Editor’s Note

Our Rotary Club’s fourth membership meeting for Rotary year 2022-2023 will be graced by Department of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla, as Guest of Honor and Speaker. He is the first cabinet secretary to join our meeting after the Marcos administration assumed office. Last month, prior to the inauguration, we had our fellow Manila Rotarian and newly appointed Finance Secretary Ben Diokno as our guest speaker. We will surely benefit from today’s talk of the government’s top lawyer.

As we all know, the DOJ is statutorily mandated to be at the forefront of the justice system through the provision of various justice services to the public and legal services to the government. It operates in an environment where there is interdependence of functions among the various offices and a wide range of shared interests crucial to the effective and efficient administration of justice.

As a veteran lawyer and lawmaker, Secretary Remulla will hopefully adopt a coordinated approach to justice sector policy making, planning, and operations, which is imperative and essential in ensuring a coherent and effective sectoral approach to the administration of justice. It is also essential for the good Secretary to address the fragmentation of the justice system through sector coordination and data sharing and harmonization.

During his first flag ceremony with the DOJ employees on 4 July 2022, Secretary Remulla described his vision for the Department -- to “give justice to every man, woman and child no matter the circumstance of birth, no matter the economic standing.” With this, we can expect the DOJ under his leadership to adopt and pursue policies that will, among others, increase access to justice by the poor, vulnerable, victims of injustice, and persons with special needs. Also, we will hopefully see a continuing effort towards rationalizing criminal laws and procedures, strengthening law enforcement, and developing case decongestion strategies/program.

The DOJ is surely aware that reforms to improve the justice sector should not only be assiduously pursued, but must also be allowed to evolve. From being limited to programs which focus mainly on legal services, new policies must be adopted which encompass a broader, more inclusive concept of justice – one which embodies and encourages a just society; the kind that emanates from an honest-to-goodness adherence to the rule of law; and one which truly conforms with our time-honored Four-Way Test.