By Benjamin
B. Pulta
It’s
definitely a step backward in transparency for the Judicial Bar and
Council (JBC), now chaired by the new Chief Justice, Lourdes Sereno,
with its ban on public interviews.
A judicial reform
advocacy group warned the JBC yesterday that its decision to forego
public interviews for applicants to the vacancy in the judiciary is a
step backward for transparency in the process.
In a one-page
letter to the JBC, the Supreme Court Appointments Watch (SCAW)
opposed the “regression and a major setback in the
efforts to enhance the transparency in the appointments
process.”
Originally eyed to insulate the judicial
appointment process from politics, a number of critics of the JBC
want the constitutional body’s functions reviewed for apparently
failing to curb the political horsetrading in the race for judicial
posts.
The JBC’s latest decision came in the wake of the policy
of “dignified silence” as announced by Chief Justice Sereno.
SCAW
said the live media coverage of interviews of the
candidates for post of the chief justice earlier this year “has
shown that there is no compelling reason for the JBC to disallow live
media coverage of the upcoming interviews.”
“Such live
coverage serves not only to inform the public but to improve the
credibility of the JBC and the process as well… The immediate past
experience
with live media coverage has shown that there is
no compelling reason for the JBC to disallow live media coverage of
the upcoming interviews,” they stressed.
The SCAW argued that
with the success of the live coverage during the selection of the
chief justice should be reason enough to proceed with the new
practice.
The letter was signed by Transparency and Accountability
Network executive director Vincent Lazatin, Alternative Law Groups
coordinator Marlon Manuel and Libertas executive director Roberto
Cadiz.
The annnouncement from the JBC on the ban of public
interviews came just as President Aquino’s point man in the efforts
to forge a juridical entity for the Muslim minority, is scheduled for
an interview with the JBC.
Former Universiy of the Philippines
dean Marvic Leonen is among the handful of lawyers being eyed for a
spot in the Supreme Court (SC) and will be among those whose public
interview by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) will no longer
be seen by the public.
Leonen who was named by Aquino as the
Philippine government’s chief negotiator with the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) will be among those to be screened by the JBC
for the vacancy in the high court next week.
The scheduled
interview coincides with the decision of the JBC to drop its
newly adopted policy of allowing live broadcasts of public interviews
of candidates apparently as part of the judiciary’s policy of
“dignified silence”.
Aside from Leonen, among the
aspirants who will face the JBC are: Court of Appeals (CA) Associate
Justice Ramon Bato Jr., former University of Perpetual Help System
Law Dean Jose-Santos Bisquera, CA Associate Justice Rosemari
Carandang, and Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Maria Cristina Cornejo
on Oct. 23; and former RTC Judge Adoracion Cruz-Avisado, CA Associate
Justice Magdangal De Leon, CA Associate Justice Isaias Dicdican,
former Department of Energy Secretary Raphael Perpetuo Lotilla, CA
Presiding Justice Andres B. Reyes, Jr., CA Associate Justice Jose
Reyes, Jr., and CA Associate Justice Noel Tijam on Oct. 25.
The
other three candidates, De La Salle University Law Dean Jose Manuel
Diokno, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Teresita Herbosa,
and former Ateneo Law Dean Cesar Villanueva, had already been
interviewed in July when they were vying for the position of
Chief Justice.
The executive department has distanced itself
from the decision of the JBC to revert to its previous ban on
live broadcast of public interviews of candidates for positions in
the SC.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, ex officio vice
chairman of the body said she had no hand in JBC’s move not to
allow live media coverage.
“That’s the decision of the JBC,
although I was not part of the meeting when that was decided upon.
I’m not privy to the discussions,” she told reporters.
“I
need to know the rationale why there will be no more live coverage,”
she said.
De Lima was among the members of the JBC who had
approved last June a proposition to allow live broadcast of the
interviews of candidates for the chief justice post.
Chief Justice
Sereno, as ex-officio chairman of JBC, ordered the ban on live
broadcast of the interviews. Sereno had announced an SC policy
of “dignified silence.”
It can be recalled, however,
that the JBC approved just last June requests for live coverage of
oral interviews of candidates for chief justice after its members
unanimously agreed to delete provisions in Section 5 of its Rule No.
10 that prohibit live TV and radio coverage of the proceedings.
The decision was made upon requests of various groups led by former
JBC member Sen. Francis Pangilinan and Transparency and
Accountability Network.
The JBC also earlier claimed
confidentiality of the psychological and psychiatric evaluation tests
of the shortlisted candidates for the post of chief justice and
refused to release them.
Sereno, after having been sworn in as
chief justice by Aquino and presided over the JBC meetings, rejected
the public calls to make these tests public.
Sereno was said to
have obtained very low marks in her test, should have been
disqualified, and worse, she was said to have been diagonosed as
having “depressive markers” whose decisions may be impaired by
her emotional and mental state.
She was also described as having
her religious convictions interfere in almost everything she does and
says.
During her first flag raising ceremony as chief justice, she
claimed that the Filipino people and the world were witness to her
having been appointed as chief justice by God—and nobody
else.
Leonen, who is seen by many as being the likely candidate to
be chosen by Aquino, had earlier charged an incumbent associate
justice of the Supreme Court of having committed plagiarism.
However,
it was also later found that Leonen himself committed plagiarism, for
which he has neither explained nor publicly admitted his
plagiarism.
It was Sereno who insisted on the ban on public
interviews, using the excuse of her policy of “dignified
silence.”
However, even in the JBC, she merely has one vote—in
the same manner that she only has one vote in the collegial Supreme
Court.
The JBC did not have a policy of dignified silence but has
not explained why it has suddenly gone back to keeping interviews
away from the public.
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