ELECTRONIC courts, otherwise known as the “e-Court” system, has resulted in the connectivity of close to 300 courts across the country, a move that Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno said will eventually reduce case backlogs.
“By the end of 2017, e-Court will already be deployed in 10 cities, including Cebu City, or a total of 298 courts. As of August, eCourts has been deployed to 274 courts, while the remaining 24 courts are undergoing training,” Sereno said.
Out of the 274 electronic courts, 159 are conducting automated hearings, wherein a judge issues orders within minutes after a hearing, cutting trial time by at least a month because the orders need not go through snail mail to reach the lawyers and litigants, she said.
“In other words, when you begin your careers as lawyers, you can litigate your cases by just looking at your smartphones and laptops. It will be justice at the tip of your fingers,” Sereno added.
The e-Court system, which was pilot-tested in 2013 in Quezon City, records all incidents in an information system that shows the age of each case and highlights pending incidents that require immediate action.
It also notifies judges of deliverables and deadlines, and provides them with templates for orders and decisions to hasten their orders immediately after the hearing.
The e-courts also reduces the possibility of corruption since it provides for random electronic sampling and raffling of cases, a continuous trial system and the use of judicial affidavits in lieu of taking of direct testimony of witnesses.
“It is a future when halls of justice are not littered with piles of papers as all court documents are digitized; when judges automatically issue almost all court orders immediately after hearings using templates in an app; when judges access all their records and manage their court dockets with the click of a mouse,” Sereno said.
As part of the judiciary’s efforts to speed up the resolution of court cases, Sereno said the Supreme Court is strengthening its alternative dispute resolution mechanism, the Enhanced Justice on Wheels or EJOW.
“To further the reach of access to justice, especially to the underserved parts of the country, the EJOW Program was launched to enable make-shift court buses to reach far flung areas. While it has already facilitated the release of more than 9,000 prisoners as of date, we expect it to further touch the lives of many more Filipinos whose life still rests in uncertainty inside detention cells/prisons,” Sereno said.
Sereno also reported the revised guidelines for continuous trial system which will take effect nationwide on September 1 to allow the conduct of trials that are set one day apart, uninterrupted by dilatory postponements.
Sereno said reforms are being instituted to declog courts across the country.
“As much as we can, reforms are spread out to different parts of the country in our goal of increasing access to justice. You will see that reforms are being implemented in regions outside the capital, where people often do not have sufficient access to lawyers and courts or even if they have access to courts, these courts do not have the complete resources to do their jobs,” she said.