Sereno to meet Abad over judiciary budget

CHIEF Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno will have a private meeting with Budget Secretary Florencio Abad on Wednesday to discuss the budgetary requirements of the reforms to be initiated by the new Supreme Court (SC) administration.

The meeting is scheduled at 2 p.m. at the SC, acting spokesperson Gleoresty Guerra said in a text message.

This is the first time that a Budget secretary will go to the High Court to personally consult officials on financial concerns.

Committee hearings for the P17.77-billion budget for the judiciary in 2013 are still ongoing in Congress with next year’s outlay eyed to support the resolution of over 320,000 cases pending in the SC and the rest of lower courts.

Next year’s budget is 13.08 percent higher than P15.71 billion in 2012, records of the Senate committee on finance show.

Recently, the DBM decided to remove special allowances of justices and judges beginning next year while the billions in court fees being collected by the courts must be remitted to the national treasury as part of the government’s general fund.

This is contained under General Appropriations Act Special Provision 1 of the Judiciary as SC Administrator Midas Marquez had said they will appeal this during the budget deliberations. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)