DECRYING judges, lawyers and court employees' “deplorable” working conditions, Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez has appealed to the Supreme Court (SC) to start immediately building a new Hall of Justice in the city.
On Tuesday’s Committee of Appropriations hearing of the 2022 Judiciary budget, Rodriguez complained against the failure of the SC in constructing a new building.
“It has been 6 years now and not a single foundation nor even one hollow block has been placed to start construction of the new building,” Rodriguez said.
The Hall of Justice Building in the city was burned in January 2015, according to Rodriguez.
He said the judges are in a rented building and their courtrooms and chambers are too small, only 1/4 of the ideal areas for hearing rooms and judge’s chambers.
“This is not conducive for the dispensation for justice,” Rodriguez stressed.
He added that even there are no comfort rooms in the courtrooms nor judge’s chambers and judges have to go out, walk through the corridor and go to a common comfort room at the rear end of the rented building.
“There is no due respect and proper treatment nor concern for their safety given to our judges in CDO,” Rodriguez insisted.
Court Administrator Midas Marquez explained that the SC is in the process of finalizing the plans for the construction of the new building.
Only on July 19, 2019, Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin signed the two contracts for the consultancy services for the Detailed Architectural and Engineering Design and Project Management of the Court of Appeals (CA) in Cagayan De Oro.
“It has been 6 years and the SC is still in the “process” of finalizing building plans?” Rodriguez complained.
Rodriguez found the answer unacceptable and vowed to oppose the Judiciary budget for 2022 until the construction for the new Hall of Justice building in CDO starts. (Ben Balce)
