The Supreme Court, in an order dated Sept. 24 and signed by court administrator Jose Midas Marquez, has allowed all first and second-level courts to conduct videoconferencing hearings for both criminal and civil cases.
The Supreme Court has released the “2020 Interim Rules on Remote Notarization of Paper Documents” through videoconferencing in cases where the notary public holds office in area under quarantine because of Covid-19.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted the tradition-bound Philippine judiciary into a new direction, bringing an unprecedented change by pushing the Supreme Court (SC) to introduce hearings through videoconferencing.
Saying that hearings through videoconferencing will continue despite the lifting of the lockdown, the Supreme Court has authorized more courts nationwide to conduct the pilot-testing of its videoconferencing initiative.
The Office of the Court Administrator noted the initial success of videoconferencing hearings in authorized courts nationwide where more than 7,000 videoconferencing hearings were done in a month and more than 22,000 PDLs were released during the lockdown.
The Supreme Court (SC) issued on Monday, May 18, a circular authorizing more courts across the country to conduct hearings through videoconferencing to address pending cases which have accumulated due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
Saying that courts nationwide have been provided with the tech platform “Philippine Judiciary 365” which includes the Microsoft Teams application, the Supreme Court announced on Friday, May 8, the resumption of the raffle of newly filed cases through videoconferencing.
The SC emphasized, however, that hearings in criminal cases through videoconferencing are only for pilot testing and will apply only during the public health emergency period.
