JUDICIAL COMPETENCE AND ETHICS IN THE CYBERAGE (COPYRIGHT BY DR. ATTY. NOEL G. RAMISCAL)

Dr. Atty. Noel G. Ramiscal has been desiring to lecture on what it takes to be a competent and ethical judge in the cyber world, ever since the Philippine Cybercrime Prevention Act was passed in 2012. That law decreed the creation of cybercrime courts that are mandated to hear the offenses covered by the law. It was not clear if members of judiciary were consulted about this, or even if the legislators actually did research on the training and capacity of Philippine judges to handle cybercrime cases. What is clear is that as of August 25, 2016 [as confirmed by Dr. Ramiscal with the University of the Philippines Office of the National Administrative Register (UP ONAR)], this law is not yet effective because its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) had not yet been promulgated by the Department of Justice, the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Office of Information Communications and Technology in the Department of Science and Technology, and no certified copies of such IRR had been filed with the UP ONAR.

So when the UP Institute of Administration of Justice (IAJ) invited Dr. Ramiscal to debut his lecture on “Judicial Competence and Ethics in the Cyberage”, for its Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) seminar on August 25, 2015, he eagerly accepted. This was the first MCLE lecture given under the auspices of the UP IAJ that focused solely on the use of technology by judges in their professional and personal lives and the legal implications of such usage.

Dr. Atty. Noel G. Ramiscal at UP J. Bocobo Hall for his UP IAJ MCLE Lecture, Aug. 25, 2015

It is incontrovertible that the courts, including the Philippine Supreme Court, have increasingly utilized internet resources in their decisions and dispositions of the cases before them. Dr. Ramiscal discussed the perils of internet extrajudicial researches made by judges and law clerks as to how they can impact the due process rights of parties who were not allowed to present, examine, or contest online data that the judges or their clerks have already seen. This type of research should be properly regulated by the Philippine Supreme Court because even if these internet resources were not made part nor acknowledged in the decision itself, they may have already influenced or predisposed the judge to rule on the case in a certain way. Guidelines should also be formulated by the Supreme Court and the PHILJA as to the proper indicia of authenticity and reliability of internet resources and as to the proper handling of “link rot” of internet resources.

Some lawyers who attended Dr. Ramiscal’s Aug. 25, 2015 UP IAJ MCLE lecture

The ideation of a judge as being competent, credible, independent and with moral integrity can best be seen on the decisions that they produce. On this score, Dr. Ramiscal apprised the audience of eighty lawyers the issues at stake in online judicial plagiarism, taking as his framework the Philippine case against Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano C. Del Castillo and his unnamed court researcher [A.M. No. 10-7-17-SC, October 15, 2010, IN THE MATTER OF THE CHARGES OF PLAGIARISM, ETC., AGAINST ASSOCIATE JUSTICE MARIANO C. DEL CASTILLO], who were accused of plagiarizing three articles found in an online legal repository (Westlaw) that the Supreme Court subscribes to. He will write at length about this in another issue. Judges must, in dealing with cyberlaw issues, also be responsible and taken to task for their erroneous decisions because these can deleteriously affect the lives and liberties, not only of the parties involved, but future stakeholders dealing with the same issues. Major areas for improvement in the Philippines would be the correct understanding of handling electronic evidence and discovery issues of e-data. The Philippine Rules of Electronic Evidence has not been amended since 2002 and some of its provisions are just plain wrong from a technological and legal standpoint.

Other lawyers who attended Dr. Ramiscal’s Aug. 25, 2015 UP IAJ MCLE lecture

In this lecture, Dr. Ramiscal tackled some of the most important issues concerning the use of technology by the courts, in particular, service of legal process via social media and the e-filing system in the Supreme Court which he opined lacked a secure technological foundation. He then examined some of the crucial concerns relative to the use of technology and social media by judges, not only in the court, but also in their personal lives (e.g. Facebook friendships, Facebook likes, LinkedIn connections) that may seriously affect or even eclipse their professional standing and credibility. In his “Roll of Judicial Dishonor” Dr. Ramiscal showed examples of judges from the U.S.A., Canada and the Philippines who have sullied the image and ideations of judges as persons of high moral and intellectual integrity with their actions that ranged from inappropriate posting of their personal images (one of whom had nude pictures that can be accessed in the public online domain), to unbecoming sexting, to outrageous, sexist, racist emails and online remarks, and violent displays of their temper caught on social media.

To conclude his lecture, Dr. Ramiscal discussed some of the developments in other jurisdictions that are intended to help judges deal with cyberlaw issues, as well as their utilization of social media. Unfortunately, there appears to be no parallel moves to enlighten and empower Philippine judges, particularly those who will preside in future cybercrime courts, to be competent and ethical administrators of Justice in the cyberage.

Dr. Ramiscal would like to thank the UP IAJ, Atty. Armand Arevalo, Ms. Evelyn Cuasto, Raffy and Ariel, and to all the splendid lawyers who were genuinely interested in this lecture that Dr. Ramiscal debuted for UP IAJ. It was also truly a great pleasure to see Atty. Dulce Punzalan (Dr. Ramiscal’s classmate in UP Law) as well as meet new friends (Atty. Manalastas and Atty. Javier) in this event!