EDITORIAL - Laggard in justice

Here’s a subject for New Year’s resolutions in one branch of government: Prosperity Data360 drawn up by the World Bank for 2024 showed that in terms of access, efficiency and overall quality, the Philippine justice system is below par both regionally and globally. The quality of the legal system plays a key role in national prosperity.

The World Bank’s Justice Snapshots per country, released on Dec. 23, gave the Philippines a score of just one out of four in terms of the observance of due process in civil and criminal cases – lower than the global average score of 1.92 and regional average of 2.22. In terms of independence of the judiciary, the Philippines scored two out of four – also lower than the global average of 2.09 and regional average of 2.41.

The World Bank noted that in 2019, the Philippines placed 110th among 141 countries in the sub-indicator of judicial independence in the Global Competitiveness Index drawn up by the World Economic Forum.  In the same index, the country ranked 109th in terms of efficiency of the legal framework in settling disputes.

Citing another indicator, the World Bank noted the Philippines’ negative score of 0.5 in terms of transparency and predictability of laws and their enforcement – again below both the global and regional averages – in The Liberal Democracy Index prepared by the Varieties of Democracy Project.

Meanwhile, in the Freedom in the World report prepared by Freedom House, the country scored a low one out of four in ensuring equal treatment of different population segments under the law, judicial policies and practices. The score was below the global average of 1.82 and regional average of 2.06.

Few people will dispute the assessments of the World Bank on the Philippines’ legal system. The weakness of the system has been a major hindrance to national competitiveness and development. It is one of the reasons why the country has fallen from its perch half a century ago at the top of the heap in Southeast Asia in terms of economic prosperity and human development indicators. Today the country lags behind the four other original founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and, increasingly, even ASEAN latecomer Vietnam.

Some reforms have been implemented in the judiciary and prosecution services in the past years, but there remains a vast room for improvement in the Philippine legal system. The World Bank report is just the latest reminder about the urgency of the task.