A major cause of delay in court case disposition is the postponement of hearings. This eventually leads to extreme jail congestion. In our Community Bail Bond (CBB) Program, for the month of September 2023, 11 of the 14 scheduled hearings were postponed for a variety of reasons (See Table below). In my ongoing research on this issue, around 20 percent or only 1 in every 5 hearings pushed through, and the rest of the hearings are either postponed/reset or cancelled.
Postponement of hearings translates to litany of negative consequences: it contributes to the deterioration of the mental and physical health of accused who are detained, it leads to additional cost of maintaining an overcrowded jail, and it portrays the criminal justice as uncaring, inhumane and inept. Accused detainees stay in jail for an average of three years before their cases are disposed, which is the longest average in the world. In the extreme, accused can stay as long as 20 years and is still unconvicted.
The reasons for postponement are varied: lack of material, absence of the court actors and witnesses, Holidays, floodings, and in the month of September, in Metro Manila and other jurisdictions holding the bar examinations, court operations are suspended. Thus, the conduct of bar examinations, an event we are truly all excited--leads to the cancellation of hearings.
Solution: The Supreme Court should look squarely unto the issue of court calendar hearings. The judges must be trained in the calendaring of court hearings. Some judges schedule as many as 30 to 70 hearings in a day, which translates to a lack of material time. This puts a lot of strain to the jail officers who would bring accused detainees in the courts where all their hard work translates to resetting of hearings. Judges and prosecutors also schedule their "wellness" leaves on different dates and thus hearings are cancelled to accommodate both vacation dates.
Additionally, judges, prosecutors, and PAO lawyers are also called for trainings, seminars and conferences by their national offices, in different weeks, translating to different weeks of cancelled hearings. The Supreme Court, the National Prosecution Service, and the Public Attorneys Office should set a common dates for trainings, seminars and conferences so that calendar hearings will not be very oftenly disrupted. The National Government can also help by designating the Holidays in advance so that judges will avoid scheduling of hearings on those dates. These are simple solutions to this seemingly intractable problem. Please share and pass.
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