Speeches, perception and credibility.

Speeches are a politician's tool. Unassailable conduct - this is the tool of a magistrate. When a justice is reduced to giving speeches, nay reduce to defending one's own decisions and conduct in public, maybe it is high  time to leave the hallowed halls of his chamber. His being compelled to take the rostrum signifies that the bench which he should keep untarnished had been desecrated by his alleged questionable conduct truth or perceived. 

The barrage of criticism deafening and  verbalized by the person holding the highest elective office of the land  is not an empty tirade or  just a whine of a person who lost Haceinda Luisita, it is a statement that he and the public he represents no longer believes that the magistrate possesses one of the necessary qualifications of a judge. Impartiality.

The president's attack on the Chief Justice anchored on the CJ's midnight appointment and his consistent concurrence with all the decisions favoring GMA is part of the democratic process. It was neither an unbecoming conduct for a president nor divisive one. It was a calculated political move to  start the ball rolling for the CJ's impeachment which indeed happened.

The 'cloak of immunity from criticism' of the judiciary in order to maintain the rule of law is not one that could not be pierced. The respect for the judiciary does not emanate from the fact that they could not be criticized but from the fact that they are perceive as the ones who dispenses justice with cold impartiality.

The impeachment of the CJ is not an attack on the Supreme Court. It is an attack on the CJ himself as a person. It questions his qualifications. It questions his impartiality.

The President may have been calloused in his choice of venue and how he made his thoughts public but at least he had the guts to do so. He is a politician and he can get away with bad manners. Heck what he did was to remove the concept of separation of powers and check and balance from the books and callously displayed it on television. 

Justices, ideally however should be stoic.  They should be the epitome of  a well bred person. They should be  gentlemen and perceived as gentlemen. They should not be delivering speeches defending themselves that is and should be the role of the PR man.