SUPREME Court Associate Justice Ramon Paul Hernando called on Thomasians to be guided by truth and justice amid the country’s “broken” justice system, in this year’s St. Thomas Moore lecture.
Hernando, a literature alumnus, said anyone in government is “prone to imperfections” and injustices.
“Truth transcends everything. You cannot possibly imagine a world without truth because that world does not exist,” he said during the lecture’s 51st installment on March 29.
Hernando stressed the importance of justice and truth coexisting, as one leads to another.
“Without truth, justice is a perversion of what [it] should [have been]. Truth is an instrument of change. [Its] role should be central to our lives,” he added.
Hernando also said practicing justice should not only be the job of a judge, but also of ordinary people.
He echoed the opening remarks of Artlets Dean Michael Anthony Vasco that a “society that does not practice justice is not a society at all.”
The UST alumnus was appointed magistrate of the Supreme Court last year. Prior to that, he was named associate justice at the Court of Appeals in 2010.
Hernando spent his freshman year at the UST Faculty of Civil Law but completed it in San Beda University’s College of Law.
The St. Thomas More Lecture was held at the Grand Ballroom of the Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, O.P. Building. It is an annual lecture-forum of the Faculty of Arts and Letters in memory of the English statesman and martyr, the faculty’s patron saint. with reports from Francis Agapitus E. Braganza
