Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Antonio T. Carpio
Senior Associate Justice, Supreme Court cases. Clogged dockets impair social justice, hinder economic development, and erode public confidence in the Justice System and ultimately in the entire Government. Trials should ideally take not more than two years to finish. At present, 21% of trials take 2 to 5 years to finish, and 13% take more than 5 years to finish. On the other hand, cases should ideally be decided as prescribed by the Constitution: not more than 24 months for the Supreme Court, not more than 12 months for all other appellate courts, and not more than 3 months for all other 3 lower courts, all counted from the date of submission for resolution of the case. At present, the Judiciary does not fully comply with these timelines. Since public office is a public trust, the Judiciary must account to the public for the clogged dockets. 2. The solution to clogged dockets is a combination of measures to address case management, performance, procedural, case filtering, personnel, and judge-population issues. a. The Judiciary must adopt a computerized case management system (CMS) for all courts, from first level courts to the Supreme Court. The template for this CMS is the two-year old case management system of the Court of Appeals (CA), which is widely acknowledged worldwide as a success. PJ Andres Reyes of the CA estimates that by the end of this year 2012, the CA will comply with the constitutional directive that CA cases should be decided within 12 months from date of submission for resolution. We have to thank our development partner, the USAID, for their support in developing the software for the CMS of the CA. b. If the CA can do it - that is, comply with the constitutional directive - then all other appellate courts, including the Supreme Court, should be able to do it also. A CMS for trial courts, similar to the CA CMS, will be pilot-tested in all Quezon City trial courts before the end of this year. If successful, the trial court CMS will be deployed nationwide. The CMS will allow the CJ, PJ, the Court Administrator and the Deputy Court Administrators, to monitor online, and in real time, the caseload, aging, and the rate of disposition of cases of any judge or justice. The public can also find out the status of their cases by simply going to the website of the court. Right now, a litigant with a pending case in the CA can go to the CA website, type his case number, and instantly he will know if a decision or resolution has been issued, and if one has been issued, he can download a copy. A litigant can also go to the CA compound in Manila where there is a computer kiosk. The litigant can find out the status of his case by simply typing on the touchscreen of the computer kiosk the case number or title of his case. c. The Judiciary must adopt a simplified trial procedure for all trial courts. The present trial procedure, which is obsolete, cumbersome and time consuming, is a principal factor for the clogged dockets of the Judiciary. To eliminate clogged dockets, there has to be a sea change in how courts conduct trials. Even if courts can comply with the constitutional timelines in deciding cases submitted for decision, the trial of cases still drags on too long. The way forward is to adopt a simplified trial procedure patterned after the four existing special rules adopting simplified trial procedures, namely: (1) the Revised Rule on Summary Procedure which has been implemented by first level courts in certain cases for over ten years now, (2) the Interim Rules of Procedure Governing IntraCorporate Controversies which have been implemented by second level courts also for over ten years now, (3) the Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases adopted two years ago, and (4) the Rules of Procedure for Intellectual Property Rights Cases adopted last year. Sufficient jurisprudence has developed over these existing simplified trial procedures. It is high time to expand these simplified trial procedures to all civil cases. Thus, in all civil cases not presently governed by special simplified trial procedures, the direct testimony of witnesses shall be by affidavit only (except for hostile witnesses), subject to cross-examination by the adverse party. All affidavits of witnesses shall be submitted before the start of the trial. This alone will cut down trial time by at least one-half. Objections to questions will merely be noted by the judge, who anyway knows what testimony is admissible or not, unlike jurors in the jury system. Demurrer to evidence, motions to dismiss, motions for bill of
President Roan Libarios, Central Luzon Governor Olivia Velasco-Jacoba, other Governors and Officers of the IBP, fellow members of the IBP, my co-workers in the Judiciary and in Government, friends, a pleasant morning to you all. I wish to thank you for inviting me this morning. Your theme in this Convention - Promoting Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in the Justice System - is timely considering that the Judiciary needs to learn, and implement, the lessons from the recent impeachment of the former Chief Justice. These lessons pertain to integrity, transparency and accountability in the Judiciary. Of course, the Judiciary is only one of the pillars of the broader Justice System that includes the community as well as agencies of the Executive branch. This morning allow me to express my personal thoughts on Judicial Reform, which inevitably touches on integrity, transparency and accountability in the Judiciary. Judicial reform is always a work in progress, and the Judiciary must keep on building on past initiatives to address intractable problems as well as emerging ones. I shall discuss case decongestion, integrity and independence of judges, transparency and accountability in the Judiciary, infrastructure needs of the Judiciary, compensation of judges, court administration, and training and career path for judges. These are my personal thoughts, as I do not claim to speak for the entire Court. I. CASE DECONGESTION 1. The number one problem of the Judiciary is clogged dockets, arising from delays in trial, and delays in deciding
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II. INTEGRITY, INDEPENDENCE & ACCOUNTABILITY 1. Equally important as case decongestion is how to insure and maintain integrity and independence among judges and justices. The Constitution mandates that judges and justices must have integrity (probity) and independence, aside from competence. 2. The gatekeeper of integrity and independence is the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), which must insure that no one who does not possess integrity and independence gets into the list of nominees submitted to the President. If the JBC deems it necessary that nominees to the post of Chief Justice should execute bank waivers to verify their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN), and hence determine their integrity or honesty in declaring their assets, then the bank waiver requirement must also apply to all other applicants to the Judiciary. This is not an additional qualification for the office, but merely a tool to determine the integrity of the applicant, similar to the requirement to submit police, Ombudsman and court clearances. 3. Decisions of a judge or justice are the best evidence of the competence, integrity and independence of the judge or justice. A decision can reveal whether the judge or justice knows his law, whether a judge or justice has favored a litigant, and whether a judge or justice has a steely or wimpy decisional independence. Practicing lawyers can tell, from a collection of decisions of a judge or justice, whether the judge or justice has competence, integrity and independence. In constitutional cases,decisions or opinions of a justice can reveal whether the justice has decisional independence vis--vis the Executive or Legislative branches. Yet
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the JBC has not adequately evaluated decisions of applicants in screening nominees to the Judiciary. The JBC must give greater weight to decisions of applicants who seek promotion in the Judiciary. The IBP must make its own evaluation of the decisions of a judge or justice to assist the JBC in determining the competence, integrity and independence of applicants seeking promotion in the Judiciary. The IBP can submit its own evaluation thru its permanent representative in the JBC. In this way, the IBP will give practical and tangible meaning to the theme of this Convention - how IBP can help promote Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in the Justice System. Indeed, other groups with acknowledged competence in evaluating decisions of judges and justices, like law school faculties and professors, should submit to the JBC their own evaluation of decisions of applicants seeking promotion in the Judiciary. Law professors also have a permanent JBC representative who can articulate their evaluation. 4. Once a person is appointed judge or justice, the gatekeeper function is passed on to the Supreme Court, which has the constitutional power to discipline judges and justices of lower courts. The Supreme Court can create permanent administrative tribunals to handle administrative complaints against judges and justices, instead of the present ad hoc investigative bodies. This will expedite the resolution of administrative complaints. 5. The leaders of the Judiciary must lead by example. The successful organizations are those whose leaders lead by example. The leaders of the Judiciary, and I refer to the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, must be the embodiment of integrity and independence for the rest of the Judiciary to follow. Thus, the Supreme Court Justices should lead in complying with the law by disclosing their SALNs as mandated by the Constitution and the law. The Supreme Court has done this as part of the lessons learned from the recent impeachment trial. 6. The Judiciaryshould embrace transparency and accountability in governance by publishing its COA Audited Annual Reports, its collections and disbursements of the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF) and the Special Allowance for Judges (SAJ), as well as all other financial reports required by law. If you go to the Supreme Court website, you will see all these reports now posted online. This is part of the new transparency and accountability policy of the Supreme Court. This is really a nobrainer since all these financial reports are public documents. es. All courthouses to be constructed in the country should be patterned after these model courthouses, which incorporate all the design and equipment needed for an efficient and modern courthouse. 4. Internet connection for all courthouses is now a necessity. Access to the Supreme Courts E-Library will put at the fingertips of all judges nationwide all the jurisprudence and laws they need in writing decisions. The E-Library now contains, in full text searchable format, all Supreme Court decisions from 1901 to the present, as well as all laws from 1900 to the present. Supreme Court Circulars and Manuals can also be found in the E-Library. So are rules and regulations of all government agencies that are required to be filed with the U.P. Law Center before they can take effect. Decisions of the Supreme Court are uploaded to the E-Library within days from their promulgation. Every judge and justice will be provided with a USB 3G wireless thumbdrive that, once inserted in his laptop or desktop, will directly connect him to the Supreme Court website where he can access the E-Library. The trial judge can upload his monthly report of pending cases to the OCA section of the Supreme Court website. When the CMS of trial courts is deployed, the system can automatically upload to the OCA updates on pending cases and other data. The USB thumbdrive cannot be used to go to any website other than the Supreme Court website. The Supreme Court approved two weeks ago the procurement of the USB thumbdrives. We have to thank again the World Bank for its support in setting up the E-Library and in procuring the USB thumbdrives. Incidentally, the E-Library is a project that I initiated one year after I joined the Supreme Court. It involved scanning all decisions of the Supreme Court since 1901, as well as all laws since 1900. We scanned, whenever available, the original of Supreme Court decisions and the laws printed in the Official Gazette. IV. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS 1. There is a saying that to maintain a good judiciary, you must choose your judges well, but above all, you must pay them well. To choose our judges well, we have the JBC. But to pay our judges well, we have the salary standardization law, which does not distinguish between judges and non-judges. Under the SSL, judges and nonjudges have the same pay even if they do not have the same work and responsibility. So how do we resolve this issue of paying our judges well?
III. INFRASTRUCTURE 1. Adequate courthouses are necessary for the administration of justice. All appellate courts have decent and adequate courthouses, but not the first and second level courts. The existing Halls of Justice can accommodate only 22% of all existing first level courts, and only 51% of all existing second level courts. This glaring shortage of courthouses nationwide needs to be addressed. The annual GAA must provide a budget for a programmed construction, over the next decade, of more courthouses throughout the country. 2. The City of Manila, founded more than 440 years ago, with 104 trial courts, comprising more than of all trial courts in Metro Manila, still does not have a Hall of Justice today. It is really a shame that the capital city of the Republic does not have a Hall of Justice. The judges in the City of Manila continue to hold office and trials in cramped and dilapidated rooms and courtrooms. The construction of the Manila Hall of Justice must be revived as soon as possible. There is already a lot for the Manila HOJ titled in the name of the Supreme Court almost a one hectare lot at the back of the Manila City Hall. 3. With funding from the World Bank, the Supreme Court was able to construct two model courthouses. The first model courthouse, located in Lapu-Lapu City, was inaugurated in December 2007. The second model courthouse, located in Angeles City, will be inaugurated next week, July 5, 2012. The construction of these two model courthouses is part of the Judicial Reform Support Program initiated by former Chief Justice Hilario Davide in 2001. The third and last model courthouse should be the Manila Hall of Justice, which should be constructed once the funding is secured, hopefully with assistance again from our development partner the World Bank, whom we must thank for the first two model courthous-
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