Dura lex sed lex.
This is the universally-recognized legal principle (in Latin) that all right-thinking lawyers are supposed to live by. The English translation means: “The law is hard but it is the law.”
So, to all and sundry, deal with it in whatever way you can, or else face the consequences. A law may cause some hardships for a particular individual, but it exists for the welfare of the community and the harmony it brings.
According to the Internet, the term “law” refers to a system of rules and guidelines that are enforced through established institutions to govern behavior in a society. People are expected to obey them, or else there would be anarchy in the streets; or a “to each his own” situation.
The last persons in the Philippines, I expect, who would go against the spirit of this legal dictum are Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Speaker Sonny Belmonte who head the Philippine Senate and the House of Representatives, respectively.
But here they are, agitating for a rebellion of sorts against the recent ruling of the Supreme Court limiting congressional representation to only ONE in the powerful Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) which gets to filter the nominees to positions in the judiciary, including the post of Chief Justice.
The SC stressed further that only a constitutional amendment would allow Congress to retain their current two votes in the body, which is probably why the 86-year-old legislator has of late been rabidly pushing Malacañang for Charter change.
Enrile and Belmonte should probably brush up on their law books.
It is plain as day (or can’t they read?) in the 1987 Constitution, Article VIII, Section 8 — “A Judicial and Bar Council is hereby created under the supervision of the Supreme Court composed of the Chief Justice as ex-officio chair, the Secretary of Justice, and a representative of the Congress as ex-officio members, a representative of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, a professor of law, a retired member of the Supreme Court and a representative of the private sector.”
Enrile, who will go down in the annals of Philippine history for leading the Senate in impeaching Chief Justice Renato Corona for alleged high crimes against the state, went as far as blaming the framers of the 1987 Constitution for their oversight in failing to consider the shift from a unicameral to bicameral legislature.
To which the high court had this reply: “It is indicative of what the members of the Constitutional Commission had in mind, that is, Congress may designate only one representative to the JBC. Had it been the intention that more than one representative from the legislature would sit in the JBC, the framers (of the Constitution) could have, in no uncertain terms, so provided.”
As a parting shot, lest there be any misinterpretation, it added: “Verba legis non est recedendum — from words of a statute there should be no departure.”
And Enrile, reputedly one of the most astute legal minds to have been born in this blighted land of ours, didn’t even pick this up?
The JBC, based on the literature we researched, is at present composed of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio (in place of impeached CJ Corona), Justice Secretary Leila de Lima (who has since been replaced by Undersecretary Michael Frederick Musngi of the Office of the Executive Secretary, one of the Aquila Legis fratmen convicted by the Caloocan City Regional Trial Court of homicide in 1993 in the celebrated Lenny Villa hazing case), Sen. Francis Escudero, Rep. Niel Tupas, Justice Regino Hermosisima (representing retired justices of the Supreme Court), retired Court of Appeals Justice Aurora Lagman (private sector), lawyer Milagros Fernan-Cayosa (Integrated Bar of the Philippines), lawyer Jose Mejia (academe), SC Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. (consultant), SC Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro (consultant), and SC Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez (consultant).
While several constitutional experts have noted that under the 1987 Constitution the JBC should really be composed of seven members with only with one representative coming from Congress, they said it has been the practice since 2002 to operate with two, one each from the House and Senate.
In rejecting the SC ruling that the House and Senate are entitled only to one vote in the JBC, Enrile said he found it quite discriminatory. “The only thing I can say is that if a retired Justice of the Supreme Court will have one vote, why shouldn’t a representative of either House of Congress have a vote?” he was quoted as saying.
Actually, he may just have a point there. Nevertheless, it’s dura lex sed lex.
Rep. Neil Tupas, chairman of the House justice committee, accused unnamed SC justices of “operating like a secret society and maneuvering to give insiders the advantage” in the selection of the next CJ. He described the ruling as “absurd.”
Can you now blame Philippine film makers for portraying congressmen as villains, scoundrels and crooks? Incidentally, who was that senator who referred to members of the House of Representatives as a bunch of “lawbreakers and thieves” in one spiel during the impeachment trial?