of its constitutional powers. If the recognition is unusual at all, it is so only because of its novelty; to my knowledge, this is the first time ever in Philippine jurisprudence that the supervisory authority of the Court over an attached agency has been highlighted in this manner. Novelty, per se, however, is not a ground for objection nor a mark of infirmity for as long as the novel move is founded in law. In this case, as in the case of the writ of amparo and habeas data that were then novel and avowedly activist in character, sufficient legal basis exists to actively invoke the Court’s supervisory authority – granted under the Constitution, no less – as basis for action.
To partly quote the wording of the Constitution, Article VIII, Section 8(1) and (5) provide that “A Judicial and Bar Council is hereby created under the supervision of the Supreme Court… It may exercise such other functions and duties as the Supreme Court may assign to it.” Supervision, as a legal concept, more often than not, is defined in relation with the concept of control.20 In Social Justice Society v. Atienza,21 we defined “supervision” as follows:
[Supervision] means overseeing or the power or authority of an officer to see that subordinate officers perform their duties. If the latter fail or neglect to fulfill them, the former may take such action or step as prescribed by law to make them perform their duties. Control, on the other hand, means the power of an officer to alter or modify or nullify or set aside what a subordinate officer ha[s] done in the performance of his duties and to substitute the judgment of the former for that of the latter.
Under this definition, the Court cannot dictate on the JBC the results of its assigned task, i.e., who to recommend or what standards to use to determine who to recommend. It cannot even direct the JBC on how and when to do its duty, but it can, under its power of supervision, direct the JBC to “take such action or step as prescribed by law to make them perform their duties,” if the duties are not being performed because of JBC’s fault or inaction, or because of extraneous factors affecting performance. Note in this regard that, constitutionally, the Court can also assign the JBC other functions and duties – a power that suggests authority beyond what is purely supervisory.
Where the JBC itself is at a loss on how to proceed in light of disputed constitutional provisions that require interpretation,22 the Court is not legally out of line – as the final authority on the interpretation of the Constitution and as the entity constitutionally-tasked to supervise the JBC – in exercising its oversight function by clarifying the interpretation of the disputed constitutional provision to guide the JBC. In doing this, the Court is not simply rendering a general legal advisory; it is providing concrete and specific legal guidance to the JBC in the exercise of its supervisory authority, after the latter has asked for assistance in this regard. That the Court does this while concretely resolving actual controversies (the Tolentino and Soriano petitions) on the same issue immeasurably strengthens the intrinsic correctness of the Court’s action.
It may be asked: why does the Court have to recognize the Mendoza petition when it can resolve the conflict between Article VII, Section 15 and Article VIII, Section 4(1) through the Tolentino and Soriano petitions?
The answer is fairly simple and can be read between the lines of the above explanation on the relationship between the Court and the JBC. First, administrative is different from judicial function and providing guidance to the JBC can only be appropriate in the discharge of the Court’s administrative function. Second, the resolution of the Tolentino and Soriano petitions will lead to rulings directly related to the underlying facts of these petitions, without clear guidelines to the JBC on the proper parameters to observe vis-à-vis the constitutional dispute along the lines the JBC needs. In fact, concrete guidelines addressed to the JBC in the resolution of the Tolentino/Soriano petitions may even lead to accusations that the Court’s resolution is broader than is required by the facts of the petitions. The Mendoza petition, because it pertains directly to the performance of the JBC’s duty and the Court’s supervisory authority, allows the issuance of precise guidelines that will enable the JBC to fully and seasonably comply with its constitutional mandate.
I hasten to add that the JBC’s constitutional task is not as simple as some people think it to be. The process of preparing and submitting a list of nominees is an arduous and time-consuming task that cannot be done overnight. It is a six-step process lined with standards requiring the JBC to attract the best available candidates, to examine and investigate them, to exhibit transparency in all its actions while ensuring that these actions conform to constitutional and statutory standards (such as the election ban on appointments), to submit the required list of nominees on time, and to ensure as well that all these acts are politically neutral. On the time element, the JBC list for the Supreme Court has to be submitted on or before the vacancy occurs given the 90-day deadline that the appointing President is given in making the appointment. The list will be submitted, not to the President as an outgoing President, nor to the election winner as an incoming President, but to the President of the Philippines whoever he or she may be. If the incumbent President does not act on the JBC list within the time left in her term, the same list shall be available to the new President for him to act upon. In all these, the Supreme Court bears the burden of overseeing that the JBC’s duty is done, unerringly and with utmost dispatch; the Court cannot undertake this supervision in a manner consistent with the Constitution’s expectation from the JBC unless it adopts a pro-active stance within the limits of its supervisory authority.
continuation of this post de castro vs jbc found here
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