Duterte appoints CA Justice Rosmari Carandang as new SC justice

New Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Rosmari Carandang takes her oath of office before newly-appointed Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin on Wednesday, November 28. (Photo by Lloyd Caliwan via Phil News Agency/Twitter)

Court of Appeals (CA) Associate Justice Rosmari Carandang will be joining the high tribunal as she was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte to be the newest associate justice of the Supreme Court (SC), Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said on Wednesday, November 28.

According to Guevarra, a Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) ex-officio member, the Office of the Executive Secretary already released the appointment papers of Carandang.

Carandang, 66, will fill in the position vacated by Teresita Leonardo-De Castro when she was appointed by Duterte to replace ousted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. De Castro retired from her post last August.

The new SC associate justice will stay in the high court until January 2022, reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Carandang finished her law degree at the University of the Philippines (UP) as cum laude and class salutatorian in 1975.

Before she joined the CA in 2003, Carandang served as a presiding judge at the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) in 1994 and taught civil procedure at the Manuel L.

Quezon School of Law in 1999. She has also been teaching corporate law and land registration at the Philippine Christian University School of Law for eight years.

Carandang was not only Duterte’s latest appointee to the SC. Also on Wednesday, Guevarra confirmed that the President appointed Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin as the new Chief Justice.

[READ: PH new Chief Justice is Lucas Bersamin — Guevarra]

Bersamin was chosen over acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, and Andres Reyes, Jr., who also vied for the top magistrate post.

On Wednesday, Malacañang expressed confidence to the two justices, stressing that they “will continue to uphold judicial excellence, assert its independence and stand firm against erring members of the bench, the bar and court personnel as they lead the third branch of the government.”

“Both Justices belong to what PRRD calls ‘the best and the brightest’ as Chief Justice Bersamin placed 9th in the 1973 Bar Examinations, while Associate Justice Carandang also claimed the same spot in the 1975 Bar Examinations,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.