When every delay is reasonable, injustice becomes reasonable: Challenging the ruling of the Supreme Court

There is a peculiar thing about prolonged trial detention in the Philippines. Everybody agrees that ten years awaiting trial is too long. Everybody agrees that fifteen years awaiting trial is outrageous. Everybody agrees that twenty years awaiting trial is almost impossible to justify. Yet when you ask why these things happen, everybody has an explanation. The tragedy is that every explanation can sound perfectly reasonable. It is allowed by the rules.

The Supreme Court itself has recognized that determining delay cannot simply become an exercise in counting days. In Cagang v. Sandiganbayan, the Supreme Court said that delay is “not determined through mere mathematical reckoning” but through an examination of the facts and circumstances surrounding each case. The Court explained that determining inordinate delay requires consideration of how much time a competent and independent public officer would reasonably need, considering the complexity and circumstances involved (Cagang v. Sandiganbayan, 2018). (Lawphil) That proposition makes considerable legal sense. Murder is not jaywalking, complicated conspiracies are not simple theft cases, and cases involving dozens of witnesses cannot reasonably move like cases involving two witnesses.

The Philippine Rules of Criminal Procedure similarly recognize numerous periods that may legitimately be excluded from speedy-trial computations. Rule 119 allows exclusions involving examinations of the physical and mental condition of the accused, proceedings concerning other criminal charges, extraordinary remedies against interlocutory orders, pretrial proceedings, judicial inhibition, changes of venue, transfers between courts, and prejudicial questions. Delays caused by the absence or unavailability of essential witnesses may likewise be excluded. Certain delays involving co-accused persons may also qualify for exclusion. These exclusions substantially reflect those contained in the Speedy Trial Act of 1998, or Republic Act No. 8493 (Rules of Court, Rule 119, Sec. 3; Republic Act No. 8493, Sec. 10). (Lawphil)

Then there are continuances granted in the interests of justice. A judge may grant a continuance when the interests served by additional time outweigh the interests of the public and the accused in obtaining a speedy trial. The law recognizes circumstances where denying additional time could produce a miscarriage of justice, particularly when a case is so novel, unusual, or complex that adequate preparation cannot reasonably occur within ordinary periods. But the law also draws an important line. General court congestion, lack of diligent preparation by prosecutors, and failure to obtain available prosecution witnesses cannot themselves justify such continuances (Republic Act No. 8493, Secs. 10-11). (Lawphil)

On paper, everything looks beautiful.

The Speedy Trial Act even provides sanctions against lawyers and prosecutors who deliberately obstruct proceedings, make false representations to obtain continuances, file frivolous motions solely to cause delay, or otherwise willfully fail to proceed without justification. The law allows fines and even temporary denial of the privilege of appearing before the court handling the case. It also directs the Supreme Court to provide sanctions against judges who willfully fail to proceed to trial without justification (Republic Act No. 8493, Secs. 14-15). (Lawphil) We therefore already have deadlines, exclusions, remedies, and sanctions.

Then visit the jail, and everything changes. Ask the jail records officer who has been detained the longest. Do this in many large Philippine detention facilities, and the elegance of procedural law suddenly collides with reality. You will encounter Persons Deprived of Liberty who have remained detained for five years, ten years, and sometimes considerably longer while their cases remain unresolved. Some have watched several judges handle their cases, while others have watched prosecutors and defense lawyers come and go.

Nobody necessarily planned to imprison them for ten years without conviction. It simply happened through the accumulation of individually explainable events. One hearing was postponed because the witness did not appear, while another disappeared because counsel became unavailable. Another was reset because the judge was transferred, while another was delayed because somebody filed a motion. Another involved a co-accused, another involved an interlocutory matter, and another required additional preparation. And in flood-prone Philippines, and flood control projects are stolen by corrupt politicians, government employees and business people, #walangpasok for the courts is now the most notorious reason for postponements.

Six months here becomes reasonable, while three months there becomes reasonable. Another postponement becomes reasonable, and another excluded period becomes reasonable. Another year disappears somewhere between court calendars, motions, witnesses, transfers, and continuances. Put enough reasonable delays together, however, and eventually you manufacture an unreasonable injustice. That is the central paradox created by a system where every individual delay may be defensible while the cumulative deprivation of liberty becomes indefensible.

This is precisely the problem our previous discussions about prolonged trial detention have repeatedly exposed. The problem is not necessarily that every judge is lazy, every prosecutor incompetent, or every lawyer negligent. Many judges are working extraordinarily hard to clear inherited dockets, while prosecutors and public defenders carry enormous caseloads. Structural, organizational, and cultural factors combine to produce delay. Yet whatever causes that delay, only one person sleeps inside the jail afterward.

The judge eventually goes home after court. The prosecutor also goes home afterward. The defense lawyer returns home as well. The witnesses likewise return to their families. The detained accused alone goes back inside the jail.

That arrangement creates a terrible institutional imbalance. Every participant can contribute to delay, but the detained accused pays the accumulated price. Government can take three months here, another six months there, and another year somewhere else while explaining why each period was necessary. Nobody sees the whole injustice because everybody sees only their particular piece of the delay. The prisoner alone experiences the entire accumulation.

There is technically already a remedy for some speedy-trial violations. Republic Act No. 8493 allows an accused who is not brought to trial within the prescribed period to move for dismissal, subject to the statutory exclusions. The accused bears the burden of supporting the motion, while the prosecution bears the burden of producing evidence concerning excluded periods. Failure to move for dismissal before trial or entry of a guilty plea can constitute waiver of the statutory right to dismissal under that provision (Republic Act No. 8493, Sec. 13). (Lawphil)

The existence of this remedy, however, has plainly not prevented extraordinary periods of detention from occurring.

This is why our proposal for a definitive two-year detention threshold becomes important. The Philippines already possesses a speedy-trial clock. What we desperately need is something related but conceptually different: a detention clock. Those two clocks should not necessarily operate identically. A complicated criminal trial may legitimately continue beyond two years, but that does not automatically mean the accused should remain imprisoned throughout those additional years.

Keep the legitimate exclusions provided by Rule 119. Allow complicated prosecutions sufficient time when fairness genuinely requires additional proceedings. But create another clock specifically protecting human liberty. That second clock should become considerably harder to stop. After two years of detention without conviction, the legal presumption should fundamentally change.

Government should then carry the heavier burden of demonstrating extraordinary circumstances justifying continued incarceration. Otherwise, the accused should be released through recognizance, appropriate bail, reporting requirements, travel restrictions, community supervision, or other conditions while trial continues. Release would certainly not constitute acquittal. Release would certainly not terminate prosecution. The case continues, but advance punishment stops.

This distinction answers one of the strongest objections against a two-year detention threshold. Critics will say complicated cases cannot always be completed within two years. Fair enough, then continue trying the case. Critics will say defendants themselves sometimes cause delay through motions, unavailable counsel, or deliberate procedural tactics. Fair enough, then carefully account for delay deliberately attributable to the defense.

But do not transform every procedural complication into indefinite imprisonment. The constitutional right to speedy disposition should protect substantive liberty rather than merely produce procedural arguments. Cagang itself recognizes that speedy disposition remains a constitutional guarantee even while requiring courts to examine circumstances rather than engage in simple mathematical reckoning (Cagang v. Sandiganbayan, 2018). (Lawphil) Flexibility should permit justice to work properly, but flexibility should never become another name for limitless detention.

The Supreme Court should also consider mandatory custodial hearings for long-staying detainees. Every ninety days, judges should review whether continued detention remains necessary. The prosecution should explain the continuing risks presented by release, while defense counsel should identify appropriate alternatives to incarceration. Jail officials should provide updated detention records and applicable sentence-credit information. Continued detention should therefore become something affirmatively justified rather than something automatically inherited from the previous hearing.

This connects directly with our previous proposal concerning jail-generated reports. BJMP and provincial jail wardens should submit monthly electronic lists identifying long-staying PDLs. The report should identify the court, judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer, detention date, applicable penalty, hearing history, and documented reasons for postponements. The report should also contain applicable Good Conduct Time Allowance information because Republic Act No. 10592 expressly recognizes GCTA in calculating preventive imprisonment for certain qualified accused persons. The same law provides for immediate release in covered cases when preventive imprisonment reaches the possible maximum imprisonment, subject to statutory exclusions and without prejudice to continuation of the trial (Republic Act No. 10592, Sec. 1). (Lawphil)

Cases exceeding one year should therefore generate administrative alerts. Cases exceeding two years should trigger mandatory judicial review. Cases exceeding five years should trigger extraordinary scrutiny from court administrators. Cases exceeding ten years should trigger institutional alarm. There is absolutely nothing ordinary about imprisoning an unconvicted human being for ten years.

Calling an offense “non-bailable” does not magically erase the presumption of innocence. Saying that an accused might eventually receive reclusion perpetua does not justify treating pretrial detention as advance service of that punishment. If anything, serious criminal charges should demand greater procedural discipline because their consequences are enormous. The gravity of an accusation should increase our vigilance rather than diminish it. A serious accusation makes a fair and timely trial more important, not less important.

This is where the Supreme Court's reasoning about mathematical computation needs an important companion principle. Yes, justice cannot always be measured through arithmetic alone. But arithmetic eventually matters when arithmetic measures years taken from human life. Five years means something, and ten years means something. Twenty years certainly means something.

We cannot keep saying that delay is contextual while pretending that time itself has no human context. A twenty-year-old detained person eventually becomes forty. Children become adults while their parents remain imprisoned, while parents themselves die waiting for their children to return. Marriages collapse, livelihoods disappear, witnesses die, and evidence deteriorates. Eventually the accused can barely recognize the world existing outside the jail.

Then imagine the final judgment simply saying that the accused is acquitted. The judge goes home after rendering judgment, while the prosecutor eventually moves toward another prosecution. The defense lawyer eventually accepts another client. The acquitted person walks outside carrying ten or twenty missing years that nobody can return. No mathematical computation can restore those years.

That is why prolonged trial detention cannot remain merely another problem of docket management. It is a constitutional problem, a correctional problem, a human-rights problem, and ultimately a legitimacy problem for the entire criminal justice system. The question is not whether every postponement can be legally explained. Lawyers are exceptionally talented at explaining things. The real question is whether the accumulated result remains just.

The Philippines therefore needs two clocks operating simultaneously. Let the first clock measure trial according to existing procedural rules, including legitimate exclusions required by fairness and complexity. Let the second clock measure something much more precious: the liberty being taken from someone who remains legally presumed innocent. Allow reasonable flexibility with the first clock when justice genuinely requires it. Become extraordinarily reluctant to stop the second clock.

Because when every delay becomes reasonable, prolonged imprisonment eventually becomes reasonable too. When ten years becomes explainable, fifteen years eventually becomes explainable. When fifteen years becomes explainable, twenty years eventually becomes another exceptional case sitting inside another crowded jail. At some point, the justice system must stop explaining the delay and start preventing it. Otherwise, what has become unreasonable is no longer merely the delay, but the justice system itself.

References:

Cagang v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. Nos. 206438, 206458, 210141-42, July 31, 2018. Supreme Court of the Philippines.

Republic Act No. 8493. (1998). Speedy Trial Act of 1998. Republic of the Philippines.

Supreme Court of the Philippines. Rules of Court, Rule 119: Trial. Rules of Criminal Procedure, including Rule 119

Supreme Court of the Philippines. (1998). Circular No. 38-98: Implementing the Speedy Trial Act of 1998.

Republic Act No. 10592. (2013). An Act Amending Articles 29, 94, 97, 98 and 99 of the Revised Penal Code. Republic of the Philippines. See less