Elusive justice

The ongoing impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona has drawn attention to the workings of the justice system in the country. After all, if the chief magistrate of the land stands accused of abusing his office and using his power to favor certain litigants and conceal his personal wealth, then what does this say about how the rest of the judicial system operates?

But as it turns out, there are far more basic issues about the dispensation of justice in the Philippines than the questionable probity of Supreme Court justices and judges and the uneven application of the rule of law. There is also the most basic issue of access to the system, where poor people in conflict with the law find themselves boxed out or unduly punished simply because they do not have enough money or influence to push the process along.

Late last year, I took part in the launching of “Progress of the World’s Women in Pursuit of Justice,” a report of UN Women, the new United Nations agency resulting from the consolidation of all women-related UN offices. The report, which gathers information from all member-countries, found that despite some progress made in laws and policies, women still face practical barriers in negotiating justice systems. Or as Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and executive director of UN Women puts it: “Despite widespread guarantees of equality, the reality for many millions of women is that justice remains out of reach.”

This, said feminist lawyer Evalyn Ursua in her reaction paper at the launch, “is the core message of the report.”

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Ursua went on to detail the basis of her contention that for the poor and those without power, justice remains elusive, if not remote.

In terms of court fees alone, she said, the costs can be staggering for the majority of Filipino women and children since the filing fees have “multiplied by more than 300 percent.”

Very recently, she recalled, she accompanied a boy to the village police station to file charges against a man who had been beating the boy in full public view. “The realities slapped me in the face,” said Ursua as she went through the process with the child. “I had to pay for the child’s medico-legal examination in a government hospital. It was a minimal amount but why is there a fee?” Also, she added, there has been a major change in the criminal process that began with the last administration. And this is that a litigant is charged a fee “in practically every step of the criminal investigation process.” Anyone accessing the criminal justice system is required to pay P50 for the administration of an oath by a public prosecutor on an affidavit, P500 for filing a motion of reconsideration, and P1,000 for filing a petition for review with the Department of Justice.

“What happened to the duty of the state to investigate and prosecute crimes?” she asks. “Why is the burden on the ordinary citizen to prosecute criminals? Imagine this situation multiplied a thousand times in various places…where women victims of abuse file complaints.”

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Another factor key to “boxing out” the majority of Filipinos from accessing the justice system is language. “The majority of Filipino women and children are illiterate and speak a language different from the language of the law and the legal system,” points out Ursua. (And as shown in the ongoing impeachment trial with its convoluted language and obscure terms.)

“I wonder about this question often: how could a justice system that uses a foreign language (English) be accessible to its people? In my opinion, if the Philippine legal system…is serious about improving access to justice by the poor and the illiterate, there are only two choices: either we teach the English language to every poor and illiterate woman, man and child and require them to make it their own, or we transform the entire legal system to use the language of the masses.”

Many in development work, said Ursua, “believe there can never be genuine access to justice for the poor and illiterate in the Philippines if we do not change the language of the justice system.”

As for efforts to reform the law to make it more “gender-sensitive,” Ursua says she has often found herself sitting in a courtroom and thinking to herself: “We have crafted laws for women that only women’s rights advocates understand.” This is because, she says, she has found herself facing judges who completely miss the point or improperly apply the law involving violence against women or even children. “While some judges are aware of the rules, their understanding is usually mechanical and superficial,” she observes.

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Another point raised is that “supposedly gender-responsive laws and policies have not resulted in actual changes in the handling of cases by prosecutors and judges; have not stopped the ill treatment of women litigants; have not removed the stereotypes and prejudices against women that dominate investigative and judicial processes and decision-making, particularly in violence against women cases.”

Ursua likewise says that “some laws do not get implemented or are not applied properly. Some have been relegated to the statute books, forgotten that they exist at all.” It is for these reasons, she says, that “giving judges proper training and monitoring their decisions are critical.”

Indeed, if poor litigants are denied access to justice even at the most basic level of the police precinct and the medico-legal officer, then how can they be expected to prevail at higher levels, including the Supreme Court? And how can we expect to reform the system to be more gender-sensitive and address social inequality when basic justice remains elusive?

More on this in tomorrow’s column.