In a statement, the SC said De Castro was sworn in as the new president of the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) and delivered her “Vote of Thanks” during an event in Arusha City in Tanzania in Africa.
According to the group, the IAWJ is a “non-profit, non-governmental organization whose members represent all levels of the judiciary who share a commitment to equal justice and the rule of law.” The organization is based in the US.
De Castro was chosen to become IAWJ president during the biennial convention of the IAWJ in London in May 2012. For the next two years, however, from 2012 to 2014, De Castro sat in a “president-elect” capacity. In those two years, Tanzanian Court of Appeals justice Eusebia Munuo served as president.
Now officially its president, De Castro will head the organization for the next two years from 2014 to 2016.
Accompanying De Castro during her oath-taking was her fellow SC Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe, the second most junior of the high tribunal’s 15 magistrates. De Castro, meanwhile, is the third most senior justice in terms of appointment to the SC.
Those who witnessed De Castro being sworn in as president were Tanzanian Chief Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, Second Vice President Seif Iddi of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, and National Association of Women’s Judges president Judge Blackbunne Rigsby.
The 65-year-old De Castro is now on her 39th year of government service, starting in 1973 as a law clerk in the Office of the Clerk of Court of the Supreme Court.
She was appointed associate justice in the Supreme Court in 2007, after stints in the Department of Justice as state counsel and later, assistant chief State counsel. De Castro first rejoined the judiciary as an associate justice of the Sandiganbayan in 1997, and became its presiding justice in 2004. —Mark Merueñas/KBK, GMA News
