MANILA – The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) on Monday said it will exempt the Supreme Court's senior associate justices who have been with the high court for at least five years from public interviews for the screening for the Chief Justice post.
“The JBC (Judicial and Bar Council) thoroughly discussed the SC (Supreme Court) resolution in its last two en banc meetings. In the end by a majority vote, the JBC agreed to dispense with the public interview of senior SC justices vying for the CJ position, without prejudice to closed-door interviews by the members of the JBC,” JBC ex officio member Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said.
The exemption from public interview would only cover senior associate justices who were automatically nominated and accepted their nomination and associate justices who have served the SC for at least five years.
The Supreme Court (SC) resolution called for the JBC to do away with the public interviews of senior associate justices arguing that judicial philosophy could already be known through the decisions the magistrates had written.
The SC resolution was unanimous and that the justices who were recently subjected to public interviews for the CJ post also voted against such proceedings.
Rule 7 of the JBC Rules provides that interviews for the positions in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Sandiganbayan, Court of Tax Appeals, and Shari’a Appellate Court; Ombudsman, Deputy Ombudsman, and Special Prosecutor; and Chairperson and Regular Members of the Legal Education Board shall be conducted in public by the JBC en banc.
The five most senior associate justices of the SC are automatically nominated for the CJ post that was left vacant following the retirement of Chief Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro.
These include Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Diosado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano del Castillo and Estela Perlas-Bernabe. Del Castillo has already declined his nomination.
Associate Justice Andres Reyes Jr. has also applied for the post.
Reyes, Peralta and Bersamin will no longer be interviewed by the panel since their previous interviews for the CJ post , which was left vacant by lawyer Ma. Lourdes Sereno, is valid for one year.
Guevarra added that the majority members of the JBC believed that sitting members of the of SC had already been publicly interviewed when they first applied for the SC positions and “any public inquiry anew on matters pertaining to their SALNs (Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth) and other personal matters in full view of the public through live media coverage would not serve any substantially useful purpose.” (PNA)
