PH has slowest justice system in the world

By: Neal H. Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer

1:43 am | Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

Chief Justice Renato Corona was polite, while President Benigno Aquino III wasn’t in that encounter at the Justice Summit at the Manila Hotel last Monday. But who can deny that what the President said in his speech were all true?

Some say that the President’s message was right but it was delivered in the wrong place. He should not have done it at the summit where the Chief Justice was sitting only an arm’s length away from him, they say. What they mean is that Mr. Aquino should have said what he said when Corona was not present.

Don’t we have a tradition of not saying bad things against somebody who has his back turned? People who do this are considered cowards. “You have something to say, say it in front of me” is the challenge to anybody who criticizes somebody behind his back. Wasn’t that what the President did, which was to voice his criticisms in front of Corona and members of the Supreme Court and the judiciary.

P-Noy had the audience he wanted to hear his message right there. It was a good time to deliver it.

The President did appear rude, but would you rather have him tiptoe around the subject? That’s the trouble with our judiciary. Everybody is tiptoeing around them, not wanting to offend the magistrates and the judges, so that they have become so comfortable in what they have been doing.

We have the slowest justice system in the world. Cases take decades to finish. “Justice delayed is justice denied” does not mean anything anymore. Yet the judges and the Supreme Court which supervises the lower courts are not doing anything significant to hasten the administration of justice.

The unkindest cut is that the high court itself is the slowest in making decisions. It takes decades to make up its mind on cases appealed to it. Indeed, the tribunal is being used by lawyers who want to delay losing cases by filing petitions for certiorari. These petitions should be resolved quickly, but the high court sometimes takes years to resolve them, thus delaying resolution of the cases.

“If other countries can finish trials in a matter of months, why can’t we do that?” is the question most often asked by laymen fed up with the delay in their cases. And the usual answer to that is: “Ask the Supreme Court.”

I wish the President had also dwelt on the slow wheels of justice, instead of just centering on the “confusing” and “contradictory” decisions of the Court. But I guess he wanted to shock the Chief Justice and the magistrates out of their comfort zones and rouse them to do some soul-searching

I also wish that the Justice Summit will produce solutions to the other shortcomings of the justice system. But if the summit can help speed up the wheels of justice, half of the battle would have been won already.

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Why is the Arroyo camp asking for so many privileges? Now it is asking the Pasay regional trial court to allow her the use of laptops and cell phones while confined at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC).

Everybody should be equal under the law. How you treat a detained former president should be the same as how you would treat a detained ordinary driver. Already GMA got very special treatment when the court ordered her confined in the presidential suite of the VMMC. The suite was refurbished, the bathroom was overhauled, an automatic bed was provided for GMA, all at taxpayers’ expense. Now she wants computers and mobile phones.

When former President Joseph Estrada was confined in the same suite, he was not allowed the use of cell phones and laptops, either. Visitors were required to leave their mobile phones at the guardhouse so that they could not be passed on to him. Why should GMA be treated differently when she is accused of more serious crimes? Erap bore all the rules quietly and patiently. The GMA camp does nothing but carp and complain endlessly.

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At the Kapihan sa Manila at the Diamond Hotel last Monday, the lone guest, Sen. Koko Pimentel (the other guest, Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, was a no-show), chairman of the Senate committee on electoral reforms, said that the biometrics component of the automated election machines should be made an integral part of the system.

The biometrics component takes the picture, fingerprints and signature of the voter when he registers. These records are preserved in the system. When he shows up to vote on election day, these records are supposed to be retrieved and compared to the picture, fingerprint and signature of the voter present. If they are the same, he is allowed to vote. If they don’t match, the voter is supposed to be banned from voting. If the voter registered in two or more precincts, this will also show up in the computer records. That means he is a flying voter and won’t be allowed to vote.

I said “supposed” because it was not done the last time, according to Pimentel. But these rules should be followed in all future elections, he said. If that is done, at least one of the three methods of cheating—flying voters—would be eliminated. (The other two are vote buying and threats to voters, which cannot be prevented by automated election machines.)

Pimentel also favors the freezing of all the salaries, allowances, and other emoluments of elective officials against whom election protests have been filed—but only after a recount of the votes in pilot precincts shows that there really was cheating. The frozen emoluments will then be given to whoever is finally proclaimed the winner.

“That should discourage cheating,” he said. “Why would you cheat when you won’t be able to collect anything until you are declared the winner. If the other guy is proclaimed the winner, he gets the whole pot.”