page_title: George A. Malcolm
section_title: Supreme Court Justice
hierarchical_section_title: George A. Malcolm / Supreme Court Justice
caption_attribution_description: English: Silver painted bronze bust of George A. Malcolm, Philippine jurist, in Malcolm Square, Baguio City, Philippines
context_page_description: George Arthur Malcolm was an American lawyer who emerged as an influential figure in the development of the practice of law in the Philippines in the 20th century. At age 35, he was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, where he would serve for 19 years. His most enduring legacy perhaps lies in his role in the establishment of the College of Law at the University of the Philippines.
context_section_description: In 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson appointed Malcolm to sit on the Philippine Supreme Court. At age 35, he was the youngest person ever appointed as Justice to the High Court. He would serve in the Court until 1936, when he was forced to retire upon the enactment of the 1935 Constitution, which limited Supreme Court membership to Filipinos. Upon his retirement after 19 years, Malcolm had written 3,340 opinions for the Court.
  Several of Malcolm's opinions for the Court remain influential to date. In Villavicencio v. Lukban, 39 Phil. 778 (1919), he spoke for the Court in granting the writ of habeas corpus to counter the deportation of prostitutes to Mindanao as ordered by Manila mayor Justo Lukban. In Villaflor v. Summers, 41 Phil. 62 (1920), Malcolm wrote that a judicial order compelling a woman to submit to a physical examination to determine if she was pregnant did not violate the constitutional proscription against self-incrimination. In Borromeo v. Mariano, 41 Phil. 329 (1921), and Concepcion v. Paredes, 42 Phil. 499 (1921), Malcolm authored opinions that shielded the members of the judiciary from the diminution of their powers by legislative action. In Alejandrino v. Quezon, 46 Phil. 83 (1924), the Court through Malcolm ruled it had no power to reverse the suspension of a senator by his colleagues in the Senate. In Government v. Springer, Malcolm refused to affirm the law that granted the Senate President and Speaker of the House the right to vote shares in a government corporation, citing that such authority did not fall within the functions of the legislature. Malcolm's opinion would be affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States upon appellate review, 277 U.S. 189 (1928), though the dissent therein of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. proved more memorable in time, with its eloquent pronouncement that "[t]he great ordinances of the Constitution do not establish and divide fields of black and white. Even the more specific of them are found to terminate in a penumbra shading gradually from one extreme to the other."
  Malcolm's majority opinion in Rubi v. Provincial Board, 33 Phil. 660 (1919), remains controversial to date. The Court therein affirmed a provincial government resolution directed at the Mangyan ethnic minority, requiring the confinement of members of "non-Christian tribes" to a specially created reservation. Likening the plight of the Mangyan to that of Native Americans, the Court classified the Mangyan as "wards of the Filipino". "By the fostering care of a wise Government, may not these unfortunates advance in the "habits and arts of civilization?" Would it be advisable for the courts to intrude upon a plan, carefully formulated, and apparently working out for the ultimate good of these people?"
  In Baguio housing the summer quarters of the Supreme Court, the city square on Session Road near the public market is named Malcolm Square in his honor, and a bronze bust of Malcolm is located in the square.
caption: Bust of George Malcolm in Baguio City
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