Selecting the next CJ: Insider or outsider?

Removing Chief Justice Renato Corona took all of five months, cost P6 million in public money, and delayed urgent legislation. Still it was the easy part. The harder task is reforming the Judiciary. This would include undoing the so-called “Corona clique” in the Supreme Court, punishing unfair judges, and accounting for judicial funds. Only then can the people’s trust be restored in the third co-equal branch of government.

Success would depend on selecting the right Chief Justice. Should it be a Supreme Court insider, or an outsider from the Judiciary?

Arguments are preponderant for an insider. Foremost is urgency. A sitting justice already would know the problems, the processes, even the politics inside the Judiciary. An outsider would need familiarization with the situation, on top of the administrative workload. President Noynoy Aquino has four years left to his reform program. In the Judiciary the reforming would start with his crucial choice for CJ.

A magistrate already has track record. By his decrees and dissents can be discerned his stand on crucial issues. These include the economy, labor, patrimony, sovereignty, religion, environment, agrarian reform, human rights, and many more. Verifiable is whether he truly is of integrity and probity, as the Constitution requires of justices. Too, if he has been competent and independent in judging. From thence could be foreknown the direction of his Chief Justiceship. An outsider lawyer may have notched countless court victories, but from shifting advocacies.

An outsider as CJ inescapably would be labeled a political appointee. For, he would be jumping the line ahead of the five most senior justices, who automatically are considered for the vacancy. As well, of the nine other associate justices.

Picking an outsider can be and has been done, to be sure. But it would be chancy at this point in history. Suspicion would hobble an outsider CJ that Aquino indeed took out Corona in order to control the Judiciary. More so, if that CJ comes from his Cabinet or party or financiers. Even the most brilliant would be branded a partisan. The outsider CJ would have lost even before the fight began.

But if an insider becomes CJ, there would be a vacancy for associate justice. Perhaps two vacancies, if reports come true of the soon retirement of a sickly justice. To those non-controversial posts can be appointed outsiders, who can have ample time to grow into the job.

Choosing an insider not only would ease strains between the Judiciary and the Executive spawned by Corona’s ouster. It also would preserve the tradition of seniority in the Judiciary. Seniority, displayed in the seating arrangement in en banc sessions or the listing of justices’ names in rulings, has its pluses. It instantly imbues respect and weight. That is why the most senior justices automatically are considered for a vacant Chief Justiceship. Going against seniority would demoralize long-serving justices, and discourage career options in the Judiciary. Lacking seniority, an outsider’s leadership and intentions would be open to constant challenge by associates.

Not just any insider can be CJ. He must not be a cohort of the “Corona clique,” which one senator counts as seven or eight associates. The insider would know who they are, and how to disband them.

The insider CJ must know what rackets thrive in the Judiciary. Foremost perhaps is the TRO-for-sale. By issuing – for a fee – temporary restraining orders or, worse, permanent injunctions, judges thwart justice. The moneyed are favored, the poor degraded. A twin malady is the reversal of rulings, not for earthshaking but flimsy – probably also paid – reasons. And there’s the non-promulgation or non-execution of decisions, which renders them worthless after hard-won court battles. The insider must have courage to eradicate rackets.

The insider CJ must be transparent not only with his wealth, but more with Judiciary spending. Full disclosure and accounting are needed of the Judicial Development Fund, the Special Assessment Fund, and the Supreme Court’s World Bank loan. The insider CJ must have shunned any financial shenanigan. That way, he can have moral suasion stop fund misuse in lower courts, such as the unauthorized disbursement of cash savings as bonuses.

The Transparency and Accountability Network suggests opening the CJ candidates’ interviews to media coverage. That would encourage public participation in the vetting. Pretenders would be exposed. The Judicial and Bar Council would be sharper, instead of soft, in screening the applicants.

Aquino sees himself a reformist. Presumably he has shared his ideals with Vice President Jejomar Binay. Too, he must have relayed to co-equals but elders, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., his vision of change. Now he must pick, from the JBC short list, the top magistrate and fifth highest official of the land. Should he not pick one whom he knows is superior in law and proven to be self-determining, yet shares his reformism? Imagine if the five highest officials, running the three co-equal branches, aim for the same goal: a great Philippines.

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