The public interviews for next CJ – transparency or circus?

The shock waves caused by the ouster of former Chief Justice Renato Corona continue months after the end of his impeachment trial. The country was gripped by the drama of his ouster, from the highest officials in government to the simplest man on the street. All the great institutions of government were thrust into the klieg lights of public scrutiny. Even now the selection of his replacement by the Judicial and Bar Council, a hitherto nondescript affair uninteresting to all except perhaps for the watchdogs and cause-oriented groups, has not been spared. The intense public interest brought to light a rush of issues and controversies in the selection process which would never have cropped up had public interest been desultory and lukewarm.   From the outset a legal question arose as to who would preside over the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) considering that the most senior justice, Antonio Carpio, was himself gunning for the top judicial post.  Then, former solicitor general Frank Chavez raised a constitutional issue and called for a temporary restraining order against the JBC for having eight members instead of what he believes should be seven.    According to Chavez, Article VIII, Section 8 (1) of the 1987 Constitution explicitly states that Congress should send "a representative" to the JBC, meaning one member either of the Senate or the House. He then asked the Supreme Court to “declare the present composition of the JBC as null and void for being unconstitutional.” Then some senators also pointed out the unusually excessive number of nominees which at one point reached more than 60, which they found ridiculous. Thankfully, the JBC purged the list of nominees who lacked qualifications or whose presence would only provide comic relief.  As it stands now, only 22 candidates remain.   Finally, the situation has become even more complicated when the JBC succumbed to public pressure and allowed the four-day public interviews be broadcast live online, on television and on radio.  In accordance with its decision, JBC is allowing netizens to send in questions for the candidates.   While there is nothing wrong with permitting the participation of the citizenry in the selection process for the sake of transparency and accountability, it must however be confined within reasonable levels. Have we become so obsessed with American pop culture to the point that we are even willing to mimic American Idol and let an otherwise very important exercise with far-reaching implications for our country degenerate into a popularity contest or worse, a circus?  It is safe to assume that the judgment of the members of the JBC will in some way be influenced or, at the very least, be affected by the deluge of questions and opinions coming from all quarters of the population after it allowed the media to cover the event live.   Who would have thought choosing the next chief justice is now on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites as if the votes of netizens are decisive factors in the selection process? Needless to say, a candidate will be short-listed based on his or her professional track records and moral rectitude after an impartial examination of his/her records and character by the JBC, not necessarily because he or she gets the nod of the most number of people on these social netwoking sites.      Recall that under the 1935 Constitution the chief justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court were appointed by the president with the consent of the Commission on Appointments. In the previous set-up, the Commission on Appointments had the power to consent to or refuse consent to the judicial appointments by the president. One nagging complaint against the previous system however was its being too susceptible to political patronage.  Hence, the JBC was created under the 1987 Constitution precisely to depoliticize the process of appointments.   Yet if one would go by the current crop of nominees, one cannot but be nostalgic about the time when Commission on Appointments of the legislature could give its consent or reject the judicial appointments by the president. Admittedly, there are heavyweights among the current candidates; yet in contrast, judicial candidates before the time when President Marcos usurped legislative powers belonged to the list of who’s who in the legal profession.   My worst fear is that with the JBC’s decision to allow unprecedented publicity and media coverage, the system will not only be even more politicized but worse, the unwelcome and  inordinate intrusion by the public will be part of the judicial selection process. It threatens to create a situation where the members of the JBC, amid the barrage of comments coming from all sorts of sectors, interested or not, will no longer be able to perform their constitutional task with circumspection and objectivity, and will vote the popular and not the right choice. Make no mistake about it, public participation to further the ends of transparency and accountability is good, but, as in most things in life, distorting the good is always bad even with the best of intentions. – HS, GMA News Tony La Viña is the Dean of the Ateneo School of Government, a lawyer, and a graduate of the UP College of Law.