THE LEGAL FRONT

 Trust, the tie that binds
BY ATTY. ARTURO D. BRION, LL.B., LL.M.

Trust is the “firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or of something.” In this sense, it is the basic foundation of our representative democracy which operates on the strength of trust: People entrust their care and welfare to periodically chosen representatives who promulgate and implement the laws that our society needs. These representatives are our senators and congressmen – the members of the legislative branch who pass our laws, and the president and vice president of the executive branch, who implement these laws.

Once elected, these representatives become bound and accountable to the people.  They earn the trust reposed in them – their tie to the people – by undertaking their delegated tasks faithfully as required by the Constitution and the laws. They renew these ties in succeeding elections when people assess their performance and reconfirm their trust by choosing them once again as representatives.

Except for unique instances in the past, our executives and lawmakers have come and gone based on these arrangements.

The judiciary, tasked with the interpretation of the laws and the resolution of disputes arising from these laws, operates on a different arrangement under our Constitution’s system of balancing the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government: this arrangement prevents excesses and abuses by allowing these branches to check on each other’s exercise of power.

Unlike the members of the legislature and the executive, members of the judiciary are not elected by the people and are not asked by the people to periodically account for their performance and fidelity to duty. Instead, judges and justices are appointed for life by the president based on qualifying standards that the Constitution itself has laid down.

Thereby, the executive pre-determines, for the people, that judicial officials are worthy of the people’s trust. Judicial aspirants qualify for appointment by possessing the traits of competence, integrity, probity, and independence that the Constitution expressly requires.

During their stay in office, judges and justices must additionally abide by norms of conduct laid down and defined by the Supreme Court in the exercise of its own constitutional duty to exercise administrative supervisory authority over the judiciary, to ensure that the required judicial qualifications are always strictly met. There, too, are the rules and the laws touching on conduct that the legislature may define and pass.

From these perspectives, the ties that bind the judiciary to their task and to the people exist on a different plane.  These ties are partly internally generated (i.e., by the Supreme Court, a part of the judiciary) and compliance is not periodically watched and weighed.

To approximate the scrutiny applied to the legislature and the executive, the judiciary’s binding ties must thus be tighter and stricter, and their evidence of compliance more transparent and easier to assess. The judiciary, for its part, must closely follow the Constitution’s narrowly marked limits, to demonstrate to all that it is always worthy of the reposed trust.

To its credit, the judiciary has been sending strong signals that it respects and deserves the trust that the people have given it. Its most recent significant move was the adoption of its Strategic Plans for Judicial Innovations (SPJI), intended to address identified institutional challenges, using four guiding principles: timely and fair delivery of justice; transparency and accountability; equality and inclusivity, and technological adaptation.

Through the application of these principles, the Supreme Court hopes to achieve three major outcomes in its delivery of service: efficiency, innovation, and access.  This judicial move shall hopefully strengthen the public’s trust and faith in the judiciary’s capability and faithfulness to its constitutional duty  – i.e., the resolution, in the manner envisioned by the Constitution, of legal disputes the public brings.

Another significant signal from the Supreme Court was its creation of the Judicial Integrity Board (JIB) to address the corruption that has long bedeviled the judiciary’s integrity.

“Corruption is a long issue in the court,” our new Chief Justice, Alexander Gesmundo, said during his interview before the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), as he pledged his commitment as Chief Justice to operationalize the JIB, to handle serious charges such as bribery, dishonesty, gross misconduct, and immorality leveled against members of the judiciary.

As a private citizen and to use more vivid imagery, judges and justices who commit these crimes must indeed be eradicated as pests, as they are no different from rats who gnaw the braided cord of trust that binds the judiciary, as an institution, to the people. (art.brion.spc@gmail.com)

(The author was a former Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court and of the Court of Appeals.  In the Executive Branch, he served as undersecretary and later, secretary, of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).  For a time, he was Foreign Affairs undersecretary; chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy (Philja), and a partner at the Siguion Reyna, Montecillo & Ongsiako Law Offices.  He taught law at the Ateneo de Manila University, the University of Asia and the Pacific, and was dean of the San Sebastian College of Law.  He still teaches law at the San Pablo Colleges in San Pablo City where he currently resides.)