Tuesday, October 15, 2013 in , , , , , , ,

Is the Supreme Court blameless relative to the early SC decision released controversies


Note: This was the paper we submitted for one of my political science class last 2008.
 Is the Supreme Court blameless relative to the early SC decision released controversies

SUPREME COURT
            The Supreme Court is the last bastion of democracy, but its office has been misused and abused by litigants out to frustrate the cause of justice. It is not uncommon to find losing litigants from the lowest level of the justice system to appeal their cases all the way up to the Supreme Court. Most lawyers, knowing that they are going to lose the case, take advantage of the time delay in resolving cases at each stage of the judicial system by virtue of their right to appeal. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, being lenient to the losing litigants, has allowed itself to be used to frustrate justice by giving due course to frivolous appeal.

 
Frivolous Appeals
            We strongly that think it is about time that litigants who appeal their cases should be heavily penalized should it later be found to be frivolous appeal. The litigants should be assessed punitive fines and punishment while lawyers should be cited for contempt of court and other punitive measures for making a mockery of the rules of court. Time and time again, the Supreme Court has been called upon by appeal or other remedies to resolve cases that have become doctrines. Even abandoned doctrines that should no longer be cited have been repeatedly used by losing litigants and the Supreme Court, instead of dismissing the cases, still went on to resolve it. One common and frequently raised question has to do with the exclusive jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Trial Court on illegal detainer and forcible entry cases brought within one year from unlawful detention or discovery of the forcible entry.

            The Supreme Court, instead of stamping out frivolous cases, has unwittingly allowed various modes of appeal to become tool of losing litigants in frustrating the cause of justice. Delay in whatever stage should not be tolerated. Lawyers who always gamble to have their frivolous cases appealed to the Supreme Court should be disbarred. So many have been scammed by losing litigants who were out to frustrate our justice system and they should not allowed to do it.

Conflicting Decisions
            The Supreme Court should partly be blamed for the many conflicting decisions used by both counsel for their clients to support their conflicting stand thereby delaying the resolution of the cases. There is no hard and fast rule of the decisions of the Supreme Court and probably none is forthcoming. The Court probably does not want to be tied up in any hard rules. The end result is that it will continue to give ammunition to litigants to delay the cases because both parties can cite different decisions to support their stands. There must be uniformity for each particular situation to apprise litigants what to expect under the same circumstances.

            For example, there is the case, in which a  notary public, was dismissed because he wrongly notarized a deed of sale when the seller is already dead and the signature was forged. In another case, a notary public was suspended for six months for notarizing a deed of sale knowing that the seller and signatory who is a friend, was already dead. Both decisions seemed to be decided according to the whims and caprices of the ponente or the justice who wrote the conflicting decisions. If the Supreme Court could find the time to compile all these conflicting similar decisions and come out with settled doctrine ruling, it may minimize appeals and or cases reaching it. It would go a long way in reducing these cases that are taxing the efforts of the Supreme Court to reduce its workload and at the same time concentrate on the more urgent cases of national importance.

            One common complaint by lawyers is the helter-shelter way decisions are arrived at the SC. There is no coherent jurisprudence that lawyers can rely upon. Precedents have been overturned making it difficult for lawyers to anticipate what the justices would do in similar cases. This is why litigants with the money to spent are willing to risk that their cases may be acted favorably. As one lawyer laments, “The Supreme Court has now become unpredictable.”

            Under the present constitutional setup, the SC can act in three divisions of five justices each. Each divisions is free to promulgate its decisions without referring to precedence sets by the other two divisions. This has cause a conflict of decisions as in the case of whether commission is included in the computation of the 13th month pay. One division ruled that it is and another division ruled that it is not. If the decision has become technically the “law of the land” because it was not questioned, how could another division fail to take that into consideration? If both litigants failed to move for reconsiderations and the decisions stand, then future litigants could have two conflicting precedents to cite. In the meantime, litigants will continue in the lower courts or quasi-judicial bodies until the case reaches the SC for the final judgment enbanc. These are the types of decision made by the SC throughout its existence that has allowed litigation no end.

Rating the SC
            Today, the SC is enjoying a very high rating for performance but that was not always the case. During the deliberation of the banco Filipino case,a survey made by the Makati business Club reveals that among the country’ top executives gave the SC a rating of minus 29.8 percent.(Coronel,Betrayals,219) The reason is that some of the justices were being approached by kin and cronies to deside the case before them one way or another. Instead of citing them for contempt or reprimanding them, it undermined the confidence of the legal and business community in the judiciary. Many business and individuals with pending cases in the SC found it expedient to hire lawyers who are children of  the justices of the SC to influence the dicisions . others would simply approach them to get a conduit to the justices.
            The justices of the SC are not immune from the frailty of human nature. It is common knowledge that litigants  with pending cases in court, from the lowest to the SC, tried to find brokers to fix cases. Even those who are incorruptible or unapproachable cannot escape being approached by litigants who use their kin or cronies. Other litigants would hire retired justices to work incognito to handle the case out of the limelight. Knowledgeable lawyers know that it is a race of  time to get to know the ponente of the case and the broker or fixer who can get to the justice before the opposing party does.(manila times, may 21-23,1997)\
           
            Justices of the SC should be unapproachable to their kin or friends at least on cases pending in the high court. This is to shield them from outside influence. The problem is that children of justices, even if they have poor academic records are being hired by law firms to get a foothold with the justices  of the supreme Court. One controversial case has so tainted the SC because the son of a justice was allegedly trying to buy  the decision from the ponente with a P3 million bribe. The ponente inhibited himself after the incident was exposed. (coronel,Betrayals.218) To get the justices shielded from possible outside influence is a tall order. Like don Corleone of the Godfather movie would say, ‘Give him an offer he cannot refused.’’

Voting pattern of Supreme Court justices shows they play politics

Sometime before the Supreme Court voted on the high-profile case of the homeland agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, two justices reportedly received calls from the Palace. They were initially in favor of declaring the agreement unconstitutional. The message from the caller was: Declare the ancestral domain agreement moot and academic. But in a narrow vote, the Palace lost. The intervention fell short of one vote.
What went wrong?
Court insiders say that Malacanang was confident it had the numbers that it took a belated attempt to conduct a loyalty check. “They were not talking with each other; they were just taking orders from the Palace. No one in the Court acts as the shepherd,” our source who is privy to the deliberations, told us.
Thus, when the smoke cleared and eight justices voted to declare the MOA-AD unconstitutional, some hailed it as a redeeming moment for the Court. From the outside, the perception was that the Supreme Court found the courage to reassert its independence from Malacanang.
But this glosses over the fact it was a close vote, 8-7, with the deciding vote coming from the only one President Arroyo has not picked, Justice Leonardo Quisumbing—an appointee of former President Ramos.
The Palace was hoping that the SC would only declare the case moot and academic for two reasons: so that the Palace would avoid further embarrassment; and so that the opposition would not have more ammunition in its impeachment complaint versus the President.
Those who argued to give merit to the petitions against the MOA-AD, led by Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales as the ponencia (or writer of the decision), got an unexpected support from Justice Ruben Reyes Jr. who has been perceived to be loyal to Malacanang.
Reyes left his vote with the en banc before he went on vacation, splitting the two opposing camps, 7-7. Up to the last minute, sources privy to the deliberations said the case could have swayed either way, with no one able to divine how the 15th vote, coming from Quisumbing, would go. Quisumbing has always been known in the Supreme Court to change his mind, even at the last minute, about his vote.
Rubber stamp?
The SC ruling granting the petition to declare the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as unconstitutional may have raised hopes that the High Court is not after all a rubber stamp of President Arroyo.
Before this, the High Court was reeling from negative perception that it is stacked with Arroyo allies as a result of its decisions on key cases involving the President and the executive branch.
The Court strengthened executive privilege when it silenced former Neda head Romulo Neri by disallowing him to appear before the Senate to answer sensitive questions on the failed ZTE broadband deal. Then, the Court declared the ZTE contract moot and avoided ruling on the substance of the controversial deal.
Thirteen of the 15 members of the Tribunal are her appointees. Sure, they have been vetted by the Judicial and Bar Council, with the exception of Reynato Puno who was automatically considered for the Supreme Court post, but there is no doubt that they were her personal, if not political, choices
Analsysis: Survey: predictable votes
A survey was conducted on the voting patterns of Supreme Court justices. Data compiled by abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak on SC decisions with political implications tend to support the perception that appointees of President Arroyo are protective of her.
Our analysis of political cases or cases that are of political interest to the Arroyos from 2004 to 2008 show an unmistakable  voting pattern, a divide that gives a clue on where each of the justices stands, politically. The pattern acts a blueprint, making it easier to predict how some justices would vote on a particular issue.
For instance, three of the incumbent justices have consistently voted in favor of government while four have sided with government in two-thirds of the cases they participated in. One on hand, only one justice, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, has taken an all-out opposite stand, arguing against the Arroyo government’s interest in 16 out of 20 cases surveyed, or a high 80 percentage.
Ynares-Santiago is the only Estrada appointee left in the SC.
The three justices who have been religiously voting for government interests belong to the batch appointed in 2007: Antonio Nachura, Teresita de Castro and Arturo Brion. They were part of the seven minority justices who sought to declare the MOA-AD case moot and academic.
Divided court
Under the Puno Court, there is a growing perception that the Tribunal is a co-opted rather than a co-equal branch. But others argue that some magistrates decide against Malacanang no matter the issue.
The Puno Court, essentially, has been divided against pro-Arroyo and anti-Arroyo groups. Joaquin Bernas, dean emeritus of the Ateneo Law School and a noted constitutionalist, described one of the groups as “generally known to be protective of the executive power” while the other faction as having a “record of vigorously disagreeing with the President.”
The existence of a power bloc loyal to the President takes its toll on the independence of the Court. In a letter to the editor published in a daily last Sept., former Senate president Franklin Drilon called on the SC “to address prevailing perceptions that the judiciary is losing its independence due to political interference and pressure from Malacañang.”
The former senator said  the image of the judiciary suffers “when people suspect that judges and justices are being appointed, not because of their competence and probity, but because of their adherence and blind loyalty to Malacañang.”
Drilon did not name specific cases but recalled that “during the regime of former President Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippine Supreme Court suffered extremely poor credibility due to its subservience to the president.”
Independence is crucial
Among the three branches of government, the judiciary is said to be the weakest since it does not have police power to enforce its rulings. It depends on the executive branch to implement these. It relies on the legislative branch for its financial requirements and on the executive for its operations.
But the judiciary in essence is a co-equal branch, and this it exercises through its check- and-balance function, by striking down any grave abuse of discretion committed by the two other branches.
To ensure its independence, the judiciary enjoys fiscal autonomy. Under the Constitution, its budget cannot be decreased by Congress below what had been appropriated the previous year and “after approval, shall be automatically and regularly released.”
But financial independence is only one side of the coin. The more encompassing question is how independent the Court is from the executive or legislative branches and the pressure these two exert on the judiciary.
One of the basic principles, as adopted by the United Nations, is that the independence of the judiciary “shall be guaranteed by the State and enshrined in the Constitution…It is the duty of all governmental and other institutions to respect and observe the independence of the judiciary.”
Moreover, the basic principles state that “the judiciary shall decide matters before them impartially, on the basis of facts and in accordance with the law, without any restrictions, improper influences, inducements, pressures, threats or interferences, direct or indirect, from any quarter or for any reason.”
Ideally, this should be the case. But as a Court of Appeal justice observed, in a politically charged environment like in the Philippines, other factors, such as justices’ beliefs, inclinations and aspirations play a crucial role on how laws and rules are interpreted.

Controversies
  1. Paras vs. Limkaichong
FACTS:
In Negros Oriental in 2007, losing congressional candidate Olivia Paras, wife of former  Rep. Jacinto Paras, and allies filed cases in the Supreme Court to out Jocelyn Limkaichong. Limkaichong won, more than 7, 000 votes over Olivia Paras, and Jerome Paras, brother of Jacinto. The key issued raised by the petitioners  is about Limkaichong’s citizenship. They argued that Limkaichong is not a natural-born Filipino, a requirement for public office. They cited a Commision on Elections ruling to that effect. However, Limkaichong was declared winner in May 2007, because of a COMELEC ruling that says pending cases are not an obstacle to proclamation. Since that, she repoted for work in Congress.
In the Supreme Court, the Limkaiching case fell on Justice Reyes’ lap. He is the newest justice to join the court, whom had merely a year and four months to work on hundres of cases, including this one. It was reported that he lobbied hard to get appointed to the Supreme Court, when he was the presiding justice of the Court of Appeals.
Justice Reyes officially left the court early January, but his retirement ceremony was held before the holidasy in December, whereas the unpromolgated decision which he penned in favor of Paras, was leaked to one of the litigants, Birarogo, whom called a press conference in early December to distribute copies of the decision.
Results
According to Birarogo, someone delivered the copy of the unpromolgated decision at his home in Octorber, which was dated July 15 2008. The said decision nullifies the proclamation of Limkaichong, in which 14 justices concurred with Reyes, seven of whom did only “in the result.” This means that they only agreed with the conclusion and not with the arguments of Reyes.
The seven justices are: Consuelo Ynares Santiago, Antonio Carpio, Ma. Alicia Austria Martinez, Renato Corona, Conchita Carpio Morales, Adolf Azcuna, and Dante Tinga.
The chief justice, who is usually the last to sign a decion, had not yet signed it as he noticed the number of those who agreed on it the result. Based on the SC’s account, because of the preponderance of in-the-result concurrences (two other justices later informed Puno that they, too, were joining the seven—Minita Chico Nazario and Teresita de Castro), the justices “unanimously decided to withhold the promulgation of the ponencia of Justice Reyes.
The SC, in its resolution, said that a decision would have no “doctrinal value” if majority agreed only in the result. “More importantly, any decision ousting a sitting member of the House of Representatives should spell out clearly the legal basis relied upon by the majority for such an extreme measure.”
This draft decision of Reyes was in the en banc agenda a number of times because of questions by some justices. We learned that the justices had an open discussion on the case but, because of the volume of work (the SC receives about 2,000 cases a year and each justice is saddled with hundreds of cases), they relied on the ponente to present the facts correctly.
Analysis:
The Supreme Court is cleaning up the mess left by recently retired Justice Ruben Reyes amid attacks on its integrity from a litigant.
In the process, it has shown what can happen as a result of a highly politicized appointment to the Supreme Court, in the case of Reyes, as well as weaknesses in internal court deliberations: justices concurred with a decision despite their lack of preparation on the case
Moreover, this contentious election case underscores the basic fact that the core of the Supreme Court’s work is its decisions. The 2008 year-end report of the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Reynato Puno, published in the In the July 15, 2008 en banc meeting, after the half-hearted concurrences, Carpio offered to take a second look and write his Reflections. (Reflections are normal part of court deliberations, described as a former SC justice as “soft opinions meant to show tentative positions on difficult issues.”) 
Oral argument
Carpio’s Reflections critiqued Reyes’s decision. He then presented two options: that the Court settle the question of Limkaichong’s citizenship; or the petitioners question Limkaichong’s citizenship before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal or HRET which has jurisdiction over candidates’ qualifications.
This led to the Supreme Court decision to hold oral arguments on the case, to get the full picture. This eventually took place in August 2008.
The Reflections was attached to the unpromulgated decision leaked to Biraogo plus  copies of the following documents: a letter of a “concerned employee” of the SC revealing “irregularities” in the case; a June 17, 2008 revised draft of the decision which Reyes circulated for comments. (We obtained copies of all these documents.)
It was during the oral arguments that the justices realized that Reyes’s unpromulgated decision missed out on key facts. The Office of the Solicitor General cited a Comelec rule that showed Limkaichong’s proclamation valid. Reyes could not dispute it.
The Comelec rule stunned the justices, a source privy to the deliberations told us, and they wondered why Reyes did not include it in his decision.
To this day, the case remains undecided. We learned that the case will be passed on to the new justice who will replace Reyes. In the meantime, the thinking of the Court is: Limkaichong’s proclamation is valid and her citizenship should be questioned by the parties in the HRET.
‘Írregularities’
Biraogo narrates, in his comment to the Supreme Court, what led him to make the unpromulgated decision public. He was responding to the SC which asked him, in a resolution, to explain why he shouldn’t be cited for contempt.
Biraogo, reflecting Jacinto Paras’s views, questioned why Chief Justice Puno “appears to be delaying the promulgation of the decision by his refusal to affix his signature” despite the concurrence of 14 justices.
Biraogo also raises questions on the SC process of arriving at decisions: “It is presumed that a Justice of the Supreme Court is a legal scholar and a person of integrity so that whenever he/she affixes his/her signature on a decision, that Justice vouches for the legal soundness of such decision. In addition, when the Justices of the Supreme Court have already affixed their respective signatures on a decision, the same means that all of them already deliberated on the issues of the case/s before them and that all of them have arrived at a final vote on the matter.”
Biraogo points out other issues but these are based on unconfirmed information from the anonymous SC employee’s letter.

He also writes that it was Dean Pacifico Agabin who appeared as counsel for Limkaichong during the oral arguments. Agabin is a fraternity brother of Puno.
Looming impeachment battle?
Time is running out on Olivia Paras as Limkaichong continues to sit in Congress till her term ends in May 2010. Justice Reyes has not yet been replaced thus no decision is expected soon. 
Jacinto Paras, a former congressman and husband of Olivia, is determined to make a lot of noise about this case. We learned that he is mulling filing an impeachment complaint versus Puno. It is unclear what will be the basis of the complaint.
Court observers say that this move aligns with the Palace’s desire to have a full sweep of the SC. Here’s why: Puno is scheduled to retire in May 2010. By that time, the most senior justice will be Carpio who will most likely succeed Puno. President Arroyo will not be able to appoint a new chief justice because of an appointments ban during the election period.
Carpio, known for his independent stance and strong anti-GMA position, is expected to block any design of the Palace to hold sway over the Court even after the President steps down in May 2010.
Earlier, we reported that Puno was considering retiring early. This raised fears among Court watchers that President Arroyo will pick a new chief justice loyal to her.

  1. Docket Fee
A new controversy is brewing in the Supreme Court as a result of the hike in the court docket fees allegedly to be use to pay the legislated allowances of justices. It was issued by the SC under Administrative Matter 04-2-04-SC raising the docket fees by 1000 to 4000 percent, according  to one report.
            Fifty law students and members of the Integrated bar of the Philippines rallied at the SC Compound in Baguio to protest the increase linking it to the controversial Judiciary Development Fund (JDF). The JDF had been used to build three cottages within the compound.
            Under republic act 9227, granting special allowances as incentives to the justices and judge from the regional trial courts to the SC to tap the funds in the JDF. If the funds is not enough, the incentives can be taken from the docket fees paid by litigants that may account for the huge increase. (PDI, September 18.2004) Because of complaints from the integrated Bar of the Philippines, the additional fee has been suspended.
Under the law, poor litigants are spared from paying the docket fee if they can prove that they cannot afford it. It can be subject to abuse as many poor litigants have taken advantage to make impossible claims just to vex the defendants. Imagine squatters claiming properties with fake titles that took years or decades to decide. Many have been willingly used by others for vindictive purposes or “blackmail.” Others prefer to frustrate justice by delaying tactics or filing frivolous appeals. When the case is finally decided, the losing litigant is often ordered to pay the cost of the lawsuit which is very minimal. If the SC is serious about cutting down on frivolous appeals, the losing appellant should be fined harshly and even cited for contempt  for taxing the time of the SC. Even lawyers who knowingly delay the end of justice should be fined.


 

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