The Supreme Court building. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
The Supreme Court has ordered local judges to go to work on Monday, Election Day, in anticipation of urgent poll-related cases.
In a circular, Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez directed executive judges of Regional Trial Courts, Metropolitan Trial Courts and Municipal Trial Courts and judges of single-sala courts to go on duty on May 9, a special nonworking holiday, to attend to cases of election offenses.
“In the interest of the efficient administration of justice and to ensure the speedy disposition of election-related cases, you are hereby directed to report to your respective courts on May 9, 2016, to act on all election matters within your jurisdiction and to resolve the same with utmost caution and dispatch,” read Marquez’s circular released yesterday.
Election matters that may be brought forward to courts include cases of election-related violence, complaints of vote buying and other blatant violations of the Omnibus Election Code and the automated election law.
Marquez said judges must be ready to act on cases that may be referred from areas outside their original jurisdiction, in the absence of judges in charge.
“In vacant single-sala Regional Trial Courts where the court of the acting presiding judge is very far from the court concerned, any urgent election matter shall be referred for appropriate action by the clerk of court of the executive judge of the nearest court or station,” said the circular.
For vacant Metropolitan Trial Courts and Municipal Trial Courts, “the election matter shall be referred to the presiding judge of the nearest court or to the executive judge of the nearest court or to the executive judge, wherever is nearer.”
Clerks of court were also directed to maintain a skeletal force in their offices to handle fees and cash bonds that may be posted for election-related cases.