SC’s job more than just ‘balancing the interests’

In the July 10 headline article about the Supreme Court hearing on the oral arguments about the Reproductive Health Law, we read: “Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno said the high court was not there to answer ‘metaphysical’ and ‘theological’ questions but to balance the interests of the unborn child with other constitutional values and objectives.”

I think Justice Sereno was judicial in defining the job of the Court: “to balance the interests” of various parties involved in a case. She was correct to say it is not within the competence of the Court “to answer metaphysical and theological questions.”

But here is the catch: Even if the Court does not have to answer the metaphysical and theological questions, it cannot escape doing its work—that of formulating decisions—within a frame of mind that includes presuppositions that are philosophical, metaphysical and theological in nature. On this matter, a court judge must have answers. The justices have notions of what the law, right, justice, person, mind, willfulness, knowledge, intention, life, freedom, happiness, etc., are—concepts that can only be understood and explained in philosophical and metaphysical terms. Law does not exist in an intellectual vacuum.

Even Sereno’s statement about the Court’s competence is a philosophy in itself.

In the case of the RH Law, the crucial presupposition involved in the objection against it is the concept of a just law.

Another point: Sereno’s concept of balancing the interests of the parties involved is a rather impoverished idea of what the Court should do. The Court’s supreme job is to administer justice and justice means to give  each one the good that is his due. The concepts of good, truth and what is due are so important that if these are lost or set aside, then we end up with a caricature of justice which is precisely just to “balance interests.” Without any reference to the good and truth, any claim can be as good as any other. What is worse, which usually happens when the reference to the good and truth is set aside, might becomes right. Whoever has the power, or whoever has the numbers gets what he wants.

The main argument against the RH Law in my estimation is not about interests but about a good that it harms. It is not easy to understand this good but it is worth the trouble trying to grasp it. The good is responsible parenthood. This is understood as the willingness of parents to raise as many children as they can and the readiness to practice self-mastery over one’s sexual powers so that parents can practice periodic continence when needed. The RH Law, under the guise of “responsible parenthood,” promotes contraception. And contraception simply means enjoying sex and doing away with its consequences: no need for self-mastery here. It is really neither responsible nor parenthood, a kind of double evil.

I agree with two saints—St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas—who considered civil laws that contravene true human goods as unjust laws. I submit that the RH Law contravenes a true human good: responsible parenthood. Ergo, it is unjust.

The article also reported: “Leonen also asked whether the issue on the RH law was ‘justiceable’ when there was no actual controversy on the law.” Leonen’s concept of justice seems limited to what is “legal” or stipulated by law. In this we can see his philosophy of law. I would differ from his view because for me justice cannot be separated from the true goods owed to persons. I think there is really something justiceable about the RH Law: the true human good I mentioned above.

Fr. Cecilio Magsino is a priest of the Opus Dei Prelature. He was ordained in 1984. He finished BS Physics at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He holds a doctorate degree in Philosophy from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome. He currently does his pastoral work in Metro Manila.