Judicial appointment process; a lower level fine-tuning – Manila Bulletin

VIEW FROM THE COMB

Judge Arturo D. Brion, Registrar, Philippine Judicial Academy

My late father was an old counselor. He began as a justice of the peace, the term comes from the Juez de Paz of the old Spanish judicial system. He practiced as a lawyer in the morning, served as a justice of the peace in the afternoon and taught law in the evening. It was a difficult life, he earned just enough to support his growing family and send us to school.

His dream, my earliest memory of, was to become a magistrate, nothing higher than that. But even this humble dream kept escaping him, for my mother’s family were involved in local politics and my father was a trump card; he consistently refused to bow and so failed in this dream.

Soon he set higher goals and aspired to become a Court of First Instance (CFI), the precursor to the District Court or RTC judge. For a long time he tried with little success to attract the attention of politicians, who then had the say in judicial occupations. Things changed when the Court of Agrarian Relations (CAR) was established. He applied to the new court and succeeded, but his stop was San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, a distant land in those days of the sea voyage.

As soon as he got the job, he looked up at the Court of Appeals (CA), but that high post was beyond the reach of an attorney who had consistently stayed out of politics. Repeatedly I saw him travel to Manila to implore those in power, often with gifts of lanzones and macapuno sweets to attract attention and sympathy.

At some point he accepted his lot, happy to be an RTC judge after the CAR was merged with and absorbed by the RTC. But his earlier pursuit of a judicial position left him bitter; he then discouraged me from taking up the legal profession when my college days came. I finally prevailed through perseverance in a long and mostly uphill climb, which in retrospect was very beneficial.

All of these thoughts came to us as JBC’s J. Jose “Bambit” Mendoza and I discussed the changes Presiding Judge Gesmundo wanted to introduce to the judicial appointment process at the JBC and PhilJA levels, both of which he leads. The boss wants the selection to be open to all qualified, fair and accessible people, but strictly on the basis of merit, as the constitution provides.

The current process, to be fair, is an improvement over my father’s days and the years immediately prior to the 1987 Constitution. However, J. Bambit and I concluded that the nomination process could be improved at our level.

After long discussions on behalf of our respective Directors – the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) and the PhilJA – we agreed to propose a change of perspective to our respective offices based on the stated intentions of the Chief Justice and the experiences of my late father and others without political connections like he had experienced.

We vowed that, as Chief Justice Gesmundo instructed, we would do our best to ensure that all those qualified to serve are available to serve in the courts without the need for any intervention; this selection is made solely on the basis of earnings; and that the constitutional standards of competence, integrity, honesty and independence are observed at all times.

First, the Pre-Judicature Program (PJP) – the selection process through tests and training by the PhilJA – is now compulsory for all applicants to the judiciary. This is now an explicit JBC rule that PhilJA fully supports.

On the PhilJA side, the PJP is awarded at two levels – the 1st level would be for applicants to the 1st and 2nd level courts, while the 2nd level would be for the appellate courts, including the Ombudsman’s Office and Legal Education Committee .

PhilJA is to realign the current PJP to serve primarily as an electoral process and only secondarily as a training program. The right training should be completely different
Procedure that new judges must carry out in three phases: before they take office; within two years from taking office to taking office; and a compulsory continuing education process within a judge’s first five years of office. These are to be observed for all courts below the Supreme Court.

PhilJA evaluates all PJP applicants according to a qualitative system that describes the suitability of the applicants for the office of judge. The ratings must be excellent; Satisfactory; Average; Below average and unsatisfactory. All of this must be underpinned by appropriate explanations.

A Certificate of Completion is only issued to those who have received an “Average” rating. In order to receive an award from PhilJA for suitability for a judicial office, the rating must be “Satisfactory”. A rating is valid within three. as valid and current for judicial applications years from the assessed PJP.

I’m sure my late father would smile and nod his head up there (as he used to do with joys) if he learned that the son he didn’t want to be a lawyer somehow helped innovate in the judiciary to introduce appointment procedures.

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