While managing a court effectively is no rocket science, neither it is to be taken lightly. If you are a judge or a court official, you have been appointed exactly to the position you desired. And here are your basic duties:

1) Remember why courts exist

The purposes of courts are: to do individual justice in individual cases; appear to do justice (this means being present in court all the time even if no formal hearing is going on); provide a forum for the resolution of legal conflicts; protect citizens from arbitrary use of government power; make formal record of status; deter criminal behavior; and rehabilitate convicts.

2) Know your current and actual court docket

This entails having an honest-to-goodness data about your caseload including inherited cases, archived cases, age of cases, events in a case, cases pending for resolution and average monthly case inflow and outflow, for you obviously cannot manage what you cannot asses. Take stock, this will surely help court administrators provide remedy wherever and whenever needed.

3) Use case-tracking to ascertain how much court intervention is needed

Cases filed in court vary. Some have to be on an expedited or fast hearing list, for instance, restraining or protective orders while many are assigned standard classification. Still others are fitted for complex (corporate rehabilitation), multiple tracking system or even stay on holding track such as guardianship, custody and support of minor children or settlement of estate cases. It would be wise, however, to set timelines or define what a “backlog” is to a particular judicial system for case-tracking in coordination with bar associations for more realistic time standards.

4) Apply pre-trial mechanisms and aim high for the “inverted telescope” result

The use of ADR (alternative dispute resolution) methods such as mediation, diversion or plea-bargaining in criminal cases which are conducted in a no-fault atmosphere; the full exploit of discovery modes and affidavits as direct testimony; and agreements on various trial rules such as “one day examination of witness”, “most important witness”, or use of an expert witness are believed to contribute significantly to the reduction of cases that reach trial stage- from a 100% rate to 5% under the “inverted telescope” theory. Such also means less work for the court.

5) Take control of the court, its proceedings and the duty-holders

The bottom line is, it is the court not anyone else who controls the pace of litigation. All court duty-holders (court personnel, lawyers, etc.) are officers of the court. Court calendars are made firm and observed strictly allowing no or little continuances so that court users do not lose faith in the judicial system. At the same time, delay is averted.

6) Get serious in adjudicating

Even if court trials are daily remit, no judge or court official neglects being prepared for the cases heard on a particular day including research work and business arising from the issues.

7) Flex your administrative, technical muscles

A judge manages court infrastructure, equipment, technology and security. Skills are required to supervise well a host of lower court committees ranging from the sublime to the mundane- employee grievance, performance rating, sexual harassment woes to disposal of used court properties.

8) Draw on your tools, wellspring of resources and take charge

Do not forget to turn to your ample reservoir of power, authority, knowledge base, expertise, trainings received, as well as child, gender, religion and cultural capacities. There are also core measures in managing your court that are available to you to gauge success – access and fairness, clearance rate, time to dispose, integrity of case files, cost of processing and the like.

9) Be ethical and insist that your court personnel are, too

Remind yourself and everybody else of the court’s code of conduct. That somehow establishes a court culture that is not bursting with discourtesy, inefficiency, apathy, thievery and corruption.

10) Dispense justice now

Resolve cases promptly and see to it that decisions are implemented quickly. The role of a judge is unchanging- that of a problem solver or savior!

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* The author of this article, Hon. Nimfa Cuesta Vilches, is an Assistant Court Administrator of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. She was a Supreme Court Attorney for 6 years; a Judge for 17 years; a recipient of Judicial Excellence Award; nominated to the post of Associate Justice, Court of Appeals; and a Professorial Lecturer of the Philippine Judicial Academy. She received relevant training from the National Center for State Courts, USA, and has observed court management systems in various countries in the world.