The University Student Government (USG) Judiciary has decided to restructure to increase efficiency throughout the branch. The undertaking involves the commission of new ad hoc committees; refining the training and selection of the branch’s members; and enhancing the its presence in the University.
The Judiciary decided to overhaul the branch after judiciary officers experienced problems concerning the filing of cases against USG officials, internal conflicts, and communication issues between the magistrates and council officers.
Chief Magistrate Miguel Adriano admitted that the organizational structure the Judiciary has used since the branch’s founding is inadequate. To resolve the problems that frequented the USG Judiciary, Adriano lobbied to expand bureaucracy and decentralization.
Among the overhauled process was the selection of the Judiciary’s officers and student advisers. According to Mark Wong, Deputy Director for Training and Recruitment, the Judiciary now takes particular note of a recruit’s work performance, academic standing, and disciplinary records.
Wong furthers, “We believe that in order for you to be part of our organization, you have to maintain a good model and a good appearance to others.”
The recruitment and training of council officers and student advisers have been improved. The training process has now become more rigorous than the past system. Last year, aspiring officers and student advisers needed to pass one exam to be admitted in the Judiciary.
The new policy has added a new clause. It dictates that the aspiring officers need to undergo training, which involves fulfilling residency hours, before taking the test. Adriano argues that this new policy will ensure the retention of the already struggling branch.
“Our problem also with the COs last year was you just take the test and then start. Sure they pass, but they don’t stay too long. Those required number of classes ensure that you’re actually interested in the branch, that you’re actually committed to stay”, Adriano elaborates.
The Judicial Administrative Affairs Office (JAAO) was also revamped as part of the branch’s restructuring efforts. The overhaul expanded the number JAAO’s committees from three to five. Moreover, the Logistics Committee was created to streamline the management of the Judiciary’s paperwork and oversee dealings with the DAAM and SLIFE, while the Recruitment and Training Committee would solely handle the Judiciary’s recruitment efforts and ensure the training of recruits.
Moreover, the Publicity Committee was formed to help the branch increase student awareness of the branch, and to increase the Judiciary’s participation and relevance in the student government.
The overhaul will also entail decentralizing the Judiciary. A body, composed of the chiefs and deputies of the JAAO and other key administrative officers, called the Judiciary Core (JudCore) will facilitate the decentralization.
Adriano elaborates on the intention behind the JudCore, “We realized that the Magistrates can only see so much. We don’t see exactly what the head of ‘Logistics’ can see. We don’t see what the head of ‘Fiscal’ can see. They have other concerns that they might have that we don’t know.” The JudCore will act as the Execom of the branch.
In addition to the creation of the JudCore, the Office of the Ombudsman was also established to increase the efficiency of filing cases. In the past years, cases were sent directly to the magistrates. Adriano says that this presented a problem because it gave the magistrates prior knowledge about a case already. The Ombudsman will now assume the responsibility of charging and prosecuting officials. This involves investigating the case, gathering evidences, and also filing the complaints so that the magistrates could focus on deciding cases.
As the youngest of the USG’s three branches, the Judiciary has allocated a great deal of resources in publicizing itself and its functions. The Judiciary’s Publicity Committee made room-to-room campaigns, distributed promotional materials, and invested in recruitment efforts during recruitment week. Adriano argues that the branch needs to take these initiatives; he laments, “The Judiciary wasn’t as known before. It was like, Judiciary? Do we even have a Judiciary? When you say University Student Government, you only think of the Legislative and the Executive. That’s why we added the Publicity committee, to put our branch out there and say, hey, we exist!”
Despite the Judiciary’s push for more publicity, the unit has chosen to settle with a simple and straightforward promotional strategy, as Wong relates, “There’s a big improvement this year because when we had our recruitment, we didn’t have any gimmick or any other systems”.
