After 12 years, Hermosisima leaves JBC
by Purple S. Romero, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 07/06/2009 6:58 PM
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MANILA - Justice Regino Hermosisima, one of the longest-serving members of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), presided over his last en banc meeting on Monday (July 6) as he is due to leave the council he served for 12 years on July 9.
If Supreme Court watchdogs had their way, Hermosisima, who served three terms, would be the last member to have served in the JBC for more than one term. The JBC vets nominees for the judiciary to the appointing authority, the president.
Hermosisima stayed for 12 years as a regular member of the JBC. He was appointed by then President Fidel Ramos on December 17, 1997. On September 12, 2001, he was re-appointed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In 2005, Arroyo appointed him again to the JBC.
Hermosisima was the second JBC member to serve three terms after Teresita Cruz-Sison, a JBC member who represented the private sector. Sison was the first woman president of the Philippine Bar Association.
The Supreme Court Appointments Watch, and Bantay Korte Suprema, had both asked the president to limit the term of JBC members to not more than four years--equivalent to one term--to discourage political loyalty.
Personal is practical
Hermosisima disagreed with this proposal as early as 2006. He said that a longer term for JBC members helps them appraise an applicant’s capacity and character more easily.
“And so, a lot of wisdom, understanding, experience and know-how will be needed in the judicial selection process. It is for this reason that the suggestion that members of the JBC should not stay in office for long may not hold true,” he said during the JBC Strategic and Operations Planning Workshop in 2006.
He also defended why personal interaction with prospective members of the judiciary is necessary. He cited the example of Dean Amado Dimayuga, another JBC member, who has been in his post for more than a decade.
He said Dimayuga, who has had extensive "contact with and study of aspirants through the years, can spot for us the good from the bad, the qualified from the unqualified, the deserving from the undeserving."
"Really, it pays to know the aspirants personally. Only then can we separate the grain from the chaff; and only then will we know what it takes to be a good judge or justice,” Hermosisima said in the same workshop.
No to open voting
As a JBC member, Hermosisima oversaw the establishment of JBC guidelines and rules. In a speech delivered in 2006, he said Cruz-Sison told him how the JBC failed to diligently adhere to governing policies. One reason for this was that the JBC rules were not in black and white.
Hermosisima then wrote the guidelines under the term of Chief Justice Andres Narvasa. When Chief Justice Hilario Davide took over in 1998, he set the guidelines as the JBC Rules.
One of the rules prescribed the publication of the list of nominees, a practice which was not observed during the time of the late President Ferdinand Marcos. Appointments were simply announced by the President, and then confirmed by the Commission on Appointments.
The public was kept in the dark on the new Supreme Court appointees.
But while he pushed for the publication of the nominees, Hermosisima was one of those who thumbed down the publication of the JBC votes. He reportedly voted against it along with Quezon City Rep. Matias Defensor and then Justice Sec. Raul Gonzalez.
However, the JBC later approved the disclosure and publication of their votes in 2008.
According to the tally sheets, Hermosisima voted for Court of Appeals (CA) Justice Martin Villarama, Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Peralta, CA Justice Portia Hormachuelos, and Dean Cesar Villanueva to replace SC Justice Ruben Reyes, who hung his robe on January 3, 2009.
For the short list of nominees for the position vacated by Justice Adolfo Azcuna last February, Hermosisima voted for Villanueva, Villarama, CA Justice Lucas Bersamin, and lawyer-real estate businessman Rodolfo Robles.
On the last voting of the JBC for the posts left by SC jurists Alicia Austria-Martinez and Dante Tinga, Hermosisima selected UST law Dean Roberto Abad, Villarama, Robles, and CA Justice Mariano Del Castillo.
Less political influence
Hermosisima believed there was a need for “less politicization of Presidential appointments,” adding that “Constitutional and JBC criteria should instead be followed.”
Before he left the JBC, not only as a member but also as its executive director, the JBC also approved policies which were criticized for paving the way for political accommodations in the judiciary.
The JBC relaxed its rule on age qualification, allowing Robles, said to be a family friend of the Arroyos, to be considered for the contention even if he is overaged.
Robles is over 65 years old. Under the original JBC rules, non-career applicants should serve in the judiciary for at least five years.
The JBC also deferred its voting on the shortlist for the seats of Tinga and Austria-Martinez to give the Office of the Ombudsman two weeks to resolve the cases filed against now justice chief and SC applicant Agnes Devanadera.
Charter amendment
Another reform put on the table by Hermosisima requires an amendment of the Constitution.
He said that the JBC should increase the number of its members to 12, to include two senior associate justices of the Supreme Court, the presiding justice of the Court of Appeals, the presiding justice of the Sandiganbayan, and the court administrator.
The JBC is currently composed of eight members, with the SC chief justice as ex-oficio chairman.
Aside from expanded membership, Hermosisima encouraged the hiring of investigators who would probe into the complaints filed against nominees to the judiciary.
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