August 2012

JUDICIAL REFORM IN THE PHILIPPINES

[Speech delivered during the Central Luzon Regional Convention of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, June 29, 2012]

Antonio T. Carpio
Senior Associate Justice, Supreme Court

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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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

IBP: Celebrating 40 years, 1973-2013

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

The Bar Tribune

particulars, motions for reconsideration, motions for extension of time to
file pleadings,and petitions for certiorari, prohibition and mandamus against
interlocutory orders, shall be prohibited, as they are now prohibited in the
four existing special rules adopting
simplified trial procedures.The judge
shall take active part in questioning
witnesses. After trial, the parties shall
submit their respective memoranda
of facts and law, which the judge may
adopt, in whole or in part, in writing his
decision.
The simplified trial procedure in
these four existing special rules can
be combined with the Guidelines for
Litigation now being pilot-tested in Quezon City trial courts, which simplify
further the trial procedure in the four
existing special rules on simplified trial
procedures.
In criminal cases, the simplified
trial procedure in the Revised Rule on
Summary Procedure, which already
applies to crimes where the imposable
penalty is arresto mayor or lower, can
be applied to crimes where the imposable penalty is prision correccional.
The great majority of pending cases in first and second level courts are
criminal cases, constituting 80% of all
pending cases. Delays in the trial of
criminal cases are largely due to the
absence of prosecutors, the absence
of public defenders, or the absence
of prosecution witnesses. While these
factors are beyond the control of the
Judiciary, they contribute most to the
congestion of court dockets. The Judiciary will have to work closely with the
Executive branch to address this important issue.
d. The Judiciary must strengthen and
expand
court-annexed
mediation
(CAM) and judicial dispute resolution
(JDR), which filter cases and ensure
that only cases that cannot be amicably
settled go to trial. This means setting
up more mediation units, and training
more judges on judicial dispute resolution. The figures are very encouraging:
out of 209,165 civil cases mediated
as of May 2012, the success ratewas
63.76%; and out of 23,979 civil cases
placed under judicial dispute resolution
as of May 2012, the success rate was
39.53%. Judicial dispute resolution is a
second layer filtering mechanism as it
applies to cases where mediation has
failed. In effect, mediation and judicial
dispute resolution, which now apply to
almost 80% of all first and second level courts, can filter out 78% of all civil
cases filed with first and second level
courts. Mediation and judicial dispute
resolution are huge successes in the
battle to decongest the dockets of trial
courts.

e. The Judiciary must work for legislation that makes appointment to trial
courts by level of court, not by specific
branch. Right now, an MTC judge who
wants to transfer as an MTC judge to
a neighboring city or municipality must
go through another appointment, as if
he is applying for the first time. This
means he must again be nominated by
the JBC and appointed by the President, just to be an MTC judge again
in a neighboring city or town. Every
time a judge makes a lateral transfer like this, he accumulates political
debts, which weaken his independence.
In the Executive branch, a bureau
or regional director can simply be assigned from one station or region to
another by the department head without need of a new appointment from
the President. This should also be the
case in the Judiciary. Once appointed
a first or second level judge by the
President, the judge can be assigned
by the Supreme Court to a particular
branch within the same court level.
The Supreme Court should be able
to assign and reassign judges within
the same court level based on the
caseload of courts, and the need for
lateral advancement of judges.
f. A high vacancy rate in the position
of judges in trial courts naturally contributes to clogged dockets. At present, the overall vacancy rate in first
and second level courts is 25.6%. This
includes unfunded and unopened trial
courts. The vacancy rate in funded
and opened trial courts, or existing
trial courts, is 22.4%. These vacancy
rates are quite high, exacerbating the
already clogged dockets. The vacancy
rate in existing trial courts should ideally be less than 5%, to account only for
the time needed to fill vacancies arising
from normal retirements, promotions
and resignations. In the United States,
the vacancy rate in existing federal
district courts is currently at 10%, and
they are already talking of a judicial crisis or emergency. The JBC will have to
find ways to reduce the vacancy rates
in first and second level courts.

cases per first level judge, in Makati

1,167 cases per first level judge, and
in Taguig 1,161 cases per first level
judge. Clearly, there is a need to reengineer the distribution of courts in relation to population to insure an equitable distribution, and faster disposition,
of cases. This re-engineering requires
legislation.

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.

g. The number of courts in a locality

must follow a judge to population ratio.
Manila, with a population of 1,652,171,
has 30 first level courts, or a ratio of
one first level judge for every 55,072
residents. Makati, with a population of
510,383, has 7 first level courts, or a
ratio of one first level judge for every
72,911 residents.
Taguig, with a population of
644,473, has only 1 first level court, or a
ratio of one first level judge for 644,473
residents. This disparity is reflected in
the caseloads of first level courts: in
Manila, the average caseload is 242

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

IBP: Celebrating 40 years, 1973-2013

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August 2012
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.

parency and accountability policy of

the Supreme Court. This is really a nobrainer since all these financial reports
are public documents.

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.

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 trans-

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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IBP: Celebrating 40 years, 1973-2013

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?

The Bar Tribune

2. A new law, RA No. 9946, makes the
monthly pension of retired judges
equivalent to the salary of incumbent
judges. So when incumbent judges get
a salary increase, the monthly pension
of retired judges, which is tax-free, also
gets the same increase. There is also
the SAJ under RA No. 9227, which
entitles judges to a monthly allowance equivalent to 100% of their basic
monthly salary. While the best compensation and benefit packages are
those given to officials in government
financial institutions, judges are better
compensated compared to government officials in the regular executive
departments. Even then, the Supreme
Court must continue to find ways to
improve the compensation package of
judges and justices.
3. LGUs give judges in their areas monthly allowances. This may give rise to a
conflict of interest or weakened independence on the part of judges when
the LGU or its officials have cases before these judges. In one case, LGU
officials withheld the monthly allowance when the LGU lost a case before one of the judges. To remove this
conflict of interest issue, one province
decided to give a monthly lump sum
to the Supreme Court, for the Court
to allocate to the judges in that province. This should be the template for
all financial assistance to be given by
LGUs to judges - the financial assistance should be given direct to the Supreme Court for the Court to allocate to
judges stationed in the particular LGU.
V. ADMINISTRATION OF TRIAL
COURTS
1. First and second level courts nationwide are administered by the Office of
the Court Administrator (OCA), which
is under the Supreme Court. The OCA
is centralized in Manila and there are
no decentralized offices in the regions,
other than the now defunct pilot Regional Court Administration Office
(RCAO) in Region VII. The Judiciary is probably the only government
agency, with extensive operations in
all regions nationwide, that has not
yet regionalized. You can just imagine
the problems, in terms of logistics, finance, maintenance, and personnel, in
administering all trial courts nationwide
from one central office in Manila.

the difference that instead of holding

office in Manila, the DCAs will hold office right in their areas of jurisdiction.
In short, we simply station the DCA
for Mindanao in Davao City and the
DCA for Visayas in Cebu City, along
with their immediate staff. The DCAs
can visit the trial judges more often and
know their problems better. They can
also attend to these problems faster.
Problems on maintenance of courthouses and the requisition of supplies
can be addressed immediately without
bringing the problem to Manila. Paperwork, like travel authority, leave of
absences of judges, or acceptance of
resignations of court employees, need
not be approved in Manila as what is
happening now.
3. In the future, if there is a need to decentralize further the OCA, RCAOs can be
established gradually starting in faraway regions. There is no need, however, to regionalize immediately the
OCA. We can first simply physically
locate the DCAs right in their areas of
jurisdiction. There is one vacant DCA
now and another one will be vacant before the end of the year. By changing
the job description of two DCAs, one to
be stationed in Mindanao and another
in the Visayas, we can expeditiously
decentralize the OCA into three areas
- Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Court appoints the clerks of court.

2. The Philja can expand the Pre-Judicature Program into a one-year masteral
degree course open even to new lawyers. You do not have to go abroad to
get a masteral degree from a prestigious institution. The Pre-Judicature
Program of Philja will be more relevant
to practicing lawyers than masteral
courses abroad. Those who complete
the course can be employed as clerks
of courts in first and second level court.
Right now, clerks of court of first level
courts do not have to be lawyers. With
this program, new lawyers can see a
clear career path in the Judiciary starting with the Pre-Judicature Program.
This will follow the practice in other
countries that provide a career path
in the judiciary for lawyers as soon as
they pass the bar.

1. There are many who have passed the

very tough Pre-Judicature Program
of the Philippine Judicial Academy
(Philja). However, they have not been
employed in the Judiciary. The JBC
rules provide that those who pass the
Pre-Judicature shall enjoy preference
in the selection of nominees for vacancies in the lower courts. But many of
them are not appointed as judges even
if they are included in the JBC list submitted to the President. The Supreme
Court can give them preference in the
appointment of clerks of court, which
will give them more preparation for
appointment later as judges. This can
easily be done since the Supreme

I said earlier that the Judiciary must

learn the lessons from the recent impeachment trial. These lessons touch on
integrity, transparency and accountability.
But beyond these, the Judiciary must also
address other pressing problems besetting the Judiciary, like clogged dockets,
inadequate infrastructure and facilities,
the need for competitive compensation for
judges, over-centralization of court administration, and the need to provide training
and career path for judges. I am happy to
share with you this morning my personal
thoughts on Judicial Reform, involving
ideas accumulated from more than a decade of service in the Supreme Court, and
from knowledge acquired in implementing, observing or studying Judicial Reform
programs, in the Philippines and in other
countries. I share these thoughts with you
because Judicial Reform is too big to be
undertaken by the Judiciary alone. Judicial Reform can happen only with the cooperation of all stakeholders in the Justice
System the Judiciary, the Executive and
Legislative Branches, the Bar and the
public. All stakeholders must work earnestly together because a well-functioning
Judiciary is essential for good governance
and for the economic development of our
country. Judicial Reform is simply too important to fail. Thank you, and once again,
a good day to all.

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13

VI. TRAINING AND CAREER PATH FOR

JUDGES

2. The OCA used to have one DCA for

Mindanao, and another DCA for the
Visayas. Today, the DCAs are assigned to a mix of regions nationwide,
which means they travel to regions in
Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, while
holding office in Manila. The OCA
should go back to the old set-up, with