The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued its guidelines for releasing of statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALNs) of judges and justices, saying purpose and not mere curiosity must back the realease of SALNs.
 
SALNs can now be accessed provided that the requesting party "has no derogatory record of having misused any requested information previously furnished to them," according to a 22-page resolution penned by Associate Justice Jose Mendoza.
 
If a requesting party is not a member of the media, he or she must explain that his or her "interest goes beyond pure or mere curiosity," the court noted.
 
Members of the media are required to submit a proof under oath of their media affiliation and a certified accreditation from their media company.
 
The high court said that SALNs to be released would only be the latest records. Previous records may only be accessed "if so specifically  requested  and  considered  as  justified, as determined by the officials mentioned in par. 1 above, under the  terms  of  these  guidelines."
 
Paragraph 1 of the guidelines states that requests for SALNs must be filed with the SC's Office of the Clerk of Court, Court of Appeals, Sandiganbayan, Court of Tax Appeals. For SALNs of members of the lower courts, requests must be made with the Office of the Court Administrator. For attached agencies, requests must be made with their respective heads of offices.
 
The high court stressed that for SALN requests covering the SC, CA, Sandiganbayan, and CTA, "the authority to disclose shall be made by the court en banc."
 
The release came a week after the guidelines were unanimously approved by the high court sitting en banc in a special session on Wednesday.
 
"The court en banc has unanimously approved the guidelines for the release of the 2011 SALNs of all the justices and judges of the judiciary," said SC Public Information Office chief Ma. Victoria Gleoresty Guerra in a briefing last week.
 
The court's decision to make their latest SALNs public came after then-Chief Justice Renato Corona was ousted by a Senate vote that found him guilty of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution for failure to declare in his SALN P80 million in several peso accounts and $2.4 million in dollar accounts deposited in several banks.
 
In January, Associate Justices Antonio Carpio–now acting the chief justice–and Ma. Lourdes Sereno broke the tradition by releasing summaries of their respective SALNs. Sereno reported net assets of more than P17 million each for 2009 and 2010. Carpio placed his net worth at P46 million.
 
Government officials and employees are required to file their SALNs with their respective human resource management offices, as required under Section 17, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution. SC justices file their SALNs with the clerk of court.
 
Under Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct of and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, SALNs must be made public 10 days after their filing.
 
Over the years, however, justices have been able to keep their SALNs a secret, citing a court resolution issued in 1989 preventing their disclosure. —VS, GMA News