We should thank Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, the brand new Ombudsman, for saying the quiet half out loud: inordinate delay is the true silent killer of justice. It kills with out spectacle. No sirens, no headlines, no excessive drama. Simply the sluggish strangulation of instances that by no means transfer, hearings that seldom occur, individuals who by no means get their day in court docket. It isn’t an abstraction.
Whereas the pronouncement of the brand new Ombudsman pertains to instances filed in opposition to authorities officers within the Sandiganbayan, inordinate delay additionally impacts instances of bizarre offenders. Thus, inordinate delay additionally refers back to the mom who waits outdoors a jail gate, carrying plastic luggage of meals for a son presumed harmless however punished anyway. It’s the docket that bloats, the decide who juggles 25 instances in a morning and decides, as if by ritual, to reset most of them. It’s the jail cell designed for 10 however holding 60, every physique counting time not by calendars however by postponements.
Inordinate delay doesn’t merely inconvenience; it deforms justice into one thing unrecognizable.
The results are brutal and in all places. Now we have constructed an archipelago of ready rooms and known as them jails. Individuals Disadvantaged of Liberty (PDLs) who’re legally harmless turn out to be prisoners of the calendar. They wait two, three, 5, even 15 years for a case to finish. Many spend longer inside than the utmost penalty of the offense they’re accused of.
I met a person who stayed seven years for a criminal offense whose complete most penalty was solely three. He pleaded responsible throughout the pandemic, anticipating fast launch — promised in open court docket — solely to be misplaced within the forms whereas typhoons and floodwaters shut the courts down. No person heard him: no decide, no lawyer, no customer. When he was lastly “discovered” and let loose, he had served 4 further years for nothing. Multiply that story by hundreds and also you perceive why congestion, cynicism, and quiet despair outline our carceral panorama.
Delay punishes the poor most of all. Bail is a proper on paper, however a wall in observe. Some trial courts checklist a labyrinth of documentary necessities — 16 gadgets in a single court docket we studied — earlier than a detainee may even consider posting bail. Households who can’t marshal papers from far-flung barangays merely surrender. Our information suggests practically half of detainees are technically bailable however stay inside as a result of the machine that’s imagined to launch them runs on varieties, charges, and free time they don’t have.
In the meantime the state pays for meals and custody day after day. It’s unhealthy justice and unhealthy economics. Once we lowered common detention time by even a number of months in a Metro Manila jail, the federal government saved thousands and thousands on meals alone. The financial savings usually are not theoretical; they’re rice on the desk for schoolchildren who won’t ever know their lunch got here from a courtroom that lastly began to maneuver.
Inordinate delay additionally erodes perception in legislation itself. When folks see senators, like Jinggoy Estrada, bailed out after years of detention whereas bizarre defendants rot for petty thefts, the message is easy: the system works in case you can afford it. The general public learns to cheer shortcuts. “Why not simply kill the criminals,” some ask, “since they are going to beat the system anyway?”
This authorized cynicism is the seedbed of extrajudicial fantasies. It is usually a present to the responsible who can play the clock. Put up bail, delay, delay, delay, after which cry “violation of speedy trial.” Stroll free as a result of time — weaponized — has erased the case.
How did we get right here? The causes of inordinate delay usually are not mysterious. They fall into three baskets: structural, organizational, and cultural. Collectively they type a equipment of postponement.
The structural causes are the bones and blood of the system: we lack prosecutors, public defenders, and judges. We lack courtrooms, employees, transport, and safe areas to convey PDLs to hearings. We nonetheless have courts with out dependable web or gear for distant appearances. We transfer folks throughout flooded streets and paralyzed site visitors in cities the place a single downpour can shut down half a day’s calendar.
These are inadvertent delays. Nobody wakes up plotting to reset hearings as a result of the patrol automotive broke down or the PDL escort is out sick; it merely occurs when a system is starved. The structural deficit surfaces in each step: dockets overloaded as a result of there are too few branches; bail hearings that drag as a result of stenographers are lacking; medical exams and forensic reviews that take months to reach as a result of laboratories are understaffed. In a rustic the place jails common 350 p.c congestion, each unfilled court docket emptiness and each lacking employees place interprets immediately into days, months, years behind bars for folks not but convicted.
The organizational causes are the habits and workflows of businesses that should transfer as one however usually transfer as many. These are the pointless delays. Hearings are set, however notices don’t attain the police or the jail. A PDL spends the morning shackled on a bench solely to be advised the prosecutor is in one other sala, the witness was not subpoenaed correctly, or the decide’s calendar has 22 different instances and the clock has run out.
Courts overcalendar to handle quantity; then they reset as a result of there isn’t any materials time to listen to anybody totally. Dockets are mismanaged. Businesses function in silos. We consider “case move,” however we run case ping-pong: information bouncing amongst court docket, prosecution, protection, jail, and police with no shared tracker or accountability. In Metro Manila jails we examined, hearings are set each two or three months; of the 4 to 6 hearings on paper every year, one or two really push by means of. That may be a administration drawback, not a metaphysical one.
The cultural causes are essentially the most corrosive as a result of they conceal underneath the banner of professionalism. These are the purposeful delays. We name it “skilled courtesy” once we indulge a colleague’s movement to postpone for causes that will barely excuse a tardy scholar. We name it “per look” charges once we normalize a enterprise mannequin that earnings from sluggish calendars. Some legal professionals are masters at attrition: fatigue the witnesses, stretch the intervals, watch reminiscences fade and evidentiary worth decay.
Some prosecutors deal with pretrial detention itself as a casual punishment — why hurry if each week inside is time served with out the difficulty of proof? Some judges permit all of it to cross as a result of that is the way it has all the time been completed, and no person desires to be the outlier who runs hearings like marathons and finishes instances. Tradition is what we tolerate. Now we have tolerated delay.
These three strands — structural shortage, organizational dysfunction, and cultural leniency — braid into the rope that strangles justice within the Sandiganbayan and past. In high-profile graft instances with a number of accused and armies of legal professionals, the clock is the quiet ally of anybody who can afford technique. In low-profile instances of bizarre defendants, the clock is the quiet executioner. Both means, time — not fact — wins.
What have to be completed? The reply is just not a single silver bullet however a self-discipline of pace with integrity, utilized at every layer of trigger.
Structurally, we should broaden capability, sure, however we should additionally reengineer move. Fill vacancies quick and rationally, and open extra trial courts the place caseloads demand them. Equip each sala for hybrid hearings in order that witnesses and forensics officers usually are not hostage to geography and site visitors. Fund devoted transport and escort items so PDLs really meet their calendars. Standardize and simplify bail throughout trial courts.
The sixteen-document scavenger hunts should finish. Upon arrest, courts ought to conduct a custodial listening to inside 36 hours to determine, on individualized evaluation, whether or not the accused may be launched on recognizance with situations or have to be preventively detained for clear, articulable dangers. Deal with bail as a software to handle look and public security, not as a price ticket on liberty.
Organizationally, we should construct a shared, residing image of each case. Begin with a jail-to-court monitoring system that tracks, for every PDL, the date of arrest, the elapsed detention days, the statutory minimal and most penalties, and credit for good conduct, research, and instructing. Require the Bureau of Jail Administration and Penology and provincial jails to submit month-to-month “Detainees of Curiosity (DOI)” lists — these above six months in MeTC instances and above three years in RTC instances — triggering joint case conferences amongst judges, prosecutors, and protection.
If a PDL has served the utmost penalty, launch outright. If the minimal, launch on recognizance with supervision. If the case is critical and previous three years, set consecutive or “marathon” hearings till disposition. Courts ought to undertake case-processing time as a key efficiency metric. Establish the speedy salas and the challenged ones, research the variations, and institutionalize the practices that work. Overcalendaring should give approach to disciplined, real looking dockets. A listening to set is a listening to heard.
Culturally, we should finish the romance with postponement. Judges ought to train energetic case administration, deny frivolous resets, and sanction dilatory observe. “Skilled courtesy” ought to imply courtesy to the Structure, to not comfort. Per-appearance billing should not form the lifetime of a case. Prosecutors have to be evaluated not solely by convictions secured however by well timed prosecutions performed. Public defenders have to be resourced and educated to maneuver for bail strategically, to not keep away from bail hearings as a result of they will lengthen instances. Bar associations and the bench should make it reputationally pricey to be a service provider of delay and reputationally worthwhile to be a finisher. That is tradition change: reward pace with integrity; stigmatize stall ways.
We additionally want guardrails in opposition to the worst abuses of time. Undertake a strict-scrutiny set off: any detention exceeding two years with out conviction should bear necessary judicial evaluate. At that time the query is just not “Has the calendar been busy?” however “Is sustained detention needed and proportionate?” If the state can’t present clear flight threat or particular hazard, launch underneath situations. The United Nations framework is evident: pretrial detention have to be distinctive, justified, and recurrently reviewed. We should always deal with that as a constitutional self-discipline, not a international suggestion.
In Sandiganbayan instances, the place complexity is the rule, complexity can’t be the excuse. Construct case maps on the outset — points, witnesses, displays, timelines — and commit all events to a sequenced plan with agency settings. Use hybrid testimony to lock in forensic and documentary proof early. The place a number of accused pressure calendars, sever instances when justice is ill-served by joint trials that flip a courtroom right into a bus terminal. The general public curiosity in accountability is just not met by sprawling proceedings that stagger on for a decade after which collapse from exhaustion.
Bail coverage have to be reimagined as properly. Substitute the reflex of money with a observe of supervision. Launch on recognizance, with reporting situations and barangay-level monitoring, works. Group bail help — when households, religion teams, or civic organizations assure look — works. Now we have seen it: folks present up when the system treats them as residents with obligations, not as ATMs with legs. The responsible must be convicted rapidly and punished to the total extent of legislation. The harmless and the low-risk shouldn’t be warehoused whereas we search for a working photocopier.
Lastly, measure what issues. Common time to disposition by offense and court docket. Share of hearings that push by means of as scheduled. Variety of PDLs who cross the DOI thresholds every month and the motion taken on every. Publish the dashboards. Daylight is just not a slogan; it’s a administration software. When courts see themselves within the mirror of knowledge, change is feasible. When they don’t, behavior guidelines — and behavior, in our system, is delay.
None of this requires a brand new Structure. A lot of it doesn’t even require new legislation. It requires management and stubbornness. It requires the humility to study from “speedy courts” and “speedy jails” that exist already, and the braveness to confront the cultural consolation with postponement. It requires the Supreme Courtroom to maintain pushing steady trial and justice-zone reforms, but additionally to demand outcomes: not shiny plans, however fewer our bodies in holding cells as a result of instances really finish.
The stakes usually are not summary. Each pointless day inside is a day of childhood a father misses, a job misplaced, a thoughts unravelling in a cramped cell, a taxpayer’s peso spent to feed somebody who must be dwelling, or already correctly sentenced. Delay turns the presumption of innocence right into a punchline, and the rule of legislation right into a rumor. If we imply what we are saying about justice, then the calendar should cease being the weapon of the highly effective and the whip of the poor.
So we have to thank the brand new Ombudsman, Boying Remulla, for figuring out the issue. Now allow us to do the work. Fill the seats and equip the salas. Observe the instances and face the numbers. Finish the rituals of postponement and restore the behavior of ending. Attempt to convict the responsible expeditiously and meritoriously. Free or supervise those that shouldn’t be inside. Make the clock serve the reality, not smother it.
When the machine of justice lastly runs on time, we could have fewer prisoners who have been by no means convicted and fewer convicts who have been by no means tried. We could have jails that aren’t ready rooms and courts that aren’t warehouses. We could have, finally, a justice system that punishes solely after judgment — and by no means earlier than it. – Rappler.com
Raymund E. Narag, PhD is an Affiliate Professor in Criminology and Prison Justice on the College of Justice and Public Security, Southern Illinois College, Carbondale.
