Black-hole justice

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno was reported as “encouraging lawyers who seem to know about, and have been discussing in ‘hushed tones,’ the corrupt practices of ‘hoodlums in robes’ to blow the whistle on these judges” (“Expose corrupt judges, Sereno urges lawyers,” Second Front Page, 9/27/13).

The traditional way of combating corruption, incompetence or any other from of injustice in the judiciary—filing administrative complaints against erring judges—is sorely inadequate and ineffective. What are the chances of an administrative complaint filed against a justice, be it ordinary or impeachment, ever succeeding? Assuming that evidence (marked money, “loan” notes, affidavits of witnesses, etc.) can be summoned against a judge, how long will it take the Supreme Court to convict him/her? In the meantime, the respondent judge will have a field day wreaking havoc on the justice system. And when he/she is finally convicted, how many of us, the people, will know of the judgment? The deterrent effect of opprobrium will have been long gone.

Make exposés in media? But media people, with few exceptions, make exposés only in ineffective general terms; the threat of libel deters them from going into unsubstantiated specifics.

There is, however, one effective way to fight this evil in the judiciary. Let me call this the “black holes of justice” way or “judicial black holes”—I mean the disappointing, disgusting or shameful decisions, resolutions and orders and acts of corrupt, incompetent, biased or unfair judicial and quasijudicial officers and personnel. I call them so because like the cosmic black holes—which devour everything within their gravitational field, including light—judicial black holes devour the zeal and intensity for battle of many a young, upright and idealistic trial lawyer, ultimately corrupting them as well or driving them to instead seek happiness in other fields of endeavor; it devours the faith of the common man in the justice system, in the end making him contemptuous of the law, driving him to seek redress for his grievances in ways other than peaceful and judicial. In many instances, courts no longer provide shelter, protection, relief and comfort to the oppressed, the weak, the wronged. Instead, they are a haven and repository of judicial black holes. Our people go to court to seek refuge and comfort, full of hope, full of faith, only to leave its portals fully disillusioned and totally devastated.

So what’s the “black holes of justice” way?

It is to publish judicial black holes while their authors are still in the service—even when the orders, decisions or resolutions are not yet final—to shame them so that they will no longer produce judicial black holes ever again. Just publish the pleadings of the parties and the judicial black hole. No further comment nor remarks, so that the publication will be no more than “a fair and true report made in good faith.”

Imagine patently unjust and unlawful decisions, orders and resolutions, their authors properly identified, being published on a regular basis. Will not the publication be an effective deterrent against abuse, corruption or incompetence among justices, judges, sheriffs and other court personnel? Will not this vigilance pressure them to do what is right?

Once the pleadings and other papers are published, those who come to read them can, in their silence, in their private thoughts, immediately judge the subject judicial or quasi-officer guilty or innocent. This immediate judgment by the people is what incompetent or corrupt judicial and quasijudicial officials fear. Even crooks value their reputation. As the Inquirer said in an editorial hailing the appointment of Justice Conchita Carpio Morales as ombudsman, “[N]othing inspires faith in the administration of justice, or strikes fear in the hearts of the corrupt, like a speedy trial.”

Virgilio P. Alconera has been a trial lawyer for 32 years and is a professor of civil law at the Mindanao State University College of Law. He is the author of the book “Black Holes of Justice.”