RP courts less corrupt than Congress — TI

Despite the widespread perception of corruption in the Arroyo administration, only 7 percent of Filipinos believe that the Philippine judiciary is affected by corruption, international think tank Transparency International (TI) has recently said.

In its Global Corruption Barometer 2009, which contains the result of a survey conducted by TI that polled 73,132 respondents across 69 countries, the Philippine judiciary was shown to have gotten a better mark than the country’s political parties and Congress in terms of the level of corruption prevailing in them.

TI, which conducts the only worldwide public opinion survey on views and experiences in corruption, said other public officials and civil servants topped the survey with 35 percent of Filipinos believing that they are the most affected by corruption.

Political parties and the legislature followed suit with 28 percent and 26 percent, respectively, of the Filipinos thinking that they are affected by corruption.

In a statement, Chief Justice Reynato Puno attributes this to the judiciary’s efforts to cleanse its ranks.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court (SC) suspended a Quezon City sheriff who was found to have received a sum of money to enforce the execution of a writ without having made an estimate and without securing prior approval of the court.

Last week, the SC dismissed a clerk of court from the service after she was found guilty of grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty and gross dishonesty when she was caught receiving money from a complainant in a legitimate entrapment operation and found to be remiss in the performance of her administrative duties.

Also, a Zamboanga City judge was slapped with a P40,000 fine after he was found guilty of gross inefficiency and gross misconduct for failing to decide a number of cases despite instructions from the high court to do so.

This week, a sheriff from Calubian town, Leyte province was dismissed from service for falsification of an official document and abusing his public authority.

Notably, under Puno, more judges and court personnel have been preventively suspended than any other time.

TI has been scrutinizing the performance of the judiciaries of countries worldwide and has also been obtaining the “pulse” of their peoples on their perception of the level of corruption in their nation’s justice system.

In a forum last month in Manila, Angela Keller-Herzog, program manager for advocacy and legal advice center of TI Germany, said even as technology has made it easier for the public to have access to the ongoings and developments in their judiciary, the judicial bodies of a lot of countries still need to be more transparent with their undertakings.

“With the increased use of the Internet, it is extremely easy for information about the judiciary to be made public and to be made open to scrutiny and comments,” Keller-Herzog said.

She, though, stressed that there is a wanting for balance to be “struck between judicial accountability and judicial independence.”

According to Keller-Herzog, TI has also been watching governments’ appointments to their judiciary to ensure the integrity and independence of judges and justices.

She said various national chapters of TI have been actively working in the judicial selection processes, including training of judges on transparency. These have taken place in Hungary, Palestine and Cameroon, among others.

TI said it uses the survey findings to give recommendations to the concerned government in the fight against judicial corruption and strengthen judicial independence. Benjamin B. Pulta, Daily Tribune