Retired justice: Con-com’s proposed Supreme Court a ‘shadow’ of present SC

Retired Supreme Court (SC) associate justice Vicente Mendoza on Wednesday warned that the Consultative Committee's (Con-com) proposal for the judiciary in a new Constitution will turn the existing SC into a "shadow" of its present self.

Mendoza believes that while the recommended creation of four High Courts may relieve the SC of its case volume, other "mini supreme courts" will turn it into an "an ordinary court," undermining its status as a co-equal branch of government.

"It will become a mere shadow of its original self," he said at a colloquium on the Con-com's proposed federal Constitution at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Apart from a federal Supreme Court, the Con-com suggests the creation of three other High Courts—the federal Constitutional Court, Administrative Court, and Electoral Court, each with different compositions and jurisdictions, in a purported attempt to reduce the backlog of cases in the current SC.

READ: Federal Supreme Court, 3 other High Courts in draft federal charter

"This problem has been with the Supreme Court since 1946. Attempts to solve it have been by increasing the membership of the Court from 11 as provided in the 1935 Constitution to 15 as provided in the 1973 and 1987 Constitutions and/or allowing the Court to sit in divisions," Mendoza said during the forum.

"But creating mini supreme courts, however great the apprehension that a crowded docket may impair its essential function may have been, has never been advanced as solutions because it is a denial of the idea of one Supreme Court," he added.

Instead of forming new High Courts, the retired magistrate suggested a focus on the work method of the existing SC.

This could be achieved if the SC hears and decides cases of "general importance," he said, explaining that reviewing matters on certiorari can be made "more effective" by limiting the practice to questions of law and mixed questions of fact and law and screening them before placement in the Court docket.

"There is no reason to have a special Constitutional Court with exclusive [jurisdiction] to decide constitutional cases such as that proposed in the draft Constitution," he said.

Mendoza also warned that the federal Constitutional Court envisioned by the Con-com, which is chaired by a former chief justice, Reynato Puno, may be "swamped" with requests for advisory opinions on pending legislation and executive action.

This is a reference to a Con-com proposal for the federal Constitutional Court to have the power to render advisory opinion when sought by the president, the Senate president, or the House speaker on the constitutionality of any pending bill of "paramount importance" and by the elections commission chairperson on the legality of any proposal to exercise the people's initiative to repeal, enact or amend laws.

"Its authority will certainly suffer if it can repudiate its opinions and flip-flop in the decision of actual cases and controversies. The result will be the impoverishment of the judicial process," Mendoza said. — BM, GMA News