Zamora envisions a Filipino-speaking, well-funded, tablet-carrying judiciary

Former Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora aims to have a technologically savvy, well-funded, and Filipino-speaking judiciary that dispenses cases  quickly with the aid of tablet computers, and advocates restorative justice even as it gives priority to the poor. Zamora, a seven-term lawmaker and executive secretary of former President Joseph Estrada, described before the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) a judiciary under his watch if he gets selected to be the next chief justice. He also emphasized that law and justice should be made accessible to anyone, regardless of economic class. But the judiciary should give more priority to underprivileged Filipinos, said Zamora, who also had been an assistant executive secretary of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. "Give the poor more in law because he has less in life... The law is not the play thing of the rich. It is meant to be accessible to everyone," he said. Zamora said underprivileged Filipinos are the ones who usually do not have a good grip of the English language, thus he suggested that court trials should be conducted in Filipino. He said the Filipino language should be used simply because it is more widely spoken by Filipinos than the English language. "If I were to bet on justice on other languages, I would bet on Mandarin as the language for the next century rather than English simply because there are more people speaking Mandarin," he said. "[So] it is not a matter of justice but accepting some realities. And the reality is there are more Filipinos speaking Tagalog than English," Zamora said. To show his support for the use of Filipino in he judiciary, Zamora even delivered an opening speech purely in Filipino, the first in all the opening speeches delivered so far by aspirants to the chief-justice post. Zamora also strongly supports a country practicing restorative justice for criminals. "Ang katotohanan, ang mahalaga sa restorative justice is that you're not out to punish a wrong doer but you want to restore his rightful place in society. You want to restore a community to where it was prior to the commission of the crime," Zamora said. He cited Muslim countries that employ "blood money" to defer death sentences, and the US which hands down community service penalties for convicts. Zamora said these changes and developments that he envisions for the judiciary could all be done if the government would augment budget allocations for it. Zamora promised that his first goal as chief justice would be to shore up money for the judiciary. "Money doesn't solve everything but it helps," he said. During his turn to ask questions, Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta recalled how Zamora as a congressman had pushed for a higher budget for the judiciary. Peralta recalled one instance during a budget deliberation some years back at the Batasan Pambansa for the SC funds, where Zamora, still a congressman them, arrived late. "Dumating Kayo at iniisip namin iba-block ni Rep. Zamora ang budget natin, iba-block. Eh mabuti naman nang tumayo kayo, sinabi niyo na kailangan dagdagan ang budget ng Supreme Court," Peralta recounted. Zamora also suggested that judges start using tablets, iPads, and iPhones for the administration of justice. Zamora came to his interview with an iPad. At one point of the interview, Zamora also became emotional when he was asked about the death of her 38-year-old daughter who died while being treated in the US for acute myelogenous leukemia. "I am sorry for breaking up. I've not been asked that question foo some years," a teary-eyed Zamora said. — LBG, GMA News