By AMADO P. MACASAET
MALAYA
MALAYA
‘The Court sits tight, comforted or shielded by the belief that it is right even when it is wrong.’
An accepted truism is that the Supreme Court is right even when it is wrong. Its final and executory decision entered in the Book of Judgment is part of the law of the land no matter who benefits, no matter who gets hurt.
However, there is nothing in the law that justifies the impermanence of the minds of its members. Obviously recognizing its majesty in interpreting the Constitution and the laws the Court in the case of Pioneer Insurance vs. Keppel Philippines, a shipbuilding company based in Cebu, the Supreme Court went back on its word after making a final decision in favor of complaining insurance company and after denying two motions for reconsideration by the respondent.
What justified the reversal of the final ruling is nothing less than arrogance and grave abuse of discretion. The reversal, reducing the financial claim of Pioneer from P360 million to P50 million, ignored all tenets of good sense and the majesty of the law.
As it happened, the Court has its own definition of the supremacy of the law and the naked show of mindlessness for considerations only the majority can explain but wont since the Tribunal has no obligation to explain its rulings.
The Court appears to be completely immune to media criticism as its flip-flopping appears to be an accepted “doctrine.”
The immutability of a final decision is sacred. Violating it by reversal comes close to culpable violation of its own edict if not indeed the Constitution.
The majority that fortunately or unfortunately includes Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. Sereno gives us the feeling that the conviction of Chief Justice Renato C. Corona did not change the image or reputation of the Court.
On the contrary, his replacement who will spend 18 years may, based on the Pioneer vs. Keppel case, institutionalize flip-flopping as being all in a day’s work.
In this case, the question of which side was right or wrong hardly matters. The revolting part is reversing a decision proclaimed final but reversing it two years later.
The reason for reversal does not relate to admission of an error since a final judgment is correct even if it is in error.
Following its own thinking, the Court may, if it so desires and for reasons that do not necessarily border on the Constitution or the laws, reverse a reversal of a final decision. And nobody can complain.
There are two aspects of the decision that open the Court to unkind suspicion. First, as earlier said, is the utter lack of permanence of mind because the magistrates know they can only make mistakes but can never be wrong.
The irony of it all is it cannot make up its mind whether its final ruling is right or wrong, although it must be stressed that right or wrong, the final ruling is part of the law of the land.
When the Court cannot or refuses to decide which decision shall be part of the law – its final ruling entered in the Books of Judgment or its reversal – the Court may need a deeper self examination of itself.
In fact the reversal of a final edict may justify the examination of the minds of the Court by a shrink so that the state of such mind may be revealed to those who are affected, negatively or favorably by its final ruling that it can reverse. The court, it must again be stressed is not required to explain its decision. This is what the Court continues to abuse with complete abandon.
The Prudential case is the clearest example of the old saying that haste makes waste. Which is not exactly saying that the final and executory ruling was done in haste. It must have been carefully studied. Otherwise, the two motions of reconsideration which were denied should strengthen the first final ruling and the resolve of the majority that they did right!
But again right or wrong the final decision is considered right and becomes part of the law of the land.
What can happen if the Court for reasons known only to itself reverses its final decision for the third time? The Court did it twice before. A third reversal should be easier. Its decisions become a comedy of errors.
In this case the best lights of the majority are the darkest lights in the history of the Highest Tribunal whose members ignore the immutability of their two final judgments presumably made in their best lights but violated its own jurisprudence.
What can happen next we do not exactly know.
Flip-flopping has happened a few times before. The next should be much easier. That’s your Court. Our Supreme Court.
It is good for all of us particularly the members of the Supreme Court to take to heart what Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address. Paraphrased, he said “with malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness on the right as God gave us to see the right.”
In the Prudential vs. Keppel case the Court was never firm even if it was on the wrong. It might have had malice towards Prudential. It did not have charity for anybody. It obviously did not see the case in the light that God gave them. If they saw it at all, they saw it twice in two different contradicting ways.
The world will long remember what the Court did in the case, although the world may have forgotten what it said because it hardly said much beyond mangling its own decision twice.
How would a professor of law explain to his students the reason behind the Court’s oxymoronic mind in the Prudential case? The students will never understand it. The professor would be hard put explaining it.
Meanwhile the Court sits tight, comforted or shielded by the belief that it is right even when it is wrong. Twice right or twice wrong does not bother any of the magistrates in this case.
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email: amadomacasaet@yahoo.com
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