Policing the ranks
In a number of cases, the Supreme Court has policed its ranks by dismissing justices of the Court of Appeals, RTC, and other inferior court judges – as misfits – with the forfeiture of service benefits and prohibition against their holding future similar positions.
True test
There’s one simple test, heavier than other credentials, if a member of the judicial branch deserves to continue dispensing justice to others. And that test is: Is the judge or justice morally fit to keep his high office of protecting justice.
Since the reorganization of the Supreme Court on June 11, 1901, not one of the American and Filipino justices was ever questioned for his moral uprightness or lack of it.
Board and lodging
In the late 1940s, there was an attempt to file impeachment proceedings against Justice Gregorio Perfecto on one ground: Being physically handicapped, he preferred to live in his Supreme Court office/quarters. His mental/moral fitness was not put to a test.
The attempt to impeach Perfecto for sleeping and eating in his office without paying board/lodging costs did not prosper. The House members had second thoughts if this conduct could fall under “other high crimes.”
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