The judiciary’s performance last year was lackluster in the disposition of the drug cases pending before the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals and the various trial courts.
Based on the Supreme Court’s 2017 Judicial Annual Report, out of the 928 drug-related cases filed with the high court only 206 cases were resolved last year, or a disposition rate of 22 percent.
In the Court of Appeals, of the 3,105 pending drug cases, 898 were resolved for a disposition rate of 29 percent.
The high court’s annual report also indicated that, out of the 289,316 drug-related cases in the lower courts in 2017, only 12 percent or 34,683 were disposed.
At the regional trial courts alone, a total of 83,396 new drug cases were filed while 1,104 cases were reopened or revived.
The high court’s report only confirmed the admission earlier of Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta that the lower courts were failing in the drug cases despite the measures undertaken by the high court to unclog the lower court dockets of cases related to drugs.
Peralta said the validation reports from the Office of the Court Administrator and the Management Information System Office showed that the lower courts had considerably reduced the clogged dockets on criminal cases except on the drug cases.
“We are failing in the drug cases,” Peralta said during his interview with the Judicial and Bar Council two weeks ago.
He said the lower courts were finding it impossible to comply with the “humanly impossible” requirements under Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Article XI, Section 90 of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 says cases must be resolved not later than 60 days from the date of filing of the Information or charge sheet.
The decision on a case must be issued within 15 days from submission, but Peralta said the courts were “having a hard time” complying.
He said the counting should start after the arraignment, and arraignment means the accused is brought to court and informed of the nature and cause of the allegations against him or her.
Peralta said if the trial and reception of evidence was scheduled during arraignment in the drug cases, one court would have to try six or seven cases in one day, which was physically impossible.