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The chief spoke of the reforms the Court is undertaking. But the reforms are slowed down by the question of resources available to the judiciary. The Court’s share of the national budget has never yet exceeded decimal proportions; it has not reached one percent, and is in fact on a downtrend. Last year the judiciary received a 0.778 percent share from the national budget. It had originally proposed a budget of 1.225 percent of the 2015 national budget of P2.6 trillion.
Contrary to public perception, the Court has posted its collections on its website, and the audit reports on the judiciary’s expenditures are posted in the Commission on Audit website.
In its program of transparency, it has released through media announcements, the removal, disbarment, disqualification or suspension from office of judges, lawyers, notaries and court personnel, which are available on its website. The hope is that the announcements “create the chilling effect . . . to make judges and lawyers believe that it does not pay to do wrong, because this Court is seriously after cleansing the ranks of the bench and the bar of misfits and scalawags.”
Another reform initiated by the Court is making transparent the oral arguments before the Court by allowing the citizens to tune in to live and recorded audio streaming.
To give the public, including the press, more access to its Court system, the Sereno Court has piloted an electronic court system in Quezon City. By using the portal available in the lobby, the press can simply enter any name or case title in order to find its docket number, status, and assignment. In the future, this portal would be readily accessible through any internet access point, CJ Sereno said.
The electronic court system has allowed judges and clerks of court to manage their courts more efficiently. By the end of this year, there will be 286 e-court; these courts carry 25 per cent of the total case load nationwide.
On docket decongestion, there are around 600,000 pending cases in the first-and-second-level courts. The goal is to reduce that figure by 30 per cent in five years. To achieve this backbreaking case load, several reform programs and projects are being implemented with several more in the lifeline.
First, the Hustisyeah!Volunteer lawyers, law graduates and law students helped inventory court dockets to weed out dormant and dismissible cases, and formulate plans for their implementation. As of December 2014, some 33 Quezon City courts reduced their case load by 29.28 per cent, or from the 32,173 as of 2012, to 22,753 as of December 2014.
Second, the Enhanced Justice on Wheels (EJOW) program, chaired by Justice Mariano del Castillo, was started in 2004, and resulted in the dismissal of 3,885 cases, and the release of 8,355 prisoners.
A third is the passage of several Rules of Court to expedite proceedings in the resolution of cases. An example is the Amended Rule of Procedure for Small Claims Cases covering money claims that do not exceed P100,000 exclusive of interests and costs. One feature is the prohibition against the appearance of lawyers. The small Claims Procedures were developed to provide quick, simple and inexpensive means of dispute settlement in courts. A total of 74,019 small claims cases (as of December 2013) were recorded and identified from a survey of 184 provinces and cities and 695 courts. Of these cases, only 15 per cent remain pending. Small claims cases are disposed of within an average of 75 days.
There are other reforms being initiated in the Highest Tribunal today, giving us citizens the assurance that justice in this country is no longer justice- delayed-justice denied, but justice-fair- and-swiftly-resolved.
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