Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin has pledged to launch more Justice Zones in the provinces in coordination with the Supreme Court, Department of Justice, and the Department of Interior and Local Government to expedite resolution of cases in the trial courts and decongest jails.
Justice Zone is one of the projects of the Justice Sector Coordinating Council which is supported by the Justice Sector Reform Programme: Governance in Justice under a financial grant by the European Union.
The country’s fourth Justice Zone was launched in Angeles City last Friday. Earlier, three Justice Zone projects had been launched in Quezon City, Cebu City, and Davao City.
“In the coming months, we will look at rural or provincial areas because most of these justice zones so far, all four, are in densely populated areas and they are in the urban setting,” Bersamin said.
Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra, Court Administrator Jose Midas P. Marquez, and GOJUST program leader Christian Eldon attended the launching ceremony in Angeles City.
Bersamin said “the Justice Zone is an area where local justice sector agencies such as the police, prosecutors, judges, public attorneys, and managers of detentions facilities identify problems and arrive at common solutions to address them.”
During the launching in Angeles City, the Chief Justice acknowledged the success of the project under the JSCC program on continuous trial and automation such as the e-court system, electronic subpoena, and the “e-dalaw” or electronic visitation program.
Citing an example, Bersamin said the introduction of a continuous trial system and plea bargaining for drugs cases in Quezon City resulted in the reduction of up to 70,000 pending civil and criminal cases – from 640,000 as of December 2016 to 570,000 as of December 2017.
Thus, he said, the opening of the fourth Justice Zone venue means that “vital justice services will henceforth be rendered more effective by bringing together the coordinative capabilities of each agency of justice for the benefit of the public.”
“SC, DoJ, and DILG are now in the planning stages of formulating a convergence budget for a set of projects towards improving the capacity, operations and effectivity of our justice sector. With this strategy, cooperation and coordination already occur at the earliest stages,” he added. (Rey Panaligan)
