In Barias vs Judge Rubia (A.M. No. RTJ-14-2388, June 10, 2014), the Supreme Court en banc pontificated: “Well known is the judicial norm that judges should not only be impartial but must appear to be impartial. Jurisprudence repeatedly teaches that litigants are entitled to no less than the cold neutrality of an impartial judge. The elements of due process, like notice and hearing, would become meaningless if the ultimate decision is rendered by a partial or biased judge. Judges must not only render correct, just and impartial decisions, but must do so in a manner that is free of any suspicion as to their fairness, impartiality and integrity.
“This reminder applies all the more sternly to municipal, metropolitan and regional trial court judges because they are the front-liners who have direct contact with the litigating parties.”
In the quo warranto case against no less than Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, at least six associate justices have blatantly demonstrated their resentment and bias against her in public. Apparently, they have not forgiven former president Benigno Aquino III for kicking out former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s most-favored appointee, the late chief justice Renato Corona, and installing Sereno, a relative newcomer in the high court, in his place. Anyone could see that Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro, herself a frustrated aspirant for that vacant post, hates her the most.
None of the six has shown any intention to back off, least of all De Castro. They all seem bent on exacting their pound of flesh. The Supreme Court in the case of RTC Judge Rubia was right: The proscription against partiality, or mere appearance of it, applies “more sternly” to the “front-liners” under pain of dismissal from the judiciary—but is meaningless to the “supreme and final arbiters” who are bound by no rule or delicadeza except their own conscience, if they ever get to have any.
CHIN CHIN KATIGBAK, cckatigbak@yahoo.com.ph