We can’t even begin to understand why qualifications for such lofty positions must be set lower.

It takes high education, mastery of the law, continuing legal education, great wisdom, and a little of everything else to sit in judgment of others.

Judges of regular courts and justices of higher courts decide not only the fate of the accused and the fortunes of businesses; they also define the destiny of a nation.          

And this requires another qualification – patriotism. In fact, judicial nationalism should be the foremost consideration in choosing magistrates.

And so we agree with and join three former chief justices of the Supreme Court in opposing  a proposal of Judicial and Bar Council member and Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. to ease qualifications for aspirants to judicial posts.

Former chief justices Hilario Davide Jr., Artemio Panganiban, and Reynato Puno, all ex-officio chairs of the JBC during their respective terms in the SC, agreed that the proposal of Tupas would be contrary to the purpose of having strict requirements for candidates.

“You cannot expect me to favor any amendment because I was the main proponent. I ordered the drafting of the Internal Rules of the JBC immediately after my assumption as chief justice in 1998,” Davide was quoted by a major broadsheet as saying in an interview with reporters at the SC.

On the contrary, he said such qualifications should even be raised.

The former ambassador to the United Nations believes that the requirements should even be strengthened to be able to have more qualified justices and judges and officials of the Office of the Ombudsman.

Panganiban agreed with Davide on this point, writing in a recent commentary that higher standards are needed instead of watering down judicial standards as it is stated in the 1987 Constitution that all members of the Judiciary should have “proven competence, integrity, probity, and independence”.

Toward this end, Panganiban asked Tupas to withdraw his proposal.

Puno echoed the same  call to the JBC in a recent interview: “On the contrary, the JBC should be stricter in the screening of aspirants for the judiciary.”

He further suggested that should Tupas’ proposal be allowed, the Council “should call a public hearing for a wider consultation with the stakeholders of the justice sector” .

Another JBC member Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, likewise expressed her reservation over the proposal of Rep. Tupas.

“To me, the proposal to relax the qualifications would not be good,” De Lima said.

She specifically opposed the idea of Tupas to give JBC the power to determine the gravity of a pending criminal or administrative case against an aspirant in deciding whether to allow his or her nomination to proceed.

“Practically, JBC would be preempting the decision of appropriate bodies handling the cases under that proposal,” she said.

The JBC is set to hold public hearings on Sept. 8, 9 and 12 to consult concerned sectors before deciding on the proposal.

Chief Justice Renato Corona, ex-officio chair of JBC, said they would hear the views of the stakeholders – Integrated Bar of the Philippines, law school deans, judges’ associations, prosecutors, Puno, Panganiban and Davide, former JBC member and Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and the public in general.

In a letter to Corona last month, Tupas specifically sought relaxation of this rule to give the JBC full discretion on whether or not an applicant will be nominated despite a pending criminal or administrative case against him.