THERE is a growing awareness an the urgent need for reform in our judicial system and the matter is coming to a boil. The first step to solving a problem is to realize that there is a real problem, and the harshest criticism has come from the ranks of the judiciary itself. Listen to this.
“In the Philippines the turtle is the symbol for the justice system; not only it is slow, it is arguably ‘selective’, vanishing in and appearing out of its shell at whim. More disturbing is the negative mindset of the populace: A threat to sue is no longer a threat of retribution, but a joke. Worse, the agency actors themselves have become steeped in apathy: Nothing can be done, the system simply does not work. Rather than provide ‘security’ and ‘protection’, the people view the justice system as an incomprehensible maze, which is riddled with traps and obstacles that hinder their guest for justice”
This is the blunt observation of Court of Appeals (COA) Justice Monette D. Singh, officially the Supreme Court briefer on judicial reform. She was in frank conversation early this month with a small group of business and financial practitioners and lawyers, who had judicial reform in their mind.
Justice Singh knows whereof she speaks. She practiced law for 10 years before joining the judiciary in October 2002 as presiding judge, then executive judge of the Metropolitan Trial Court in Quezon City, and, later, as presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City in June 2007, until her promotion to the CA in March 2014.
She spoke of the myriad problems of court in case congestion she encountered. To her credit, while judge in Quezon City, she had reduced her inherited docket from some 4,500 to only 892 active cases, when she was promoted to the CA. While she narrated the many problems, she was as quick to identify the solutions and the actions being undertaken to address the situation.
We shall defer discussing the solution or remedial actions in today’s column, but will just focus on the apparent causes of the problem—that we may, hopefully, understand that there are things beyond the Judiciary’s effective control.
There are four factors contributing to the problem, Justice Singh says. First, there’s Batas Pambansa 129 (1980), which reorganized the courts into geographical judicial districts. A judge is appointed to a specified branch in the judicial district and, if the exigencies require it, he or she may not be assigned to perform duties out of the assigned judicial district. There is really no administrative flexibility to redeploy judges in other judicial districts, where there might be a temporary or permanent need.
Nationwide, the case court was 611,505 as of March 2013, in the dockets of 2,187 trial Courts around the country, but the distribution of cases is uneven. One study concludes that 200 cases is the ideal load per judge at any given time.
A second factor is the sheer increase in our population, now over 100 million. The universe of potential litigants arising from an expanded number of potential disputants is a reality we cannot ignore.
A third factor is the set of archaic rules of court procedure still being followed. Anyone who has been in a court trial will readily note how tedious the way witnesses are questioned by lawyers on both sides, and how evidence is presented. This is largely because our trials in court are adversarial, where the judge acts as a mere referee, when a judge could, as in other jurisdictions, be inquisitorial and be more active probing with his own questions to guide the proceedings. There are, in fact, unnecessary steps that could be cut out of the trial.
And a fourth factor is the fact that the judge has the dual responsibilities of adjudicative and administrative functions, a burdensome situation that detracts from the main tack of deciding cases. Justice Singh recalls having herself check the mails to be assured Court notices have been issued and receive properly and on time by registered mail. In other jurisdictions, the judge is spared the administrative details of court management. So personal time is focused on studying the case, making a fair judgment and writing a good decision.
This narrative attempts to provide a context by which to appreciate the big picture of the problems of the Judiciary. Admittedly, it is limited and certainly is not a basis for excuses about deficiencies in the judicial system.
But there is good news we shall share in subsequent columns.