Palace tosses blame back to SC on e-court fund lack The Palace - TopicsExpress



          

Palace tosses blame back to SC on e-court fund lack The Palace tossed back to the Supreme Court yesterday the blame for the absence of funding for electronic courts (e-courts) raised by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno saying the SC failed to seek funding for the project that seeks to speed up the disposition of cases. Deputy presidential spokesman Abigail Valte said the SC did not seek funding for e-courts in 2014 and 2015 to counter Sereno’s allegation that the Palace deleted funding for the creation of such courts. Valte said Malacañang showed support to the SC on its hearing to implement information technology projects, namely, the Enterprise Information Systems Plan (EISP). She said the Palace openly supported EISP which had a total project cost of P774.6 million. As the dispute between the Palace and the SC continues, law expert lawyer David Robert Aquino said Aquino’s pursuit to clip the powers of the Supreme Court (SC) could damage the reputation of the High Court, according to In an interview with Bombo Radyo on Wednesday, Aquino openly said that the powers of the High Court should be clipped if there be Charter Change, noting that the SC meddles too much with issues that do not even need arbitration from the High Tribunal. “So as it stands, if you are going to water down the power of the SC from its current state then that’s a mockery of the High Court,” Atty. Aquino said. “As the president, he is the unifying head of the country. He should avoid saying statements that would divide or otherwise fracture the political set up,” he added. Valte said there was no request from the SC to fund its project on e-courts citing records from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) that supposedly showed that the High Court did not request for any fund for it for 2014 and 2015. “The administration supports the [EISP], their requests are swiftly acted upon. But, we did not receive any budget request for the e-courts for 2014 and 2015 when we checked the records,” Valte said. “As far as we see, at least under this administration, the support given to the judiciary is continuous,” she added. Sereno told reporters last Thursday that lack of funds threaten the execution of the Judiciary’s key reform programs, including development of e-courts that would supposedly aid litigation. The Chief Justice said e-courts removes human inter-mediation by providing random electronic system and raffling, making the process less prone to corruption. “The problem is that the executive department deleted our request for funding of more e-courts,” she said. Sereno said the court was planning to tap other sectors to attract funding, including the business community. She said the Judiciary has also called on the national government and the Congress for support. “I am not satisfied with what they gave us, that’s why we are trying to make a strong case. It will be difficult to sustain (reform programs) in the longrun. We don’t want to stop midstream,” Sereno said. tribune.net.ph/headlines/palace-tosses-blame-back-to-sc-on-e-court-fund-lack
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 15:57:35 +0000

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