HALL OF JUSTICE

[February 8, 2013 at 10:01am]

One of the hottest issues around the City of Iloilo today is about the Hall of Justice Building which was abandoned right after the last quake that rocked the city.

Some of the branches of the Court of First Instance were compelled to settle and nestle at the also abandoned Elementary building of the defunct De Paul College in Jaro District. In view thereof, the hearings are like your typical elementary class minus the rowdy pupils as a prohibition of the noise, of course, is understandably strict.

If you don’t know the main reason why court proceedings are held in such kind of venue and place when only through its dilapidated wooden windows you peep, you would come to a conclusion and firm belief that, beyond a reasonable doubt, justice in the Philippines is cheap.

It’s because it’s not good that the administrators of the law, like Batman and his Superfriends, from the majesty of the halls of justice away you drove. It’s sore sight-seeing rostrums and robes in inappropriate location as if in the wrong side of the globe, keeping them for a long time in a secluded and remote area similar to an abused rainforest cove.

Powers-that-be may have forgotten that Lady Justice should reside in a courtroom of at least a palace of a home. That people would feel, speak and hear substantial justice as they would see the Lady in form with “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.”

However, considering the precarious condition of the Iloilo Hall of Justice which has cracks here, there and everywhere, forcing workers and end-users to go back therein without surgical inspection of every nook and cranny with imminent danger would be fairly unfair.

For how could one work in there properly and efficiently when only half of his mind is performing the job as the other half is watching even for a tiny jolt so intently? Court employees could take all orders from higher-ups like a dedicated soldier who would trust and obey, but exposing them to clear and present danger would be a completely different story.

Let us leave the mantra “Obey first before you complain” strictly to a Marcosian military. Such phrase is advantageous to and abused only by the corrupt and should have no place in a democracy.

The local members of the judiciary, litigants and the general public are clamoring for a total demolition of the current Building, to give way to a new one which should be religiously built according to its specifications in the plan, design, and scheme.

That way, when, coinciding with an earthquake, an accused is found not guilty, the same could no more truthfully say, “You give me death while giving me liberty.”