Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo assured the country’s business leaders of a functioning and reliable judiciary as their counterpart in enhancing economic growth and stability.

In his speech during the 2024 Justice Summit organized by the Supreme Court (SC) and the Justice Reform Initiative (JRI) held in Makati City on Thursday, Feb. 1, Gesmundo expressed gratitude to JRI members as partners of the judiciary.

“Much remains to be done. But we are already seeing the effects of our progress, as shown in the results of your survey. This gives us additional impetus to continue on this difficult road we have chosen,” he said.

JRI was formed almost a decade ago.  It is a private initiative composed of leading business organizations and foreign chambers of commerce in the country.

Gesmundo said that “the judiciary’s role in national development has been underappreciated or simply ignored. The economy has been viewed as a field entirely separate and unconnected to the justice system.  But thanks to the JRI, the important connection has been made and JRI made it its avowed mission.”

The Chief Justice recalled that “year in and year out, we are rated globally as one of the poorest in terms of Ease of Doing Business.”

“The principal complaint is that even cases involving simple commercial transactions like loans take years to be resolved.  When there is no guarantee that an investor’s rights will be protected in a timely and efficient manner, even the most attractive business opportunities will engender uncertainty and hesitation,” he said.

But he pointed out that the judiciary’s inclusion in the 2023-2028 Philippine Development Plan “in itself is a recognition by the national leadership that a stable and thriving financial environment is inextricably tied to an efficient and trustworthy justice system.”

He said when he took his oath as Chief Justice, he asked his colleagues “what is the biggest problem of the judiciary?”

“The answer that really got my attention was this -- the biggest problem of the Judiciary is the low public trust in it.  I could not agree more,” he lamented.

“But the major contributor to this lack of trust is the lack of information or awareness and the deficient understanding by the general populace of what our courts are doing.  And more than docket congestion, it is this lack of awareness and understanding that we have to urgently address, because unless the public know and understand what their remedies are and how these remedies can be accessed through the courts -- simply put, what the courts can and cannot do for them, then we cannot adequately perform our role in upholding the rule of law,” he said.

Then, he said, the JRI “proposed a project to the Supreme Court that consisted of three (3) phases: first, the conduct of a survey to provide an industry assessment of the Judiciary’s performance in key areas; second, the conduct of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) on the results of the survey, to validate them and come up with proposed recommendations; and third, the conduct of a Justice Summit to present the results and to hear what the Supreme Court’s reaction is to such results.”

On the first FGD on integrity and decorum, Gesmundo cited that the “survey results for integrity were particularly heartening for us.”  He said 75 percent of the respondents said that the SC ‘independently acts and decides cases based on the facts and the law, and is not influenced by any other factor outside the merits of the case.’” He said it was 73 percent for the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA), 70 percent for the Court of Appeals (CA), and 62 per cent for the trial courts.

“Coming from the business community, this result is a solid affirmation that the majority of our courts are viewed as independent and trustworthy. This is also validation of our premise that it is the lack of awareness and understanding that drives public distrust, because people who understand the court processes and procedures find the system reliable,” he said.

In terms of accountability, he said that based on the survey “60 percent of the respondents said that they have not had any experience where a court personnel did not display integrity or abused his or her authority.”

On decorum, he said that court personnel from the clerk of court down “were reported to be ‘very accommodating and respond immediately to requests and clarifications from the litigants,’ with 82 percent fo the SC, the CA and CTA, and 69 percent for the trial courts.”

He said the second FGD covered competencies, court processes, technology, and reforms awareness.

The Chief Justice said:

“On Court Processes, 67 percent identified delay in procedures and clogged dockets as the cause of delay in civil and criminal cases. The SC was rated by 55 percent as “hear[ing] and decid[ing] assigned cases efficiently and without unnecessary delay; the CA  47 percent; the CTA 45 percent;  and the trial courts 35 percent..

“We rated better with enforcement of our decisions, with the SC at 74 percent, CA 68 percent, CTA 63 percent, and the trial courts at 46 percent.

“In the Focus Area of Competencies, 51 percent of respondents replied that they have encountered an incompetent judge, while 70 percent have encountered incompetent court personnel.

“On Awareness of Reform Initiatives, 98 percent agreed that Small Claims ‘provides a simplified and less costly way’ of resolving the dispute, while 91 percent lauded ‘the shortened trials in civil and criminal cases.’  Sixty-one percent suggested that ‘the Supreme Court consider limiting the cases it should review.’

“Eighty-two percent found that Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms such as Court-Annexed Mediation (CAM) and Judicial Dispute Resolution (JDR) ‘effectively reduced docket congestion,’ although there were issues about enforcement.

“Finally, on Technology, 96 percent of the respondents said that the Court should adopt technology in the conduct of hearings, in the filing of pleadings and motions, and in the service of court notices to the parties.”