Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo appealed to the country’s lawyers to support and be the ‘force multipliers’ in the Supreme Court’s (SC) five-year innovations plan both for the judiciary and the legal profession.
The appeal was made in his speech before the members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines Southern Luzon (IBP-Southern Luzon) during their 2023 regional convention held in Muntinlupa City last Friday, Jan. 20.
Paying tribute to the long-existing partnership between the IBP and the SC, Chief Justice Gesmundo said: “You have cooperated in the continuous improvement of procedural rules, and have fully supported our use of information technology. We hope you will remain a strong partner of the Court as we work to revolutionize our legal system through the SPJI (Strategic Plans for Judiciary Innovations 2022-2227).”
The SC’s public information office (PIO), in its press briefer, said Gesmundo urged the lawyers to lead in the achievement of the five-year innovations.
“I invite you to be the SPJI’s force multipliers, to help get our message across, to be active agents of reform. Share our vision with everyone in your association, with your peers in our profession, and with the clients and communities you serve, that they may identify with it and similarly take a stake in it,” he said.
He said the SPJI “is a plan powered by an Innovation Agenda to review and assess the organizational structure and operations of the various offices of the Judiciary, and to develop and establish its information and communications technology infrastructure.”
The SPJI, he explained, “is anchored on four guiding principles: Timely and Fair Justice, Transparent and Accountable Justice, Equal and Inclusive Justice, and Technologically Adaptive Management.”
“Such principles will propel the Judiciary towards achieving three outcomes: Efficiency, Innovation, and Access,” he said.
He stressed: “We cannot overemphasize that the SPJI is necessary to reinvigorate and retool the judicial system. The Court must consistently be proactive and continuously innovate at this time of greater uncertainties and challenges.”
The IBP Southern Luzon is the largest among the IBP regions in the country. Gesmundo is a member of the IBP chapter in Laguna.
On apprehensions that lawyers would be displaced in the digitization of legal services, Gesmundo said: “The practice of law will remain important even if traditional tasks are automated, since conflicts never cease in human society, and courts will always be needed to resolve them in the light of facts and laws.”
SC Associate Justice Ramon Paul L. Hernando, chairperson of the 2023 online and regionalized Bar examinations set in September this year, explained the importance of modernizing the examinations.
“We need to modernize the manner in which we admit those who wish to join our profession if we are to keep up with the best practices that other legal jurisdictions observe and implement in their respective areas,” Hernando said.
Also urging the lawyers to support the SPJI, he said: “Your Supreme Court, as the sole Constitutional body empowered to exercise the power of admission to the Bar, is doing all it can towards this shift to a modern and receptive legal profession. Your support in all these is most vital. We cannot possibly do it all alone, as this responsibility is our collective responsibility.”
Aside from Gesmundo and Hernando, Associate Justice Jose Midas P. Marquez, Court Administrator Raul B. Villanueva, and Assistant Court Administrator and Supreme Court Public Information Office Chief Brian Keith F. Hosaka were also present during the convention.
The IBP Southern Luzon Region is composed of the IBP Chapters of Aurora, Batangas, CALMANA , Cavite, Laguna, Makati, Marinduque, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, PPLM , Quezon, and Rizal-San Juan-Mandaluyong.
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