1987 Constitution requires only 7 JBC members, SC justice tells Senator Arroyo

Senator Joker Arroyo. PHOTO BY MATIKAS SANTOS

MANILA, Philippines—The 1987 Constitution provides that there should only be seven members of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), a Supreme Court Justice told Senator Joker Arroyo on Thursday.

“The Constitution provides that there are only seven members of the JBC. The Supreme Court has no authority to add one more,” high court Associate Justice Jose Mendoza said during the oral argument on whether there should be one or two representatives from Congress at the JBC.

Under Section 8 Article 8 of the 1987 Constitution, the JBC shall be composed of “the Chief Justice as ex officio Chairman, the Secretary of Justice, and a representative of the Congress as ex officio Members, a representative of the Integrated Bar, a professor of law, a retired Member of the Supreme Court, and a representative of the private sector.”

But Arroyo, who is arguing for the Senate, the wordings of the Constitution is an inadvertence as admitted by its framers.

Arroyo said the wordings of Section 8, Article 8 of the Constitution were taken in the context of a unicameral system, when the country is shifting to a bicameral system.

Bicameral system is the system of government dividing the legislature into two Houses—the Senate or the Upper House and the House of Representatives or the Lower House.