Justices Boycott CJ Sereno’s First En Banc Session as SC’s Presiding Officer: Big Boys Behaving Like the Court is their Playground.

Justices Boycott CJ Sereno’s First En Banc as SC’s Presiding Officer: Big Boys Behaving Like the Court is their Playground.

CJ Sereno is not my personal choice for CJ, not because I discount her capability, but because the appointment had never ventured into this kind of excursion before: we have always predicted the most senior nominated associate justice to get appointed. That Pnoy’s appointment of her went against the long-running tradition should not be seen as politicking.

The constitution reserves to the president the power to appoint, from the shortlist of at least three nominees dutifully vetted by the multi-sectoral Judicial & Bar Council, who will lead the 15-man Supreme Court; the president did just that.

There should be no occasion to cry foul over the appointment, regardless of her (Sereno’s) record of voting on any case.

That the senior justices themselves had absented from Sereno’s maiden session as CJ portends of an ever factious Supreme Court. I can bet that people picture a grumbling bunch of justices protesting Sereno’s appointment like kids snatched of candies in their hands. The whole thing reeks of immaturity on the one hand, and belligerence against the appointing president, on the other.

Sadly, neither way augurs well for the Court that needs to restore its credibility, coming off a beating from the impeachment and eventual ouster of erstwhile CJ Renato Corona.

If the justices would be true to their professed allegiance to constitutional supremacy, they have to learn to respect the mechanism (president’s power to appoint) laid down therein regardless of their personal preferences.