Santiago F. Dumlao Jr. l December 13, 2023 l Business Mirror
WE should take note and be encouraged that we have a Supreme Court that is seriously engaged in judicial reforms. These are embodied in a policy document, “A Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations, 2022-2027,” (the SPJI) that was launched officially in October 2022. More notably, the programs and projects under the SPJI are making progress.
Let me quote from the document’s Foreword:
“The SPJI is a plan that demonstrates the Supreme Court’s firm resolve to perform and deliver meaningful results on the Judiciary’s fundamental function—to ensure swift and fair justice for all, finally, real-time. From the most basic processes to the most vital proceedings, Courts must perform both judicial and administrative services with responsiveness and in real-time, when people need it, when circumstances require it. Justice, if not delivered timely, or is attended by delay, is injustice.”
We can hold on to this declaration of resolve.
The SPJI is a plan with clear guiding principles, a definite workplan and a portfolio of projects and achievable target outcomes.” This “Smart” approach, so familiar to business managers, gives us the comfort of attainability.
In celebrating the first anniversary of the SPJI last October 16, 2023, Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo described “with great pride, having successfully completed several activities and key projects,” among them the Philippine judiciary online learning platform; judiciary enterprise ict governance framework; strengthened legal aid initiatives; adoption of guidelines for the use of gender-fair language in the judiciary and gender-fair courtroom etiquette; and, the study on gender representation and mobility in the Philippine judiciary.
But we shall not dwell too long on the one-year accomplishments in this column (you may access the Supreme Court web site https://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/spji/). Let us, however, note how the private sector is complementing the Supreme Court’s efforts at judicial reform.
There’s the Justice Reform Initiative (JRI) composed of business organizations moving in parallel with the Supreme Court to advance judicial reforms which particularly affect the business community.
The JRI has recently conducted a Survey of public perceptions on the way the administration of justice is done. The responses to this survey are being reviewed, analyzed and interpreted through a series of consultative workshops with the participation of representatives from business, the judiciary, bar associations and other stakeholders. The results of these workshops are recommendations to the Supreme for addressing perceived and actual deficiencies to the justice administration system, to complement the SPJI efforts at reform, and better achieve the desired outcomes of efficiency, innovation and access.
The Supreme Court and the JRI are working together in pursuing reforms in the judiciary. These joint efforts will converge in a Justice Summit scheduled on February 1, 2024, when the public will receive a Report of the survey results, the recommendations arising from the survey and consultative workshops, and a progress report from the Supreme Court.
As a judge participating in the workshop commented, in some such words: “I have never seen such a single-minded reform-driven Supreme Court in my judiciary career.”
*** Santiago F. Dumlao Jr. is the Secretary General of the Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia and chairman of the market governance board and market policy committee of the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the BusinessMirror’s.