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Under the charter therefore, the Supreme Court is endowed with the power of judicial review or the power to look into the acts and conducts of the Executive and Legislative branches of government and determine whether they are in conformity with the fundamental law of the land. In fact under the present charter, the SC can even look into the purely political acts of these two political branches of government and find out whether they are committed with grave abuse of discretion, or lack, or in excess of jurisdiction amounting to lack of jurisdiction.
When the Supreme Court exercises this power, it is not asserting its supremacy over the Executive and the Legislative branches of the government; it is merely upholding the supremacy of our Constitution, seeing to it that the “rule of law” still prevails in our democratic republic. Hence the Supreme Court has been correctly dubbed not only as the “highest court of the land,” the “court of last resort,” but also as the “last bulwark of democracy.”
Of course the Supreme Court can effectively exercise this power of judicial review only if its independence is guaranteed and safeguarded. And so the constitution likewise contains provisions for this purpose Among them are the fiscal autonomy it now enjoys and its administrative control over the Judiciary Development Fund.
Unfortunately, PNoy is now openly and blatantly undermining the supremacy of our charter and the rule of law as well as the SC’s independence and power to uphold such supremacy following his setbacks in the PDAF and the DAP cases. First, he publicly and contemptuously assailed the SC for declaring these pork barrel funds unconstitutional. Then as it now turns out, he has defied the SC ruling on the PDAF as revealed by two members of his cabinet in an executive session where they assured members of the House of Representatives that said pork barrel still exist. Lastly, he has instigated his allies in Congress to take steps to amend the charter for the purpose, among others, of clipping the the SC’s power of judicial review.
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