A Kabaleyan’s Thoughts…
Turtles in robes
By: Ulysses Raciles Butuyan
(Author is the Executive Judge of the Regional Trial Court in Tayug).
COUNTING our numbers with the use of fingers and toes would not work. Enlisting the help of millipedes might do wonders.
We are the turtles in the judiciary, whose pace in the management and disposition of cases is partly to blame for the generally perceived “slow administration of justice.”
There is a gamut of explanations why we infest the bench. Foremost is that our appointment still largely depends not really on sterling credentials but on political and/or personal connections. To be sure, we are more familiar with the appointing power than with the law and court proceedings. (This judge was a relative of the appointing President, but only until he was appointed.)
Then there is the matter of remuneration. Most outstanding and professionally motivated lawyers prefer to remain in private practice, where they are compensated far higher than the take home pay of an honest Chief Justice. But slowpokes like us come from the ranks of those who have abandoned an unrewarding private practice or a colorless employment, in favor of being addressed as “Your Honor.”
Imagine a courtroom situation where the judge is not just a human turtle but a dimwit, while the lawyers appearing before him are street smart. No one will be laughing when he renders a judgment that is as ridiculously hilarious as it is unnervingly late. Now visualize a courtroom situation presided by a proficient judge while the appearing lawyers are inept. Expect, nevertheless, that the judgment rendered is just and promptly rendered.
For as long as the present system of appointing or promoting judges largely remains as an exercise in patronage, and the wide disparity between the respective incomes of judges and private practitioners effectively dissuades the better-prepared attorneys from joining the judiciary, the administration of justice will continue to drag or stagnate, thanks to our burgeoning numbers as turtles in the bench.
But not all the woes in litigation are attributable to us alone, the sluggish turtles in robes. Said to be lurking in our midst are reptiles in more vicious forms, and they even are as good-looking as some politicians.
CP No. 09209098204
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