Chief Justice Renato Corona. INQUIRER PHOTO
Impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona on Monday called on law graduates to rally behind him in defending the Supreme Court and the judiciary against purported attempts to make them subservient to the executive department.
Addressing the commencement exercises of Philippine Law School, Corona reminded the graduates that judicial independence did not only refer to freedom from the influence of the legislative and executive branches, but also the judiciary’s “unhampered freedom to render decisions without political pressure or outside influence.”
“The judiciary has been at the receiving end of continued and relentless attacks on its independence, from media-bashing to budgetary cuts and impounding, to impeachment and unending threats of impeachment,” he said at the Philippine International Convention Center.
“All these have only one purpose, and that is to create a compliant and malleable judiciary,” he said.
Without naming President Benigno Aquino III, Corona said not even senior government officials could enforce what they believed was the rightful interpretation of the law.
“The foundation of our laws is the Constitution. The interpretation of the laws and the Constitution is the proper and peculiar province of the courts,” he said.
“It is indeed unfortunate that there are those, some even in the higher echelons of government, who refuse to acknowledge the role of the judiciary to uphold the supremacy of the Constitution.”
Corona said as future lawyers, law graduates must live up to their vow “to serve the law, to obey the law and to inspire others to respect it.”
“It would then be our duty as members of this noble profession to wield the law not as an instrument of deceit and oppression, but as a social apparatus for the common good,” he said.
Corona insisted he was innocent of the charges of culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust, saying, “I have done no wrong to anyone nor ever violated my oath as a magistrate.”
“In my heart of hearts, I am fighting for democracy and the preservation of the fundamental freedoms that guarantee the preservation of our way of life,” he said.