‘How can the SC reasonably expect a judge to live up to its directive when the SC itself has a backlog close to 15,000 cases? Numbers-wise, that means every one of the 15 SC justices has a backlog of 1,000 cases,’
OUR judicial system is broken.
All the numbers say it — from an enormous backlog to the volume of cases that enter the system every day to the overwhelming caseload of every judge to the length of time it takes to resolve one case to the lack of judges and other court personnel to the limited funds and resources to every problem anyone can imagine.
To be sure, the Judicial Department, the third branch of our trifurcated system of government, has not been remiss in trying to find solutions to the problems that plague the judiciary.
Still, the problems keep piling up as the cases pile up — year after year after year.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court even issued a circular reminding judges to decide cases within the reglementary or prescribed period of 90 days or they could face administrative charges.
But that is like flogging a dead horse, so to speak.
How, for example, can a judge who gets 622 cases in a year be expected to live up to the prescribed period? Six hundred twenty-two was the average caseload per judge in 2022.
Even if they decide five cases a week—which is next to impossible—it would still take a judge two to three years to clear their one-year caseload. And that is not counting the additional caseload every year.
How can the SC reasonably expect a judge to live up to its directive when the SC itself has a backlog close to 15,000 cases? Numbers-wise, that means every one of the 15 SC justices has a backlog of 1,000 cases. And even if the SC achieves a clearance rate of 87 percent (as it did in 2024), that still adds 13 percent of yearly cases to the backlog. Clearance rate refers to the number of new cases that the court decides within a year, backlog excluded.
Why do our judges and justices face case overload? To begin with, more than 20 percent of our courts have no judge. Either there are not enough lawyers who qualify to be a judge or the judiciary lacks the funds to fill all the 2,504 judge positions in the country.
Had there been 2,504 judges in 2022, the caseload per judge would have gone down from 622 to 495. That would have eased a bit the load of every judge.
Definitely, this is one problem that needs an immediate solution.
Then, there’s alternative dispute resolution. Why can’t we settle a big chunk of legal disputes—civil or criminal—without going to court or trial?
Arbitration is already part of the legal system, but it hardly matters.
Plea bargaining is one way of resolving cases without going to trial. But I don’t think it is commonly practiced in the Philippines.
Who was it who said that the best lawyers are those who solve cases without going to trial? Apparently, that is not the case in the Philippines. Our lawyers would rather go to lengthy trials because that ensures more legal fees.
At the higher level, the reforms proposed in 2018 by the Consultative Committee to Review the 1987 Constitution should be given some serious thought.
The ConCom proposed the creation of four High Courts (instead of just one Supreme Court). These are a Constitutional Court to handle all questions of constitutionality and violations of the Bill of Rights, a Supreme Court as the final arbiter for criminal and civil cases, an Administrative Court as the court of last resort for administrative cases, and an Electoral Court to decide all electoral contests.
The creation of these four High Courts can immediately relieve the SC of almost half of its backlog and give the High Tribunal time to clear its docket even as new cases come in.
And there’s a host of other sweeping reforms that can be carried out to make the wheels of justice turn ten times faster than they grind today.
But it needs a huge load of political will to make these happen.
