A refresher course for Corona

In law school, we were told that when we pass the Bar we become “officers of the court” and shame on us if we don’t adhere to the Canons of Judicial and Legal Ethics. Ethics as the “embodiment of all principles of morality and refinement that should govern the conduct of every member of the Bar” was ingrained in our consciousness.  We were instructed to always regard the Supreme Court and the chief justice with the highest esteem, and to view every criticism imputing misconduct to them with skepticism. We were taught that it is almost heretical to criticize the chief justice and the Supreme Court. As students of law, we were warned that “Justices created an aura for themselves causing well-informed people to speak of the Supreme Court in hushed tones.” As practicing lawyers, we know that when the Supreme Court justices speak about “judicial independence, they sometimes mean no one should criticize them.”

We are not criticizing Chief Justice Renato Corona, but based on his widely known rapport and relationship with former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, we pose these questions:

1. Was his “official conduct free from the appearance of impropriety, and his personal behavior, not only upon the Bench and in the performance of judicial duties, but also in his everyday life, beyond reproach”? (Avoidance of appearance of impropriety, par. 3, Canons of Judicial Ethics, Administrative Order No. 162.)

2. Did he try to “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities”? And did he “behave at all times as to promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary”? (Canon 2, Rule 2.01.)

3. Did he heed the judicial commandment that a “judge should take no part in a proceeding where the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned?” (Rule 3.12.)

4. Did he “discourage ex parte hearing of applications for injunctions . . . where the order may work detriment to absent parties, . . . or act upon ex parte applications only where the necessity for quick action is clearly shown; if this be demonstrated, then . . .  endeavor to counteract the effect of the absence of opposing counsel by a scrupulous cross-examination and investigation as the facts and principles of law upon which the application is based, granting relief only when fully satisfied that the law permits it and the emergency demands it . . . ; that an injunction is a limitation upon the freedom of action of defendants and should not be granted lightly or inadvisedly, one applying for such relief must sustain the burden of showing clearly its necessity and this burden is increased in the absence of the party whose freedom of action is to be restrained even though only temporarily”? (Ex parte applications, par. 15.)

5. Did the Chief Justice forget that “judges shall disqualify themselves from participating in any proceedings in which they are unable to decide the matter impartially or in which it may appear to a reasonable observer that they are unable to decide the matter impartially. Such proceedings include, but are not limited to instances where a judge has actual bias or prejudice concerning a party or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceedings”? (Sec. 5, New Code of Judicial Conduct for the Philippine Judiciary).

6. Have we thrown to the winds such legal aphorisms and lofty ideals as, “Like Caesar’s wife, judges must be above suspicion?” or, the requisite “cold neutrality of an impartial judge”?

7. Whatever happened to the Filipinos’ much vaunted trait called “sense of delicadeza”?

Warren E. Burger, before he became US chief justice, said that the “Supreme Court has such unreviewable power it is likely to self-indulge, and unlikely to engage in dispassionate analysis.” That, in “hushed tones,” we also ask if true of our own Supreme Court.

Long before President Joseph Estrada blasted the “hoodlums in robes,” knowledgeable people gaily categorize two kinds of lawyers, namely, one, who knows the law; and the other, who knows the judge. Is it wrong  to view the Supreme Court as “CoronArroyo”?

If it is any comfort, Supreme Court justices of other countries, not excluding the United States, have been roundly criticized for “abandoning the Constitution and substituting their own views instead.” When President Aquino mustered the moral courage and honesty to speak out his mind by taking to task Chief Justice Corona, he was only taking a leaf from US President Barack Obama who, during his last State of the Union Address, criticized a US Supreme Court decision right in front of the Supreme Court justices themselves. Mr. Aquino, who is now showing signs of being a tough political reformist, must have been inspired by President Abraham Lincoln who said, “If government policy became irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

Did our law schools or our role models fail us?

Lutgardo B. Barbo is a lawyer and now president of Taguig City University. He is a former Senate secretary and served as Senate impeachment clerk of court.