By Norman Sison
The Philippine Star 01/26/2005
There have been some improvements in the judiciary and the legal profession during the past several years, according to the results of an opinion poll taken among judges and lawyers.
However, the survey conducted by pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS) also found recurring problems such as corruption and the slow pace of court proceedings.
Sixty-nine percent of 400 lawyers surveyed said they were satisfied with the general performance of trial judges, while 27 percent said they were not.
This is higher compared to the results of a similar SWS poll taken in 1994-1995, wherein 63 percent were satisfied and 33 percent dissatisfied.
The latest survey was conducted from November 2003 to July 2004. It was sponsored by the Asia Foundation, with support from the United States Agency for International Development, to track changes in the judiciary and the legal profession after a period of eight to nine years.
The referendum of judges was done by mail to all 1,460 trial court judges across the country, of whom 889 or 61 percent responded.
A majority of judges and lawyers said they were satisfied with the "sufficiency of knowledge" of judges who handle special courts such as those that handle family, drug and intellectual property cases.
Eighty-two percent of judges said they were satisfied with the judicial procedure in the country, as opposed to 16 percent who were dissatisfied.
This is relatively unchanged from the 1994-95 survey, 80 percent satisfied and 20 percent dissatisfied.
Opinions on the same subject were relatively split among lawyers, 49 percent of whom said they were satisfied and 48 percent were not. In the 1994-95 poll, 48 percent were satisfied and 51 percent were dissatisfied.
"Large majorities of lawyers complain that courts operate too slowly, but larger majorities of judges say that courts proceed at a reasonable if not speedy pace, and even blame lawyers for prolonging cases in order to get more income from appearance fees," SWS said in a statement sent to the media.
Three percent of judges said courts have been generally speedy while 71 percent said the pace was generally reasonable and 23 percent said cases were moving too slow.
The figures were relatively unchanged compared to the 1994-95 survey.
On the other hand, only one percent of lawyers said courts were speedy while 26 percent said the pace was reasonable and 57 percent said the pace has been too slow.
In the 1994-95 poll, two percent said speedy, 35 percent said reasonable and 52 percent said too slow.
Corruption remains a "major problem," according to the SWS. One fourth of lawyers surveyed said "many" or "very many" judges were corrupt.
"However, although half (49 percent) say they know a case where a judge took a bribe, only eight percent of such lawyers said they reported the bribery, the main excuse of those keeping silent being that they could not prove it," SWS said.
On the other hand, only seven percent of judges who responded to the poll said "many" or "very many" of their peers were corrupt.
"What has increased is the proportion of judges seeing many lawyers as corrupt," SWS said. Twenty-seven percent said "many" or "very many" lawyers were corrupt, as opposed to 20 percent eight to nine years ago.
Thirty-one percent said "some" lawyers were corrupt, as opposed to 34 percent in the 1994-95 survey.
Among seven institutions whose performance were rated by both lawyers and judges, the Supreme Court scored the highest, while the Philippine National Police scored the lowest.
