THE JUDICIARY is working closely with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to improve its use of online platforms for court hearings and other proceedings, Supreme Court (SC) judges said on Wednesday.
“With the use of technology, our processes… and even the organizational structure of the different offices of the judiciary are being renewed,” Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo told an online forum.
Mr. Gesmundo noted that lower courts judges are given a monthly allowance of P5,000 to help cover their costs for online proceedings.
“The advantage of video conferencing, in the long run, is that reporters can cover court hearings remotely and they do not need to attend the proceedings physically,” he added.
SC Associate Justice Jose Midas P. Marquez told the same forum that courts across the country have conducted over a million hearings via teleconference as of Oct. 13, with 89.27% of the virtual hearings occurring without network interruptions.
The measure to strengthen the use of online platforms for legal proceedings is part of the High Court’s Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations for 2022-2017, which aims to fast-track case resolution and the delivery of justice.
Mr. Marquez said another component of the plan is to “translate our court documents to local dialects in the future through artificial intelligence.”
Also present during the forum were Associate Justices Jhosep Y. Lopez and Maria Filomena D. Singh. — John Victor D. Ordoñez