Judiciary gets zero for capital outlay for new courtrooms

As the national government refused to allocate funds for the judiciary capital outlay, courtrooms would continue to be housed atop public markets and police stations, the Supreme Court (SC) administrator said Monday. So said SC administrator Jose Midas Marquez on Monday before the House appropriations committee, noting that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) gave the judiciary zero allocation in capital outlay – which covers infrastructure development. The judiciary proposed a budget of P1.875 billion for capital outlay, supposedly to finance the construction of several courthouses, renovation of the SC’s “prehistoric" library, and nationwide computerization program. “We also have court houses on top of police stations and markets, which, to my view, is not befitting a regular court house," Marquez, who is also the SC spokesman, said. Marquez said the DBM proposed to Congress a P14.7-billion budget for the judiciary, which nearly halved the P27.127 billion the judiciary was asking the government to meet its funding needs for 2011. Due to a lack of courtrooms, Marquez said 618 cases were pending before the country’s 2,200 lower courts as of Dec. 31, 2009. “The ideal ratio is one judge for every 10,000 inhabitants but now we have one judge for every 50,000 inhabitants," he said. Marquez pointed out that most of the courts only have two outdated computers. “There should be at least six computers per court so we can interconnect and they can manage their case loads properly and make research online. That would expedite the resolution of the cases pending before the courts," Marquez said. One of the reasons the judiciary cannot hire more judges is because there is no fund for it, he said. “We cannot ask the Judicial and Bar Council to nominate judges because we do not have funds for it yet. We have yet to receive notice from the government that fund for that post is now available," the court administrator said. House minority leader Edcel Lagman and Sorsogon Rep. Salvador Escudero were among the lawmakers who supported the call of the judiciary for a budget increase. “With the backlogs we cannot find a solution to the old saying that justice delayed is justice denied. I commiserate with the judiciary," Escudero said. —JE/VS, GMANews.TV