The Vagaries of the Philippine Justice System

THE VAGARIES OF THE PHILIPPINE JUSTICE SYSTEM

Dependable court system for federal government

By Hermenegildo C. Cruz

...In the United States, a Supreme Court is classified as composed of either conservatives (strict constructionists in interpreting the law) or judicial activists (who tend to legislate from the bench). The Philippine Supreme Court is neither. In the plunder case involving Juan Ponce Enrile and in the citizenship case involving Grace Poe, the Court was activist. But in the Torre de Manila and the Marcos burial cases, the Court became strictly constructionist.

Conspiracy theorists, nonetheless, point out that at least there is one thing predictable about our Court based on the cases cited: The winning petitioners all have money.

Link: http://opinion.inquirer.net/110556/dependable-court-system-federal-govt#ixzz55X1b2skk

When the Philippine Supreme Court inconsistently rules on the basis of the letter in one case and then the spirit of the laws in another case and then this caprice habitually flips back and forth in “political” cases, on what basis, we should ask, does the Supreme Court rule other than some convenient casuistry? The answer, we might say, is that the Supreme Court decides on the basis of “political” considerations and motivations without excluding the possibility of furtive financial gains, which cannot be ruled out precisely because they are so easily accomplished.

When you consider the prospect of corruption in the Supreme Court from the standpoint of the management concept of control, corruption is not simply a possibility but a probability because for practical purposes no controls against accomplishing corrupt transactions exist. Supreme Court justices can be censured for corruption only through impeachment, and impeachment is possible only if the justices engage in blatant wrongdoing and if the political process of impeachment finds enough political support in Congress and the Senate. Because the secrecy of bank transactions serves the interests not only of the banking sector but also of foreign governments, the possibility of uncovering suspicious transactions involving the justices is for practical purposes nil. So, if you are a party in a Supreme Court case and have the resources required (e.g. the Marcos family), you can very easily pay off a willing justice in an offshore banking transaction. Only a regular degree of secrecy would be required to accomplish the transaction. Banking secrecy ensures no threat of impeachment. Therefore, the only realistic control against corruption in the Supreme Court is the integrity of the justices, meaning to say, the justices control themselves, which amounts to no control at all, for practical purposes. If there is no control, then what can we say about the possibility of corruption? It is not merely possible, it is more than probable.

We cannot assume that the Supreme Court is not free of corruption, especially if we can demonstrate specious reasoning in a particular case. Any apparent lack of intellectual integrity raises a red flag, naturally. We have to understand that opposing conclusions can be reached by highly involved legal reasoning, so that it would be a mistake to assume that the legal reasoning by itself will adequately justify judicial conclusions. Respect does accrue to a position of authority, but it is eroded when the authority is not exercised justly.

“In practice law is not a well-wrought urn but the purveyor of tortuous vagaries.”

Link: https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/09/aphorisms.html