I wish to share you this simple analysis on Court Vacancies. This dataset was downloaded from the Philippine Supreme Court Website. It is from a tab called “Trial Court Locator” https://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/court-locator/ . I simply exported “All” information in an Excel file (click here to download). From the data set, I created a new column called “Court Status,” where it indicates whether a court is “Occupied, Newly Created, Unorganized or Vacant”. (I simply followed the nomenclature used in the original data set).
From there, I created simple analyses using Pivot Tables to determine the “Percent Occupied” and see whether there are variations by Court Type and by Province.
Note however that the information here may be inaccurate if there are new appointments but the website data was not properly updated. This is based on the data on October 10, 2023, as posted in the Supreme Court portal.
Key findings:
1. The Overall Occupied Rate is 74.10 percent.Of the 2741 courts nationwide, 2031 have a sitting judge. This suggests that 1 of 4 courts are currently in need of a judge.
2. In terms of court type, Shariah District Court (SDC) has the lowest Occupied Rate at 20 percent and the highest is the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) at 79.25 percent.
3. In terms of Province, there are 9 provinces with less than 50 percent occupancy rate. These include: Tawi-Tawi, Kalinga, Davao Occidental, Sulu, Basilan, Batanes, Sultan Kudarat, Quirino, and Dinagat Island. The good news is that there are 13 provinces with 90 percent or more Occupied rate (See Province 1 tab in the Excel file). There also 20 provinces with 10 or more vacant judges. These include Cebu province with the greatest number of vacant judges at 18, followed by Zamboanga del Sur at 17 and Batangas at 16. (See Province 2 tab in the Excel File).
4. The analysis can further show what type of Courts are vacant per province. For example, in Abra, there are 1 MCTC court and 2 RTC courts, for a total of 3 courts, that are currently vacant.
Recommendations:
1. A continuing analysis of this data set should be made. The technical people in the Supreme Court should continue to make these analyses. (I can train them if need be). It could be useful for the JBC in determining which type of courts and which provinces have the most number and rate of Vacancy. This study suggests that the JBC should prioritize certain courts and certain provinces. As I understood from my field research, the JBC employs a rolling application per region. That is, they start in Region 1, to be followed by Region 2, and so on and so forth, and go back to Region 1 upon completion of the cycle. This approach may inadvertently translate to delay of appointments as the data suggests that vacancies vary more by provinces than by regions.
2. This data also suggests for the introduction of “Judges in Waiting” or a merit list of judges. Vacancies can be anticipated a year before judges retire. Applicants who underwent the rigorous selection and vetting process of the JBC should undergo training while waiting for their Presidential appointments so that they will be ready to assume once a vacancy is open. Additionally, Judges who were already recommended by the JBC to the President for appointment but were not appointed in one cycle, could still be renominated for succeeding cycles.
Conclusion:
These simple analyses will provide an evidence-based appointment system. Court vacancy has severe implications in the administration of justice and jail overcrowding. It is estimated that with 25 percent of the courts in need of judges, this translates to years of delay in the case disposition for thousands of individuals detained while undergoing trial. My estimate shows that close PhP 340 million pesos per year will go to waste feeding and sheltering individuals due to trial delays.
Once again thank you for all your efforts.
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