Freedom and Death Inside the Jail.pdf - The Action Program for ...

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Freedom and Death Inside The Jail
Table 4.12 : Length of Stay of Quezon City Jail Inmates as of October 2003
Inmates also complain about their hearings being scheduled
months apart. They say that, on the average, they get a hearing only
once every two months. For some inmates, it takes four months.
Worse, some hearings get cancelled and re-scheduled after two or
four months. A hearing is called off for a myriad of reasons: the
judge, prosecutor, or lawyer is sick or has other commitments; the
witnesses fail to appear because they did not receive the notice of
hearing; there is no more time left since the preceding case that
was heard took a lot of time; the scheduled date of hearing has
been proclaimed a public holiday; there is a typhoon; and there
are security concerns in the jail, like riots and noise barrages.
Another reason cited by inmates as to why their cases get
delayed is that most of the courts issue a decision well beyond
the 90-day period set by law. Most of the cases are decided upon
within a span of six months to one year. There are even cases that
are promulgated five years after they were submitted.
Sometimes, the delay is intentional. Arresting officers deliberately
do not attend the hearings knowing that a case would
be provisionally dismissed only if they do not appear for three
consecutive sessions. The usual practice is that they intentionally
do not attend the first two hearings, wait for the rescheduling of
the third hearing, and that is the time that they will attend. Which
means the first two had already been postponed. Continuing the
pattern, they will not attend the fourth and fifth hearings, which
will again be postponed. It is only on the sixth scheduled hearing
that they will attend again. For every three hearings scheduled,