Category Archives: Supreme Court

September 20, 2011 · 03:39

Judicial facelift

The Indonesian Supreme Court recently issued a regulation that would organize the court into five chambers and permit consultations on cases within chambers. According to Sebastiaan Pompe in The Jakarta Post, the Court is framing this reform as a way to handle its caseload. However, Pompe rightly questions whether separate chambers will improve the quality of adjudication. In particular, he notes that the regulation will allow religious judges to sit on civil cases, including complex commercial transactions. Moreover, nothing in the regulation mentions giving the Court the power to refuse to hear cases, even though that particular reform does seem to have been discussed in the DPR. Sadly, Pompe concludes that this new regulation might simply be a way for the Supreme Court to extend its control over lower court judges.

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September 19, 2011 · 20:10

A new issue for Myanmar’s Supreme Court – the environment

I’ve often mentioned Myanmar’s Supreme Court on this blog in the context of judicial independence and political opposition. Recently, several Burmese environmentalists and politicians brought a petition before the Court asking it to halt the Myitsone Dam in Kachin State. It seems the plaintiffs are asking the Court to order the government to release more information about the proposed impacts of the dam (writ of quo warrant) and to halt construction of the dam until a cost-benefit analysis is conducted (writ of prohibition). According to Mizzima, independent MP Win Cho said, “If MPs cannot get real information about the Myitsone Dam construction and the possibility of the extinction of Irrawaddy River before the parliament ends, we will file suit.”

I don’t recall any other cases in the Burmese Supreme Court quite like this one. However, it does coincide with National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent emphasis on environmental issues. Indeed, Joshua Kurlantzick, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, recently proposed that environmental issues would be a safer issue for Burma’s political opposition. However, I don’t yet have any idea how the Supreme Court treats environmental issues or whether this petition will have more success. While environmental issues might not be as controversial as political prisoners, the political elite will likely not permit challenges to flagship infrastructure projects to be litigated in court.

UPDATE: It seems the government is split on the Myitsone Dam issue as well, with Thein Sein opposing it. Irrawaddy has an article highlighting some of the interesting – albeit heresy – debate.

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Filed under Burma, environmental, Myanmar, Supreme Court

September 16, 2011 · 18:20

New Philippine SC justice

Yesterday, President Aquino appointed Court of Appeals Justice Estella Perlas Bernabe to the Philippine Supreme Court (for more on her background, see this PhilStar article). Aquino’s already appointed three justices, but he’s not yet at the point of changing the Court’s ideological composition. One of the retirees, Carpio-Morales (now the Ombudsman), was a strong opponent of the Arroyo administration and the lone dissenter in de Castro v. JBC. The other was Eduardo Antonio Nachura, who was seen as supporting of Arroyo. All 12 of the other justices were appointed by Arroyo, although some like Carpio have been known to rule against her. Also, few of the other justices will reach the official retirement age of 70 before Aquino’s term ends in 2016.

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August 21, 2011 · 16:36

Clearing up the backlog

The Indonesian Supreme Court docket is notorious for its backlog. According to The Jakarta Post, there were 22,315 cases pending before the court just in 2010. Of those, the court only adjudicated 13,885, leaving the rest for the remaining year. Now, the Supreme Court recently announced that it would organize itself into five chambers in order to handle the large caseload and allow judges to develop expertise in particular fields of law. The chambers will cover civil, criminal, religious, administrative, and military law. I certainly hope this reform tames the court’s docket. However, the Supreme Court still doesn’t possess control over its docket and lacks discretion to reject appeals – the one reform that is almost guaranteed to reduce its caseload.

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August 17, 2011 · 21:28

Appointing Homogeneity

I’ve posted several articles criticizing the Philippine Supreme Court. One aspect I haven’t covered is the background of the justices themselves. In a new article in the Asian Journal of Comparative Law, Dante B. Gatmaytan and Cielo Magno argue that the justices overwhelmingly come from the same socioeconomic class. In fact, over 75% were graduates of the University of the Philippines. Moreover, all of the presidents since Marcos have drawn from this same pool, with little statistically significant difference between them on most factors.

Interestingly, some groups in the Philippines have proposed raising the threshold for disqualification for applicants to the Supreme Court. The proposal would allow more and more diverse candidates to apply. However, in a speech to the Judicial and Bar Council, Chief Justice Corona rejected the reforms as simply encouraging underqualified to waste the committee’s time.

Of course, one underlying question is how much diversity should be on the bench? As Ran Hirschl argues, more so than the political branches of government, judiciaries tend to attract lawyers with elite, non-populist backgrounds. Moreover, when political leaders face pressure from the bar and legal advocates, they also face pressure to appoint highly qualified individuals. These requirements already impose several filters on the types of individuals who reach the supreme court. Indeed, on the U.S. Supreme Court, despite the increased gender and racial diversity, all of the sitting justices attended Harvard or Yale…

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Filed under appointments, Philippines, Supreme Court