President Rodrigo Duterte should consider seniority in the Supreme Court when he appoints the next chief justice, Associate Justice Marvic Leonen said Thursday.
The post was left vacant following the ouster of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno through quo warranto proceedings on May 11.
Leonen, a known Sereno ally, said seniority was “a marker of experience” and “a marker of a person who knows his or her colleagues.”
He said he had a change of heart and now believed that the chief justice must be selected from the senior magistrates of the 15-member bench.
“Before I came to the Court, I thought that it [seniority] was not [needed in a chief justice]. But now that I have served close to six years in the SC, more and more I would think that seniority is a marker of something,” Leonen told ANC.
“Seniority is important because you mature as you are in a deliberative body. It is normal if you are new in a court, a collegiate court that you will feel threatened if somebody disagrees with you.
“I think that’s normal, but as you go along, you learn to sit back a little and listen and be able to discern the points. A chief justice must be able to do that 10 times over. Ten times more than the colleagues.”
Leonen, the youngest member of the high court at 55, said he was not interested in the post of chief justice and urged her senior colleagues to accept their possible nomination to it.
He said he did not have the “capacity or attitude” required to replace Sereno.
“You have to be able to find a middle ground, you have to have the gravitas to be able to bring the people to listen to each other and then later on come up with a decision,” he said.
“Right now, I am more concerned about convincing people about the standpoint that I am presenting.”
The Judicial and Bar Council opened the selection process for the post of chief justice on June 25 after the Supreme Court’s ousting of Sereno became final on June 19.
The five most senior magistrates of the Court”• Acting Chief Justice and Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Diosdado Peralta and Lucas Bersamin”•were automatically nominated for the top post as provided by JBC rules.
Carpio has already publicly declined his nomination, saying he did not want to benefit from Sereno’s ouster.
Velasco is set to retire next month while De Castro, Peralta and Bersamin are expected to accept their nomination just to satisfy the requirement in the law for at least three nominees for the vacancy.
Leonen believes all five senior justices of the high court are qualified for the post.