Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Editorials: Beleaguered judiciary
THE judiciary in the past few weeks has been hit by two whammies that put to question the integrity of our courts and placed at issue the moral values of judges.
In the process, the weakness of our judicial system was not only exposed but its vulnerability to graft and corruption somehow affirmed.
The cases involved the solemnization of civil marriages that did not fully abide by the rules regulating it and the processing in just one Regional Trial Court branch of some 518 petitions “for voluntary rehabilitation of drug dependents.”
The two cases highlighted what have long been suspected as being done by some municipal trial court and regional trial court judges.
Suspicions
While marriages under our laws could have been legally done, as for instance, when the couple can prove they have lived together for at least five years, still the report said the contracting parties were between Filipinos and foreign nationals.
On the other hand, petitions of drug dependents that have been acted upon without the cases being raffled off to the RTC Branch 5 from 1998 up to 2006 when the assigned judge Ireneo Gako, Jr. retired, invite deep suspicion.
While the report did not allude to any monetary considerations, it still smacks of suspicious regularity.
Explanation
Thus, the Supreme Court “directed several employees of the judiciary including a retired judge, to show cause why no disciplinary action should be imposed upon them for ‘illegally acting on inordinate’ number of petitions for voluntary rehabilitation of drug dependents.”
The SC asked Judge Gako to explain why he acted on the cases since “his court had no jurisdiction over them.”
Malady
In the so-called civil marriages case, four judges of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities were ordered suspended pending investigation.
In the drug dependents petitions, the SC has ordered court employees at the Palace of Justice to explain their actuation.
These “unsavory deeds” supposedly perpetrated by people tasked to manage the affairs of our courts have “disfigured” the image of our judicial system.
It is sad that at the time when it should have earned high respect and dignity in its maturity, it is instead being beleaguered now with intrinsic malady.
