Dagupan City Justice Zone launched
THE Justice Sector Coordinating Council (JSCC) launched on Monday the Dagupan City Justice Zone, an area where key programs relating to the delivery of justice are put in place.
This is the 13th Justice Zone to be established by the JSCC, which is composed of the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
From the first-ever Justice Zone in the country launched in Quezon City in 2014, 12 other such projects in key cities around the Philippines, such as Cebu, Davao, Angeles, Bacolod, Naga, Calamba, Balanga, Baguio, Zamboanga, Tagaytay, Puerto Princesa, and now in Dagupan, have since been established.
The Dagupan City Justice Zone is also the sixth to be launched during the term of Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo.
In his remarks during the launching of the newest justice zone, Gesmundo said credit to the success of the project goes to “the strong and still-growing sense of partnership across the entire spectrum of justice sector stakeholders that we have worked hard to foster in recent years.”
He said the justice zone is the JSCC’s flagship program for showcasing its “core policy direction which we call the coordinated or sector approach to delivering justice.”
Gesmundo pointed out that using the JSCC as the venue and mechanism for communication, cooperation, and coordination, the high court, DoJ and the DILG, together with its attached agencies and offices, adopted the “transformative approach to bring to realization our shared vision of delivering responsive and real-time justice services to our people.”
“Our goal is to strengthen the capacity of our local communities — harnessing the best of bayanihan, enabling them to work together, and providing the systems and resources that they need — to dispense the justice that our people deserve. That is precisely what we hope a justice zone will bring here,” he said.
Meanwhile, DoJ Undersecretary Raul Vasquez, who represented Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla to the event, said that the Supreme Court is set to amend Rule 112 of the Rules of Court by taking out preliminary investigation “paving the way for a new paradigm in criminal investigation and prosecution.”
“Hereafter, and true to its purely executive character, preliminary investigation will be the sole and exclusive domain of the DoJ,” Vasquez said.
He said with a higher degree of proof in the filing of cases from probable cause to prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction and under the case build-up regime where the law enforcement and prosecution now cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate in evidence gathering and preservation, case preparation, assessment of the case, and the like, “gone would be the days of frivolous cases, harassment suits, or weaponization of penal laws.”
“We are truly hopeful that only quality cases will be filed — a development that cuts across the pillars of criminal justice by lowering the dockets in the law enforcement, prosecution, judiciary, and corrections clusters,” he said.