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The Philippine justice system suffers from many problems. The Action Program for Judicial Reform (APJR), a multi-year action program designed to address the problems of the judiciary, identified several problems that need to be addressed.
These are :
1) case congestion and delay;
2) budget deficiency;
3) politicized system of judicial appointments;
4) lack of judicial autonomy;
5) human resource development issues;
6) dysfunctional administrative structure and operating systems;
7) insufficient public information and collaboration with society;
8) perceived corruption in the judiciary; and
9) perceived limited access to justice by the poor.
The lack of judicial autonomy can, to a great extent, be traced to inadequate funding and the politicization of the appointment process.
Without adequate funding, the judiciary is handicapped in its ability to exercise its full independence.
Likewise, the proliferation of politically motivated appointments compromises its ability to maintain objectivity and independence as well.
The judiciary, which is the third, independent branch of government, receives roughly less than 1% of the total national budget.
This is disproportionately small compared to the vital function it performs.
Because of this, the judiciary suffers from poorly paid magistrates resulting in a large number of vacancies in its roster of judges, dilapidated and/or deteriorating facilities, inability to invest in information technology to improve efficiency and case disposal, among many others.
The courts have had to turn to international aid agencies and donors to fund almost half of its reforms under the APJR.
The second branch of government, the legislature, on the other hand, is about one-fifth the size of the judiciary in terms of personnel, and yet has a budget that is approximately half the size of the judiciary’s. Proportionately therefore, the congress receives about 2.5 times the budget the judiciary receives.
The APJR identifies the politicized system of appointments to the judiciary as a major problem afflicting the court system.
The gatekeeper for the appointment process to the judiciary is the Judicial and Bar Council.
The responsibility for ensuring quality appointments starts with the JBC.
Once the JBC submits its shortlist to the president, there is no further vetting or screening process.
Therefore, the JBC plays a critically vital role in ensuring quality appointments to the judiciary.
The problem of judicial appointments has been noticed by many civil society groups. Bantay Katarungan, a justice-focused CSO, the Supreme Court Appointments Watch consortium and, more recently, the Bantay Korte Suprema consortium, have all focused their advocacies on the need to improve the JBC screening process.
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See - http://ateneo.edu/sites/default/files/anti-corruption_final.pdf
