EDITORIAL - Dreaming of swift justice

The judge reportedly thought the trial could have been over in a matter of weeks. Instead the sensational prosecution of South African “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius lasted over a year, as he fought conviction for murder and a lengthy prison term.

On Tuesday the amputee sprinter was sentenced to five years for culpable homicide and immediately whisked off to Kgosi Mampuru Prison in Pretoria. Pistorius could be let off in 10 months, serving the remainder of his term under house arrest. The parents of the girlfriend he shot dead on Valentine’s Day last year were satisfied with the verdict and said they were glad the case was over.

How many relatives of murder or homicide victims can express the same relief in the Philippines? What you hear from those relatives is frustration over the snail’s pace of justice. A trial that lasts less than a year in this country is the stuff of dreams. Even when there are state witnesses, such as in the brutal killing of publicist Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito, court trials crawl along for decades.

Preliminary investigation is so slow murder suspects have more than enough time to escape. Such is the case in the hazing death last June of Tau Gamma Phi neophyte Guillo Cesar Servando, a student of De la Salle-College of St. Benilde, wherein it looks like none of the fraternity members will be punished. This failure guarantees the continuation of violent, barbaric fraternity initiation rites.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Injustice is one of the reasons why people join insurgent movements, take the law into their own hands, or support those who take short cuts in law enforcement. The failure to catch and punish killers is also a big factor in the high incidence of election-related assassinations and persistence of violent attacks on journalists and left-wing activists.

Many other countries can deliver justice as speedily or even faster than South Africa. Filipinos can only wonder whether swift justice will remain in the realm of dreams in the Philippines.