MANILA, November 27, 2012-Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan on Monday said that the Judiciary has its work cut out for them and that it needs to prioritize reducing court vacancies to one percent, and upping the conviction rates through the speedy dispensation of cases.
"Let's be very frank here: the current justice system is anti-poor. The system grinds agonizingly slow that those without the resources are ultimately rendered helpless. Cases languish on an average of six years in the lower courts. Unless the Judiciary works on these bottomlines, we will continue running in place."
Pangilinan was interpellating in the Senate plenary during the budget deliberations for the Judiciary, and said that there is "hardly need to reinvent the wheel" because of previous gains that had already been achieved.
"The JBC was able to reduce court vacancies through tireless screening and by interviewing court applicants daily for five months under Justice Artemio Panganiban's leadership. That can be done again."
Pangilinan also urged the Judiciary to fulfill its mandate in upholding the rule of law.
"Let us not kid ourselves into thinking that we can modernize our Judiciary while ignoring the fact that our conviction rates remain pathetically low. There have been a staggering amount of media killings, for example, during the Arroyo administration to this current administration. Yet of all those cases, only two have resulted in conviction. The message this is sending to would be criminals is that they can get away with murder quite literally. Let us put an end to this and give our people the kind of justice system befitting a developing society."
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