MANILA, Philippines?A Supreme Court spokesperson explained that two immediate past meetings of the Judicial and Bar Council were canceled because there were ?no urgent? matters to take up.

Court Administrator Midas Marquez said the JBC executive committee asked for the scheduled meetings to be canceled to give itself time to interview applicants for vacancies in the regional and municipal trial courts.

Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera, an ex-officio JBC member, complained the other day that the last two meetings of the council had been canceled without any reason.

Devanadera noted that there were numerous vacancies in the lower courts that cannot be filled until the JBC screens the applicants and submits its recommendations to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

?We can?t [speed up] the filling of vacancies if we don?t have meetings. I don?t know the reason why [the meetings] were canceled,? she said.

The eight-member JBC is a constitutional body that nominates appointees to the judiciary, from trial court judges all the way to the chief justice.

It is supposed to meet every Monday, but failed to meet for the past two weeks.

Marquez said the JBC will next meet on Monday, March 8.

The JBC is now caught in the middle of a constitutional dispute over President Macapagal-Arroyo?s announced intention to appoint the successor to Chief Justice Reynato Puno after he retires on May 17, even in the face of a constitutional ban against so-called midnight appointments.

The ban starts on March 10, or two months before the May 10 elections, and lasts up to the end of Ms Arroyo?s term on June 30.

Screening bets

Though the JBC has started the screening process for the next chief justice appointment, it has passed on to the high court the job of deciding whether Ms Arroyo can actually make the appointment without violating the Constitution.

Former Marcos justice secretary and solicitor general Estelito Mendoza, one of several petitioners asking the high court to rule in favor of Ms Arroyo?s right to appoint Puno?s successor, said Puno should not inhibit himself from the Supreme Court deliberations on the issue.

Puno earlier said he would inhibit himself from the deliberations on the various petitions, including one asking the high tribunal to compel the JBC to submit its shortlist of nominees to the President and to rule that the appointments ban does not cover the judiciary.

In a court manifestation, Mendoza said Puno was not disqualified from participating in the case even if he chairs the JBC, recalling how former chief justice Andres Narvasa was even the ponente in a 1998 case involving President Fidel Ramos? midnight appointment of two judges.

The Supreme Court invalidated the appointments of judges Mateo Valenzuela and Placido Vallarta because these fell within the election ban.

Mendoza said the present case involved substantially the same issue.

The militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) Tuesday filed its opposition to the petitions filed by Mendoza and another lawyer Arturo de Castro.

Meanwhile, the high court has ordered the JBC and the Office of the Solicitor General to comment within five days on a taxpayer?s petition filed by a certain John Peralta who argued in favor of Ms Arroyo?s appointment of the next chief justice.

Marquez said all other petitions for intervention and opposition were merely ? noted? by the Supreme Court during its full-court session Tuesday.

Aside from Devanadera, the four ex-officio JBC members are Puno who chairs the body and Sen. Francis Escudero and Quezon City Rep. Matias Defensor, chairs of the Senate and House committees on justice, respectively.

The other four members, who are all appointed by the President, are Regino Hermosisima Jr. as retired Supreme Court justice representative, law dean Amado Dimayuga representing academe, Conrado Castro representing the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, retired Supreme Court justice Aurora Santiago-Lagman representing the private sector.