The Efficient Handling of Judicial Business BY W. L. GOLDSBOROUGH.I
FT HAS been a matter of surprise to -*- me, from my Philippine view-point, that throughout the extensive discus sions in recent years in the United States by Presidents and people, lawyers and laymen, of means for bettering the ad ministration of justice and lessening the law's delays, no one has urged the cry ing necessity for systematic managm,ent and disposal by the judges of the business coming before their courts, and of effective disciplinary measures to keep judges up to this important branch of their work. The tardiness, technical ity, and expense involved in the present rules of procedure governing the selec tion of juries, the production of evidence, new trials, appeals, etc., have been well ventilated, but the only suggestions which I have seen in line with what I mean are President's Taft's endorse ment of the Philippine law requiring decisions to be rendered within a reas onable time, and Mr. Frederick P. Fish's statement that "there can be no real reform in the United States courts until there is a judge in control of each case from the time the pleadings are completed, with a definite feeling of responsibility on the part of the judge that he is. to control the procedure." After some twelve years of active practice, first in the state and federal courts of New York City, and later in those of the Philippines, during which I was finding it increasingly difficult to reconcile our tolerance of unsystematic handling of court business, with our 1 Member of the bars of Maryland (1890). New York (1S92). the Philippines (1901). and Colorado (1911); member of the Philippine Code Committee; one of the faculty of the College of Law; Univ. of the Philippines; and Commissioner on Uniform State Laws from the Philippines.
pride in, and insistence upon, orderly methods in other lines of endeavor, I went on the bench in Manila in 1905, and was thus given an opportunity to observe the system, or rather lack of system, from within, and to determine for myself whether there was any good reason why courts should not be put upon a business basis. Judges of learning and ability were serving on the court when I became a member of it. Its jurisdiction extended throughout the islands. Cases were to be tried in the capitals of most of the numerous provinces, some of which were difficult of access. Yet there was no regular division of the work among the judges, by districts or otherwise. I soon came across cases at which each of several judges had nibbled at various times, and then passed on to something more inviting. There were other cases in which no action whatever had been taken for a year or more It could hardly be called neglect, because, to use a homely phrase, what is every body's business is nobody's business, but the fact remained that cases which could and should have been advanced months before were untouched. Dis cussion of the situation with my asso ciates led to no satisfactory result, so I carried the matter before the Commis sion — the legislative body of the is lands; and finally, in 1907, an act (No. 1648) was passed providing, among other things, that "all cases arising in the . . . city of Manila shall be assigned to the . . . judges of the court by rota tion, as nearly as may be, and all cases arising . . . outside of the city of Man ila shall be assigned by districts to the . . . judges." Incidentally the aboli-
