Nothing has happened to my letter last year addressed to the Supreme Court to create a Judicial Armed Security Command (JASC) to protect the administration of justice in the Philippines. The Court must be independent in protecting the national justice system. It is not good to rely solely on the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, whose leaders and personnel, more often than not, are involved in the multifarious cases pending before the Court and its lower echelon. Last year the Philippine Daily Inquirer published my letter on the matter, which I wish to reproduce below to refresh our memories. I am not aware of any movement along this line in any committee or office of the Court but I recall that last year the Office of the Court Administrator wrote me to express its general interest in the idea. It stopped there.
Judiciary should have own security
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:35:00 02/19/2008
The Bar is deeply bothered by repeated murders inside the halls of justice, especially in Metro Manila. Last year, a fellow trial lawyer was murdered inside Branch 199 of the Regional Trial Court of Las Piñas City. Last month a former Mindanao mayor was murdered just outside the Regional Trial Court of Manila. Many trial judges nationwide have been murdered over the past five years in the course of their work.
Such killings, like a cancer, destroy the rule of law and the administration of justice in our country. They aggravate the poor image of our legal system, which is already drawing painful criticism from local and foreign media, rightly or wrongly, for alleged weaknesses, ineptness, lack of independence, politicization, and corruption.
The security seminars and firearms/target shooting training sessions conducted by the Supreme Court for trial judges and selected court personnel are not enough to solve the problem. What is required is an institutional and systems-oriented solution.
In this regard, we respectfully recommend the formation by the Supreme Court of a Judicial Armed Security Command (JASC) under its full control and supervision (not under the Philippine National Police or the Armed Forces of the Philippines).
With due respect, we say it is useless and inadvisable for the Supreme Court to rely on the local police and military units to secure the halls of justice in the country while preserving the independence of the courts.
Like the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Supreme Court should have its own national judicial armed security command to protect the justice system, which is its primary constitutional responsibility.
The funds for the proposed command should be sourced from the annual budgets of the national government, starting with the 2009 Supreme Court budget (not from increased docket and filing fees, which now heavily penalize the poor and middle-income litigants).
It is time for the Supreme Court to give flesh to the constitutional doctrine of judicial (and financial) independence.
The current Judicial Development Fund (JDF) collections are sorely insufficient for the purpose. It cannot even pay for the meager employee benefits of the judicial workers, whose weekly protests (Black Fridays) are going on.
We suggest that the Supreme Court create a technical planning committee to study the idea of forming an internal JASC for the sake of the rule of law and the administration of justice.
MANUEL J. LASERNA JR., board consultant, Las Piñas City Bar Association, Unit 15, Star Arcade, C.V. Starr Avenue, Philamlife Village, Las Piñas City
See:
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/letterstotheeditor/view/20080219-119739/Judiciary-should-have-own-security
