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Thursday, December 22, 2005
New Chief Justice assures transparency
MANILA -- Transparency, integrity and accountability. These are going to be the by-words of newly appointed Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban who was named Tuesday night by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to succeed retired Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.
In a statement following his appointment, Panganiban vowed to safeguard the independence of the judiciary in maintaining the rule of law.
"It is with deep humility and a great sense of responsibility that I accept my appointment as the 21st Chief Justice of the Philippines. I thank the President for appointing me to the highest non-political office in the land. As my measure of thanking her, I vow to uphold at all times the Constitutional ideals of competence, integrity, probity and independence, which I am certain she took into account in choosing me," he said.
Arroyo broke the seniority tradition in appointing Panganiban to replace Hilario Davide Jr., who retired Tuesday, as the most senior in the Supreme Court is Associate Justice Reynato Puno.
Panganiban said he will continue the thrust of his predecessor in achieving judicial reforms that are "independent, effective and efficient, and worthy of public trust and confidence."
Following Panganiban's appointment, civil society groups and law experts raised questions on the procedure for nominating candidates to top judicial posts, after the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), a body that screens nominees for judicial positions, scrapped the first-ever public interview last December 1.
Attorney Marlon Manuel of the Alternative Law Groups, a member of the Supreme Court Appointments Watch (Scaw) network, said the JBC's decision to dispense with the public interview totally undermined its mandate to ensure transparency in the screening and selection process.
"The appointment to the Chief Justice position is more important than the appointment of a lawyer to a judicial post or the appointment of a judge to a higher court. The nature of the Chief Justice position requires an appointment process that is correspondingly esteemed, a system that will give reverence to the position being filled up," Manuel said.
The group said if the nomination process was infirm, the public was denied the opportunity to know better the person who gets picked.
They also urged Panganiban to ensure greater transparency in judicial appointments in his stint as Chief Justice as they recalled Panganiban's pronouncement that the SC will only be effective if the people have trust and confidence in the judiciary.
"We urge the new Chief Justice to provide greater venues for public participation in the appointment of members of the judiciary. It was Chief Justice Panganiban who said 'the court can only be effective as long as it has the faith and trust of the public and that without the support of the populace, it will become useless, as it cannot enforce by itself its own pronouncements'," said Manuel. (ECV/Sunnex)
(December 22, 2005 issue)
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