MANILA, Philippines - Law students, businessmen and former senior government executives on Monday protested a plan by President Arroyo to appoint a new Chief Justice before she steps down from office on June 30, 2010.

In a full-page ad published in major broadsheets, members of the Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO) and business leaders said Malacañang's "brazen and sly attempt" to appoint the next Chief Justice was a ploy to "shield the guilty from accountability."

Critics of President Arroyo have said Malacañang's proposal to appoint the next Chief Justice before the May 2010 election is an attempt by the administration to shield itself from possible recrimination once a new president is in power. During her nine-year term, President Arroyo has appointed all but one of the High Tribunal magistrates.

A separate ad by the Association of Law Students of the Philippines also noted that Malacañang's proposal to replace Chief Justice Reynato Puno violates the 1987 Constitution, which bars a president from issuing permanent appointments 2 months before a presidential election and until the end of his or her term.

The group said President Arroyo is barred from appointing the next Chief Justice since Puno's retirement on May 17 falls within the 2-month period banning midnight appointees.

"[President Arroyo's] insistence to proceed in the act of appointing the next Chief Justice bodes ill for judicial independence and places in a precarious situation the balance of power among the 3 branches of the government. This insistence will just further fuel the distrust and cynicism in a government already fraught with scandals left and right," the group said.

It also decried a recent announcement that the President will proceed to appoint a new Chief Justice even in the absence of an endorsement from the Judicial Bar and Council. "The disregard of the law cannot be any clearer," it said.

The FSGO urged Chief Justice Puno, current chairman of the Judicial and Bar Council, to reject calls to transmit a shortlist of nominees for his replacement to the President. "Let not a tarnished and divided Supreme Court be his legacy to our nation," the statement read.

The FSGO also urged nominees to the Chief Justice post "not to be seduced by power and shun any unconstitutional appointment."

"We call on anyone with ambition to lead our judicial institutions not to be seduced by power and shun any unconstitutional appointment. There is no honor in empty titles conferred by deceit. There is a price to pay for complicity in criminal acts for those who conspire in this midnight appoinment and anyone who benefits from it," the group said.

The JBC earlier said 5 Supreme Court associate justices, two officials from the Office of the Ombudsman, and one dismissed trial court judge have been nominated for Chief Justice.

The eight nominees are Associate Justice Renato Corona, Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, Associate Justice Teresita de Castro, Associate Justice Arturo Brion, Ombudsman Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio, Deputy Ombudsman Victor Fernandez and Former Judge Florentino Floro.

Of the top 5 most senior justices in the Supreme Court, Corona is the only one who has said he does not mind being appointed by Mrs. Arroyo.

The FSGO, meanwhile, urged candidates for top government positions to condemn "in the strongest possible terms" Malacañang's plan to undermine judicial independence and erode democratic institutions. It said candidates should also tell the people how they intend to deal with the excesses of the Arroyo administration if they are elected this May.