One year after the launching of the Supreme Court’s (SC) five-year Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations (SPJI) on Oct. 14, 2022, the judiciary has gained “tremendous success bringing closer to the goal of delivering responsive and real-time justice,” Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo.
SPJI’s first year was celebrated by the SC in a meeting with various stakeholders in the country’s justice system at the Rigodon Hall of the Manila Hotel on Monday, Oct. 16.
SPJI was conceived by the 15-member SC as they took into account global trends, recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICT), and the experience from the Covid-19 pandemic.
During its launch, Gesmundo said that SPJI will implement reforms to dispense justice “efficiently, effectively, and timely."
During the first year of its implementation, SC justices travelled around the country to get the feedback from judges and court personnel, lawyers, and local government officials and to rally them to support the SPJI.
SPJI has also been presented in various international conferences attended by the SC justices.
Associate Justice Maria Filomena D. Singh, in her opening remarks, said that she and Associate Justice Amy C. Lazaro-Javier presented to the more than 1,100 women judges in Morocco the SPJI’s efforts on Gender Equality and Inclusivity.
Singh said that only last June, Chief Justice Gesmundo and the other SC justices brought SPJI to Australia and last July to the United Nations Environmental Program in the World Law Congress.
Also, she said, SPJI’s “innovative approaches on accessibility, particularly on Legal Aid Initiatives” were featured during the Open Government Summit in Estonia, and only last week in Bangkok, SPJI’s programs on Gender Representation and Mobility, and Inclusivity were presented during the Judicial Integrity Network ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Judges Conference.
“The first year of our judicial reform program had just been concluded and we are marking it today with great pride, having successfully completed several activities and key projects.”
But while the ongoing projects under SPJI are almost nearing completion, Gesmundo tackled the forthcoming activities and innovations.
Gesmundo also said:
“We will develop a network infrastructure which would be needed to support the Judiciary’s information and communications requirements for the multiple locations of its courts, from the SC, the Appellate Courts, and trial court stations spread across the country.
“As a prerequisite for the rollout of the application systems to the lower courts, court buildings need to have local area networks installed for better management of ICT resources.
“Considering that the Philippines is a vast archipelago consisting of more than 7,000 islands, this will be a big challenge for us. With the inadequate existing telecommunications facilities in the rural areas, we may be able to jumpstart this project hopefully within the next year.
“The network infrastructure we will develop for the Judiciary will ensure network interoperability aimed at providing robust, clean and timely sharing of data across the entire organization.
“By achieving network interoperability, sharing of data will be more secure and efficient as it will limit the need for manual processing of information.
“Court officials and employees could work more productively, with databases, and other applications connecting and sharing information, fostering better communication which is critical to organizational excellence.
“Judiciary-wide Organizational Review and Restructuring Under the ‘Efficiency Target Outcome, we plan to streamline court systems and operations based on the needs of internal and external stakeholders.
“Streamlining both the administrative and adjudicative functions of the Court is imperative. A top-to-bottom organizational review must be conducted.
“For maximum efficiency, it is important for the Court to trim the fat within its ranks and purge non-efficient processes. To achieve this, the Court will do a staffing review that is expected to result in a staffing pattern and model depicting the mix, hierarchy, and number of positions for each organizational unit. It will lay down all the position titles, career paths, salary grades, number of positions, qualification standards, and rules for the creation of additional position items. It will also contain a proposed career-levelling scheme which will cover career bands, career levels, and job grades.
“Under the ‘Access Target Outcome,’ the Court will develop and deploy intelligent platform for self-help services, public assistance, and public access to court-related information.
“Access to Justice Info Sites on social media will employ user-friendly language, easy to understand information on court services, and ways to access them (for example, how and where to post bail, or the
amount of filing fees for a given case and how to pay.
“The languages to be employed in these sites will be English and Filipino, as well as most commonly used dialects.
“In time, AI (artificial intelligence)-enabled platforms for self-help and public assistance services will also be deployed. The Court will put up kiosks in precincts and courts. The kiosks will assist the public as to court processes and procedures, provide answers to some of their queries, and the like. They may also be utilized in informing the public regarding the status of their cases pending before the trial courts.
“The Court will also utilize AI-enabled platforms in identifying areas of law where preventive legal literacy may be of value.
“The experience of developing countries has proven that technological advances can assist in improving institutional reforms and enhancing their impact. These include the strategic use of ICT in improving access to justice, resource utilization, and planning, administration, efficiency and transparency of the system.
“ICT initiatives can contribute in addressing some technical and procedural difficulties in access to justice, particularly in the reduction of costs and delays.
“However, technology itself is just one of the three pillars of digital transformation which also comprise of people and process.
“During the 2023 American Judges Association 62nd Annual Conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii, I emphasized that the success and failure of any digital transformation lies heavily on its people, because it is their mindset and the culture of transformation that are the critical components.
“To enable this digital shift, we must build on the strategic alignment towards the initiative, develop capabilities needed to adapt to the change, and build and maintain a culture that sustains the change.
“The institutional knowledge of employees during times of change are invaluable. Court employees serve as the very backbone of our judicial system. By involving them at the outset, we empower our employees to be change drivers as we tap into their expertise, creating a collaborative environment where ideas are co-created.
“Court personnel who are experienced in their tasks have the potential to contribute relevant insights to the reform program, in view of their long years of working in the courts.
“For that reason, the Court is investing heavily in upgrading the capabilities of judicial employees, along with members of the bar, to equip them with the requisite tools and skillsets necessary to thrive in this digital era.
“We have much faith in the capacity of our own people within the judiciary to adapt to new technologies. At present, the Judiciary is moving steadily forward. Our achievements under the first year of SPJI were made possible by the well-coordinated efforts and fierce determination of the entire judiciary.
“We commend the hard work and dedication to duty shown by court officials and employees who have all contributed to making the first year of SPJI a tremendous success.”