Mabini Hall - Access to Justice

Heads up people—there is hope in this country and we look to the one man who is leading the way. Justice Reynato S. Puno, the 22nd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was delayed a year in his assumption to the highest judicial post in the land. As the first among equals, he heads the Supreme Court and it is the court of history.

The Supreme Court is touted as the weakest among the three branches in our tripartite system of government for a simple reason. It neither holds the power of the purse. Neither does it wield the power of the sword. What it does have is a pen and the words that flow from it. In this sense, it is described as the strongest branch because it has the power to interpret our law and that includes our supreme law, our Constitution. Our Constitution embodies our collective will and remains to be the bastion of democracy no matter how flawed. It is the concrete manifestation of power to the people.

Thus, when the Supreme Court says a certain law is invalid, that is finis. To the extent that if it decrees black as white and white as black, there is no choice but to obey. This is a metaphorical way of describing its power and how it was and can be abused. The Supreme Court indeed reigns supreme in our land for it is not called supreme for naught.

Since 1987, there is an increasing perception of judicial intervention or judicial legislation. Intervention happens when a court oversteps its discretional boundaries and goes beyond the law to make policies or arbiters cases to favor certain parties. It is gravest when decisions are made “for monetarious considerations.” Practitioners tell of horror stories that will make Al Pacino look like an angel. Another glaring charge is judicial legislation when the court actually steps in to craft missing parts or to fill in the gaps in laws. This cannot be for it allows other factors to be considered other than the letter of the law and the letter of the law is no other than the Rule of Law—that everyone shall be treated equally and that no man or woman is above the law or below it. That is the standard we must uphold, fight for and even die for.

Chief Justice Puno, in his short, stint has acted swiftly and boldly. Not in our history has the Chief Justice summoned(!) all the chairpersons of the 17 divisions of the Court of Appeals to address the sale of temporary restraining orders (TROs). To the uninitiated, this is the practice of selling an order to the highest bidder for a certain action to be done or to maintain a status quo. It is a most crucial document for litigants when their lives or properties are at stake. Sometimes, the selling justice sells it to multiple buyers and sits on the request for a long, long time. The best indication after all of a corrupt public official is the undue delay to act in any official transaction. A few weeks after the meeting, a Court of Appeals justice was dismissed.

I have said this before and will say it again—to move our country forward, change our legal system to make it work, to address the issue of administering justice fairly and squarely.

The Supreme Court, it has that chance to be for the people for “the unerring lessons of history tell us that rightly wielded, that power can make a difference for good.” Our Supreme Court must “espouse no ideology but constitutionalism; to uphold no theology but the rule of law.” The Court “represents justice, fair justice to all, unfairness to none.” All these quotes are from Justice Puno who hopes to be an instrument of this kind of justice.

So, fellow Filipinos, look up and look to our Supreme Court under the leadership of our Chief Justice. He deserves our respect and commands our support. He has placed all his trust in God with ‘a clear awareness of the defining role of the judiciary as our people confront turning points after turning points in life.” Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno is the man of the hour in charge of our one Supreme Court and it is the court of history.