Problems plaguing family courts

The term of Reynato Puno as Chief Justice of the Republic of the Philippines is coming to a close. Sill, true to his vision of expanding and upgrading the Filipino people’s access to justice, he led another summit on Friday, March 12—this time on family courts. Why a summit on family courts, one might ask. Summits on extra-judicial killings and on addressing environmental and climate change concerns were easy to understand because of the gravity and seriousness of these issues. I found the answer to this question when I attended the summit. However, as the summit was meant mainly to just validate and affirm what had been proposed in earlier forums held on family courts, there was little room left for new proposals.

First, why was the summit essential? We take for granted that now couples who have been living in miserable marriages may go to court and seek the annulment or declaration of nullity of their marriage. We take for granted that women who have suffered battering at the hands of their husbands may now seek protection from courts. We take for granted, too, that minors accused of crimes are no longer treated by courts in the same way as adult offenders. We take for granted that any case—civil or criminal in nature—fall under the jurisdiction of family courts as long as at least one of the complainants or accused, in fact, even just one of the witnesses, is a minor.

Litigants who have cases pending in family courts rail and scoff at the slow movement of cases. What they do not realize is that family courts are, in fact, deluged with an unbelievable volume of cases, and that there is simply not enough family courts to cope with the volume. In the summit, a common recommendation from all the workshops was to validate the proposal to regularize family courts. Regularizing family courts means to create new courts which will exclusively handle family cases. As it is now, family courts are merely designated, from existing courts, without adding to the number of courts. Thus, there are municipalities with no family court at all. The number of courts in the Philippines was determined and created in 1981 when Batas Pambansa Blg. 129, re-organizing the judiciary, came into effect. It has been 29 years. The population in 1980 was 48 million. In 2009 the Philippine population was estimated at 92 million. Yet, the number of courts in the entire country remains as it was in 1981.

Apart from the growth of the Philippine population, new laws have been passed which paved the way for the filing of countless cases in courts designated as family courts. These are: the Family Code which opened the gates to the filing of cases involving annulment or nullity of marriages; laws on domestic and inter-country adoption; the new rape law; the law on Anti-Violence against Women and their Children; the law on Child Abuse, and the Juvenile Justice Law, among others.

Statistics show that more and more women are now coming out to file cases of wife battering and violence. In his speech, Chief Justice Puno said that based on cases involving violence against women reported to the Philippine National Police, an increase of 21 per cent was recorded in 2008 from the figures in 2007. While physical injuries and wife battering cases comprised the bulk of cases involving women from 1999 to 2003, the trend changed beginning 2004 when the law on Anti-Violence against Women and their Children came into force. Since then, up to 2008, there has been a consistent upward trend in cases filed under the law on violence against women. This translates into more cases ending in family courts.

But for all its good intent, the law on Anti-Violence against Women and their Children has been abused by some women, aided of course, by their lawyers. Thus, family courts’ dockets are unfairly swamped. For instance, one case involved a woman who left the conjugal home while her husband was not there, bringing with her, their two children aged two and five. The husband was distraught as he was very close to the children. He filed a petition for habeas corpus and shared parental custody and authority because his wife practically hid their children from him and did not allow him to even visit them. The judge encouraged the parties to come to an agreement, at least on visitation rights for the father, while the merits of the petition, was being heard. The wife finally agreed to let the children’s father have them on Saturdays but without sleep-overs. They also agreed on the support that the father should give to the children now that they were no longer living with their father. Although feeling aggrieved, the husband acceded to all the woman’s conditions just so he could have, at least, some hours with his children on Saturdays. After the court had issued an Order directing that the parties comply with their agreement faithfully, the wife, soon after, filed a case under the Anti-Violence against Women law in another court. She alleged that she was a victim of violence in the form of verbal abuse and that her children likewise suffered violence in the form of economic abuse (for alleged lack of support). Thus, she asked for, and was immediately granted, a temporary protection order by the second court directing her husband to keep away from her and their two children. Under the law on Anti-Violence against Women and their Children, courts must automatically issue a temporary protection order valid for 30 days, renewable automatically, until a final determination by is made by the court on the merits of the case. Thus, in this case, the wife successfully thwarted the Order of the first court approving the parties’ agreement that the children’s father may have visitation rights over their children on Saturdays. All of a sudden, the father could not even visit his children anymore. Yet, the rules of court say that judgments or orders based on a compromise agreement are final and executory. Also, this is a clear case of forum shopping as the wife sought relief from another court, a co-equal court at that, on basically the same issues. Yet, she got away with this act of injustice all because of the rule on the automatic issuance of a protection order.

The definition of violence under this law is so broad that it encompasses physical, psychological, emotional and economic abuse. And since the protection of women and children is the core reason why protection orders are automatically issued by courts once a petition is filed, this can easily be abused by lawyers with imaginative inclination. Family courts are thus sometimes used to perpetrate an injustice. In the example I cited, the children are deprived of the love and company of their father and will, in all probability, grow up dysfunctionally, carrying an emotional baggage. Surely, this could not have been the intended effect of the law. Since the Supreme Court is now revisiting laws and rules affecting family courts, it might be well to consider abuses committed under the law on violence against women. Perhaps, the Court could require that a summary hearing be conducted before a temporary protection order is issued, very much the same way a hearing is first held before temporary restraining orders are granted, except where there is a clear and imminent danger to the life of a woman or her child. –Atty. Rita Linda V. Jimeno, Manila Standard Today

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