De Castro v. Judicial and Bar Council et al.
G.R. No. 191002: March 17, 2010
FACTS:
The forthcoming compulsory retirement of Chief Justice Puno on May 17, 2010, or
seven days after the presidential election, had the JBC announcing the opening of the position
of Chief Justice for application or recommendation. Under Section 4(1), in relation to Section
9, Article VIII, “any vacancy shall be filled within ninety days from the occurrence thereof”
from a “list of at least three nominees prepared by the Judicial and Bar Council for every
vacancy.”
Petitioners come before the Court posing as the principal legal question whether the
incumbent President can appoint the successor of Chief Justice Puno upon his retirement.
Although it has already begun the process for the filling of the position of Chief
Justice Puno in accordance with its rules, the JBC is not yet decided on when to submit to the
President its list of nominees for the position due to the controversy now before the Court
being yet unresolved.
ISSUES:
A. Whether or not the petitioners have locus standi
B. Whether or not the petitions set forth an actual case or controversy that is ripe for
judicial determination
C. Whether or not the constitutional prohibition against appointment under Section
15, Article VII of the Constitution, apply to appointments to fill a vacancy in the Supreme
Court or to other appointments to the Judiciary
D. Does the incumbent President have the power and authority to appoint during the
election ban the successor of Chief Justice Puno when he vacates the position of Chief Justice
on his retirement on May 17, 2010?
RULING:
A. YES. The Court rules that the petitioners have each demonstrated adequate interest
in the outcome of the controversy as to vest them with the requisite locus standi. The issues
before the Court are of transcendental importance to the people as a whole, and to the
petitioners in particular. Indeed, the issues affect everyone (including the petitioners),
regardless of one’s personal interest in life, because they concern that great doubt about the
authority of the incumbent President to appoint not only the successor of the retiring
incumbent Chief Justice, but also others who may serve in the Judiciary, which already
suffers from a far too great number of vacancies in the ranks of trial judges throughout the
country.
B. YES. The ripeness of the controversy for judicial determination may not be
doubted. The challenges to the authority of the JBC to open the process of nomination and to
continue the process until the submission of the list of nominees; the insistence of some of
the petitioners to compel the JBC through mandamus to submit the short list to the incumbent
President; the counter-insistence of the intervenors to prohibit the JBC from submitting the
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short list to the incumbent President on the ground that said list should be submitted instead
to the next President; the strong position that the incumbent President is already prohibited
under Section 15, Article VII from making any appointments, including those to the
Judiciary, starting on May 10, 2010 until June 30, 2010; and the contrary position that the
incumbent President is not so prohibited are only some of the real issues for determination.
All such issues establish the ripeness of the controversy, considering that for some the short
list must be submitted before the vacancy actually occurs by May 17, 2010. The outcome will
not be an abstraction, or a merely hypothetical exercise. The resolution of the controversy
will surely settle - with finality - the nagging questions that are preventing the JBC from
moving on with the process that it already began, or that are reasons persuading the JBC to
desist from the rest of the process.
C. NO. Had the framers intended to extend the prohibition contained in Section 15,
Article VII to the appointment of Members of the Supreme Court, they could have explicitly
done so. They could not have ignored the meticulous ordering of the provisions. They would
have easily and surely written the prohibition made explicit in Section 15, Article VII as
being equally applicable to the appointment of Members of the Supreme Court in Article VIII
itself, most likely in Section 4 (1), Article VIII. That such specification was not done only
reveals that the prohibition against the President or Acting President making appointments
within two months before the next presidential elections and up to the end of the President’s
or Acting President’s term does not refer to the Members of the Supreme Court.
Moreover, the framers did not need to extend the prohibition to appointments in the
Judiciary, because their establishment of the JBC and their subjecting the nomination and
screening of candidates for judicial positions to the unhurried and deliberate prior process of
the JBC ensured that there would no longer be midnight appointments to the Judiciary.
To hold like the Court did in Valenzuela that Section 15 extends to appointments to
the Judiciary further undermines the intent of the Constitution of ensuring the independence
of the Judicial Department from the Executive and Legislative Departments. Such a holding
will tie the Judiciary and the Supreme Court to the fortunes or misfortunes of political leaders
vying for the Presidency in a presidential election.
D. YES. Section 4 (3), Article VII requires the regular elections to be held on the
second Monday of May, letting the elections fall on May 8, at the earliest, or May 14, at the
latest. If the regular presidential elections are held on May 8, the period of the prohibition is
115 days. If such elections are held on May 14, the period of the prohibition is 109 days.
Either period of the prohibition is longer than the full mandatory 90-day period to fill the
vacancy in the Supreme Court. The result is that there are at least 19 occasions (i.e., the
difference between the shortest possible period of the ban of 109 days and the 90-day
mandatory period for appointments) in which the outgoing President would be in no position
to comply with the constitutional duty to fill up a vacancy in the Supreme Court. It is safe to
assume that the framers of the Constitution could not have intended such an absurdity. In
fact, in their deliberations on the mandatory period for the appointment of Supreme Court
Justices under Section 4 (1), Article VIII, the framers neither discussed, nor mentioned, nor
referred to the ban against midnight appointments under Section 15, Article VII, or its effects
on the 90-day period, or vice versa. They did not need to, because they never intended
Section 15, Article VII to apply to a vacancy in the Supreme Court, or in any of the lower
courts.
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