President Arroyo will not to force any nominee vying to become the country’s next Chief Justice into respecting her appointing powers if he or she does not want to, according to a Palace official.

“We can’t do anything about it,” Cabinet Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a phone interview, a day after Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales said she was accepting the nomination to replace Chief Justice Reynato Puno only if the next President will make the appointment.

Morales, appointed by the President in 2002, is among the senior SC justices being considered by the Judicial and Bar Council as replacement for Puno, who retires on May 17.

Morales said in a letter to the JBC that the Constitution bans the President from appointing a Chief Justice two months before the elections, scheduled for May 10 this year.

Bello said he hopes other candidates for the SC top post would respect the President’s prerogative to make such appointment to avoid a vacuum in the leadership of the judiciary.

“If they are submitting their names, they are accepting the appointing authority of President Arroyo,” he said of the other possible replacements for Puno.

Three other senior Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, namely Antonio Carpio, Renato Corona and Antonio Eduardo Nachura, are also reportedly being considered as Puno’s possible successor.

Bello, a former justice secretary, maintained that the President can appoint the next Chief Justice only from the list of nominees submitted by the JBC. However, he admitted that if other nominees follow the position of Morales, there might be a problem.

“Our position is only nominees recommended by the JBC can be appointed by the President,” he said. “If he or she won’t accept the appointment, we cannot force them,” he added.

Bello likewise asserted that the President’s authority to appoint the next Chief Justice is not covered by the appointments ban, which takes effect two months before election day and the remainder of the president’s term.

On proposals by some groups for the President to let her successor pick the new Supreme Court Chief Justice, Bello said: “The President has the authority and the obligation to appoint the new Supreme Court Chief Justice.”

Fr. Joaquin Bernas, one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, earlier said the President would violate the Constitution if she appoints Puno’s replacement without the endorsement of the JBC.

Applicants have until February 4 to express interest for the Chief Justice position.