EDITORIAL - A new normal for the courts

After two years of technology-driven court proceedings due to the pandemic, the judiciary is institutionalizing videoconferencing in the post-pandemic “new normal.” Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo said this would speed up court proceedings and help decongest dockets.

The Supreme Court’s committee on virtual hearings and electronic testimony is currently finalizing the rules of conduct on teleconferenced court proceedings. Gesmundo said this could pave the way for the settlement of cases on computer screens instead of courtrooms.

Since the early days of the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, the SC had allowed fully remote videoconferencing for all trial and appellate court proceedings, to keep the wheels of justice turning while preventing COVID transmission.

The system proved convenient for litigants and defendants alike as well as their lawyers, who no longer had to travel to courthouses and wait for hours in cramped rooms and poorly ventilated hallways for proceedings that can sometimes last less than half an hour. Videoconferencing also eliminated the need to transport and secure inmates when they face trial, which meant significant savings for jail and corrections services.

Beyond videoconferencing, the judiciary needs additional measures to speed up the wheels of Philippine justice. The country’s criminal justice system is notoriously slow, inefficient, unpredictable and a national embarrassment. Slow adjudication is also one of the reasons for acute jail congestion.

Slow justice has allowed lawbreakers to leave the country and avoid punishment. The failure to penalize crooks in government has allowed corruption and plunder to become so entrenched it could take several generations to excise the rot. Slow justice has also bred impunity, in cases such as fraternity hazings resulting in death, the murder of journalists and activists as well as drug-related killings.

Never mind neighboring advanced economies such as Singapore and South Korea, which are renowned for speedy adjudication. Even Indonesia, a middle-income economy like the Philippines, could quickly resolve the drug trafficking case against Filipina worker Mary Jane Veloso. Arrested on April 25, 2010 at Yogyakarta airport with 2.6 kilos of heroin in her luggage, Veloso was convicted by a district court and sentenced to death within six months, on Oct. 24. The Court of Appeals of Yogyakarta upheld the conviction on Dec. 19, and the Indonesian Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence on May 31, 2011. Appeals for clemency from the Philippine government led to a stay of execution in 2015. Seven years later, Philippine courts have yet to settle the case that is meant to prove to Indonesia that Veloso is a victim of human trafficking whose life deserves to be spared.

If justice delayed is justice denied, the depth of injustice in the Philippines is unconscionable. Tapping technology to speed up adjudication is a welcome step, and should be augmented with many other measures.