‘Service providers’ of justice

Starting next week, a total of 9,916 law graduates, including second-timers, will take the 2022 Bar examinations. The four-day Bar examinations will be simultaneously held on Nov. 9, 13, 16 and 20 in at least 14 educational institutions in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the Supreme Court (SC) announced on Monday.

Speaking in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last week, SC Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo disclosed the conduct of the latest Bar Exams are “regionalized and digitalized” again. For the second time, the Bar Exams will be done on digital platforms and held not only in Metro Manila – as done in the past – but conducted simultaneously in other parts of the country, the Chief Justice cited.

The first digital and regional Bar Exams started in the 2020-2021 held just last February this year. As a general rule, the Bar examinee brings his or her own laptop and the test questions are sent to them online. In turn, the examinees also answer from their respective laptops and sent to a designated online site under the control of the SC. Once examinees key in a password, which is given at the start of the exam, everything in the laptop is disengaged. This is to ensure against cyber cheating.

The first time the Bar exams were digitalized and regionalized, 72.28 percent of total takers passed, SC Associate Justice Midas Marquez noted. According to Marquez, this was the “highest in recent history” of the annual Bar Exams. Before the COVID-19 pandemic period, Marquez recalled, the passing rates in the past Bar Exams ranged around 19-25 percent of total takers.

Poor or unreadable handwriting is the usual alibi of Bar flunkers and blamed SC examiners who could not decipher their written answers just thrash their test papers. Would this explain the high number of passers for the 2021 “digitalized” Bar Exams? Aside from the bad handwriting, Marquez argued, there are too many other factors to consider. The media-savvy Marquez served longest as Court administrator of the SC and concurrent official spokesman prior to his promotion to SC in Nov. 2021.

The holding of regional and digital Bar Exams are among the key reforms being instituted by Gesmundo as the 27th Chief Justice of the SC. Gesmundo is currently spearheading the adoption and implementation of the Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations (SPJI) 2022 to 2027.

The Chief Justice and his fellow SC Justices have been going the rounds of media interviews in presenting and talking about the SPJI in broad strokes.

We had almost one-third of the High Court en banc who joined us during our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum at Cafe Adriatico in Remedios Circle in Manila last Oct. 26. Gesmundo was accompanied by SC associate justices Jhosep Lopez, Filomena Singh, and Marquez.

The Chief Justice sought to highlight his leadership of the 15-man SC is rendering themselves accessible to the public and not closeted in the inner sanctums of their chambers in Padre Faura.

Doing so, the Chief Magistrate underscored, should be part of the dispensation of justice in our country.

Just last week, the SC reforms literally got a boost from the United States government that provided P15 million grant for the Philippine judicial reform program. American Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson announced the grant during her courtesy call to the Chief Justice at Padre Faura on Oct. 21. “The rule of law is essential in ensuring equal access to justice for all, especially the most vulnerable,” Carlson told Gesmundo and to the Associate Justices in her brief remarks to them.

The grant came from the US State Department’s Office of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) that awarded the grant to the US National Center for State Courts (NCSC). This, in turn, will facilitate the implementation of the Manila Justice Sector Reform Program to support in particular the SPJI. According to the US embassy in Manila statement, the NCSC is an American non-profit organization that provides technical assistance, training, and technology to enhance justice systems and services around the world.

The Chief Justice though pointed out the SPJI also draws support from the ranks of lawyers led by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) as among the stakeholders in the country’s judicial system. Gesmundo disclosed the SC created earlier a Committee for the Revision of the Code of Professional Responsibility with the IBP which receives a yearly subsidy from the Judiciary. This Committee is currently working on the refinements and updating the code of ethics and accountability of the members of the legal profession, he added.

Among other things, Gesmundo revealed, the Committee would hopefully come up with “standardized legal fees” that all practicing lawyers would adhere to. “Lawyering is not simply for making money, but equally work for social responsibility because they are part of the judicial system,” the Chief Justice stressed. Thus, Gesmundo urged all lawyers to also “educate their clients” on the Revised Court Procedures of 2019.

As legal counsel, lawyers must advise their clients from filing “frivolous suits” that the Chief Justice frowns upon for clogging up the court dockets and adding to public perception on slow dispensation of justice. He reminded the lawyers to caution their clients that the SC imposes sanctions against such nuisance cases, ranging from contempt of court and penalties from fines to imprisonment of both the lawyers and their clients as well.

“The Law is not only with the judges but all parties concerned, including the witnesses. It is not like filing a case and then ‘bahala na si Batman,” the Chief Magistrate pointed out.

Singh, one of the two female Associate Justices of the SC, could not agree more on the need to deliver justice to each and every Filipino, rich or poor. “We are service providers to give justice to the people who needs it most,” Singh quipped. Thus, at the end of the five-year SPJI program, the Chief Justice yearned big changes on public perception in the administration of justice in our country.