TRIAL JUDGES & PROSECUTORS

WILL LOVE THE JURY SYSTEM

By Atty. Marlowe Camello, Email: Mcamello@verizon.net
(Any reader of this Article is authorized to copy it on a CD for distribution to each
and all Libraries of colleges, universities and Anti-Graft Organizations in the Philippines)

Updated on 3/01/2015
Trial Judges and Prosecutors will love the jury system because they will be relieved of the burden of writing their
decisions or resolutions (explained more below). Writing decisions is a tedious and deadening job for both judges and
prosecutors specially when pressured by a powerful politician who demands for a politically correct decision in a certain
way. They are then forced to postpone or delay in writing their decisions to conform to the wishes of powerful wealthy
political masters. They will likewise be relieved of the ire and death threats from vindictive litigants in court. Juries will
speed up the delivery of justice. It will unclog the insurmountable task of clearing the epidemic back log of cases in
court around the country. Juries will be the means of disposing the Ampatuan Massacre cases during our life time. It
will transform the Philippines into a true civilized democracy equal to the level and quality of democracy in Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States in which their peoples have active participation in
Justice through the Jury System.
authority emanates from them. The authority and
power of the President and all other public officials and
employees all come from the people who are the
sovereign masters in our country.

What is a Jury?
The Websters dictionary defines the Jury as a group
of people who are members of the public and are chosen
to make a decision in a legal case.
A genuine credible jury should be composed of private
citizens or persons who are not public officials or
employees. In a democratic government, such as we do in
the Philippines, the Jury serves as the basic device of check
and balance of powers between the power of the people and
power of the government so that neither can fool the other.

For this reason, the weight of authority and the

deciding power of the people, when acting as jurors, or as
electors during an election of officials, is morally and
constitutionally more superior and heavier than the weight
of authority of the President or any public servant
including Justices, or Judges, or an Ombudsman or
government prosecutors.

Juries are what we need to stop government graft and

corruption effectively. Without juries, criticisms by the
people over a corrupt government can simply be ignored by
those who hold power in the government. Philippine
democracy today is nothing more than a myth.

The latters power is stated in the subordinate and

lower Articles of the Constitution which are found in
Article VI, Article VII and Article VIII, all below Article
II of the Peoples Sovereign Power in the Constitution.

The Jury System is basically created for people who

know nothing about laws and not principally for lawyers.
By jury instruction issued by a presiding judge, lay people
are taught how to perform their jury duty.

Servants Cannot Appoint

Their Masters
There is no law, codified or common law, anywhere
in the planet, that allows a servant to choose his master.
It is, therefore, logical that the only way to appoint that
master to sit in a jury is by lottery.

A Jury Instruction is a set of legal phrases that are

redefined into simple sentences or words for the easy
understanding of lay citizens. Without jury instruction, a
jury system cannot function.

In modern universal common practice, a jury dealing

with legal matters, such as a criminal or civil trial, jury
membership has been generally limited to 12 citizens. In
some jurisdictions, a lesser number of jury membership
has been permitted. Once the jury is formed, the jury
becomes a sampling of the sovereign masters of their
community.

No prior legal education is required for a citizen to serve

for jury duty. During a jury trial, an expert interpreter is
employed to interpret the proceedings extemporaneously
into the local dialect of the jurors so that even a 16-year old
student can understand how to serve in a jury trial.

Jury decisions or verdicts can be obtained either

unanimously or by a majority of its members. Jury

Article II, Section 1, of the Philippine Constitution says

that Sovereignty resides in the people and all government

verdict by majority rule is preferable. The drawback of

unanimity jury verdict is that it is vulnerable to bribery
where even one bribed juror is enough to prevent the jury
from reaching a decisive verdict. Jury verdict by majority
rule is less costly because it prevents retrials. A dead-lock
vote of 6 and 6 is an automatic acquittal to resolve the doubt
in favor of the accused. Punishment by the majority rule
can be graduated such as 7 to 8, 9 to 10, 11 to 12, for
conviction when applying the minimum, medium, or
maximum range of penalty against the accused.

their slaves and treat the common people like second class
citizens. This is high lighted by the set up of the
Philippine Justice System which treat justice as none of
the peoples business. This thinking is more prevalent in
Muslim regions. This is a grossly improper and unfair
judicial practice against the common Filipino people and
common Muslims.
Justice demands that this discriminatory policy by the
rich and powerful should be stopped by way of
establishing the jury system through the use of the
constitutional powers of the Supreme Court in
promulgating the Jury Rules.

Jurors Cannot Be Required To

Write or Explain Their Jury Verdict
Another attribute to the power of a jury is that jurors
cannot be required to write or explain their jury votes in
arriving at their verdict in the same manner that they are not
required to explain their electoral votes in choosing a
candidate for public office. The reason for this is that there
is no law anywhere on earth, that can require a master to
explain his decision to his servants. A jury is not
accountable to its public servants such as the President or a
Justice or a Judge or the Ombudsman. In a true democracy,
The buck stops with the people.

A Strong Justice System Is Not

Inherently the Concern of Politicians
We may observe today that the official acts of the
Legislature and the Presidential government branches are
supported by the electoral votes of the people. These two
Government Branches never cared to find a way to enable
the people to have a voting support for the acts of the
Judiciary. As it stands today, the Judiciary is an
orphanized government branch with no supportive
massive vote of the people.

Article VIII Section 14 of the constitution requiring

judges to express and explain their decisions in writing does
not apply in the issuance of a jury verdict. Said provision is
a directive to, and applicable only in decisions handed
down by, judges or justices as servants of the people, to
whom they owe the duty to crystallize their judgments.

The first thing that the politicians did when the

Philippines became an independent country was the
legislation of the Electoral System. Their purpose was to
strengthened their cherished empowerment in office
exclusively in the Legislature and the Presidency to ensure
that they can stay in office for as long as they wish.

The Public vs The Republic

Should we blame the politicians for doing so? No!

By natural instinct of human greed, their personal interests
always over ride the interest of the ordinary citizens.
Therefore, it is up to us, the ordinary citizens, and the
Judiciary to create a system, the jury system, to block
politicians from fooling us and in dominating our judges.

The public is the principal while the republic is only the

agent of the public. In the concept of the Philippine Agency
Law, written or unwritten, a principal should first exist
before an agent can exist. An agent cannot come alive
unless the principal is alive. Upon the death of the principal,
the power of the agent is extinguished or lost.

In essence do the members of the Legislature and the

President have any real interest to strengthened the power
of the Judiciary to control their discretion? No! Not again.
They simply dont want the Justices and Judges in the
Judiciary to easily send them to jail for their abuses in
office. And thats the brutal truth. But we, the common
people can decide to send them to jail by the Jury System.

We have officially labeled our community of public

servants as the Republic of the Philippines. If we recall
in high school, we learned that the word Public is the root
word of Republic.
This community called the Republic is only a small
part or a composition from the members of the Public. For
this reason, the Public is more powerful than the Republic
in our democratic form of government. Ironically, a public
official or servant is like a fly who sits on top of a buffalo
who thinks (and we, the people, have also been brainwashed
to think) that he is more powerful than the buffalo.
Unfortunately, this is how public officials look down upon
the common people as nobodies in justice.

Additionally, the Legislative and the Presidential

Branches preferred to set up the Philippine Justice system
as a government monopoly under the exclusive control of
politicians and powerful political dynasties.
Politicians would prefer in setting up the bench trial
(solo judge) system of justice because it is easier for them
to pressure a judge or justice in making the latters
decision politically correct according to their whims and
caprices and then call it as political will. I gravely doubt

Public officials think, and in practice, that the people are

if the Lawmakers and the President will ever dismantle such

monopoly.

implementing peaceful device to activate the exercise of

the sovereign power of the people in the administration of
justice pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the constitution.
Nothing is stated in said article to make people
sovereignty operative with a qualifying phrase as
provided by law. Promulgation of Jury Rules requires no
further congressional act.

In effect, powerful politicians with the support of their

armed body guards and private armies have been looking
down upon judges and prosecutors like their errand boys
and girls. This practice has to stop and it can be stopped by
the adoption of the jury system.

b. The Jury System is the basic solution to graft and

corruption. Juries are the essential tools to effectively
enforce the Anti-Graft Law, the Anti-Money Laundering
Act, the Penal Code and many other laws because they are
not self-executory laws.

Supreme Court Has Power to Activate

Judicial Power with Peoples Jury Votes
The Supreme Court has the power to redeem itself from
its orphanage status to lead and to keep and tightened the
independence of its trial judges from political bondage. It
must use the sovereign peoples power to make its authority
equally as powerful to the powers of the other 2 branches of
government.

c. The sovereign power of the people to partake in the

function of justice is similar in concept and importance
with the exercise of their sovereign power in choosing
their public officials by the electoral process. Article II,
Section 1 of the Constitution is not a one way traffic rule
in favor of public servants.

In the absence of a Congressional legislation to create

the Jury System, the Supreme Court has its own
constitutional power in Article VIII, Section 5(5) to
promulgate the Rules for the adoption of both the Grand
Jury and Trial Jury Systems. Said constitutional provision
states that the Supreme Court has the power:

d. The People acting as members of a Jury is akin in

concept between attorney-client relationship. The attorney
is only the servant and the client is always the master even
if the attorney is more highly educated or knowledgeable
in law than the client. The client has the power to fire his
attorney if the client loses his trust on his attorney for for
any reasons.

To promulgate rules concerning the protection and

enforcement of constitutional rights. Such rules shall
provide a simplified and inexpensive procedure for the
speedy disposition of cases (and) shall be uniform for all
courts of the same grade, and shall not diminish, increase,
or modify substantive rights.

e. Juries and jurors cannot be required to explain their

jury verdicts because they are exercising their sovereign
power and authority being the masters of public officials.
As stated earlier above, there is no rule of law anywhere
in the universe allowing servants to demand for an
explanation on the decision by their masters.

The Jury System is a Procedural Device.

Constitutional Basis to Set Up Jury System
The Jury System is a procedural device used in court for
speedy disposition of cases to protect and enforce
constitutional rights. It will not diminish, increase, or
modify substantive rights.

f. For an overview and quick understanding on how

the Jury System works, reading the one-page Jury
Diagram in the website at: http://tinyurl.com/ls59czp is
advised.

In addition to its declared power and authority, the Supreme

Court can utilize the sovereign rights and power of the
people to set up the Jury Systems in Article II, Section 1, of
the Constitution which states that The Philippines is a
democratic and republican State. Sovereignty resides in the
people and all government authority emanates from
them.

g. If a party to a controversy, such as in a criminal

trial, is aggrieved by the verdict of a jury, such party may
appeal only on a question or error of law and not on a
question in finding of fact.
h. A jury cannot be faulted on an error of law because
the issuance on the proper instruction of law is the
primary obligation of, and comes from, the court through
the presiding judge in a jury trial. It is not the obligation
of the jury or its members to search for the proper law
that is applicable to the case at hand. The role of the jury
is to accept the law as instructed to it, or to its members,
by the presiding judge.

The Supreme Court may need to wake up from its

present passive role into a more active and positive role in
installing the jury system to make the Judiciary Branch
equally as powerful, in practice, with the Legislative and
Executive Government Branches to gain more respect for its
Justices and Judges from unwarranted intrusions in the
functions of justice by powerful political officials.

i. Finding of facts by the jury is final and cannot be

appealed. Those facts include jury observation on the
demeanor, eye movement, body language, and facial
expression of the witness whether the witness is telling the
truth or is lying. Such facts cannot be recorded in the

The arguments below may be used to petition and urge

the Supreme Court to create the jury systems:
a.

Deployment of the juries shall serve as an

stenographic notes of the court stenographer. Appellate

justices have no power to speculate on such facts which
they cannot find and read in the trial transcripts.

accused alleged bombers? If so, against whom? Will they

blame the Ilongo Presiding Judge? Or the Ilocano juror?
What do you think?

j. An appeal on a jury verdict on an error of law follows

the same rules in appeals from a judgment in a bench (or
solo judge) trial.

The Jury System, if adopted and administered

properly by judges and lawyers, it would serve as the
most effective solution against the on-going MuslimChristian discrimination complaints in Mindanao. We
dont have to stay negotiating for 40 years to resolve
this conflict.

Adoption of the Jury System Is The Basic

Formula to Unite Muslims and Christians
And Other Ethnic Tribes.

The Muslim-Christian conflict in Mindanao is a

matter of Justice to resolve - not by politics or politicians.
The Basic Bangsamoro Law, if it is hopefully approved,
which is a political solution, will not solve social chaos in
Mindanao because the common and ordinary Muslims
and Christians will still remain victims of discrimination
and injustice in the hands of the rich powerful Muslims
and Christians. Without the voice and vote in justice of the
common and poor Muslims and Christians, they will still
remain the slaves of the warmongering powerful and
leading Muslims and Christians in Mindanao.

As hinted earlier, jurors shall be chosen by lottery. Their

names shall be picked from the registered voters of their
respective legislative district at which a trial court is located.
Their names are thereafter entered in a lottery bin in the
court not only once but as much as three times before one
can finally be seated as a juror: Once at the time when their
names are picked from the registry of voters; Once again
when they report for jury duty at the jury assembly room;
and finally one more time when they appear at the jury trial
court where their names will be entered in another lottery
bin in that court room.

Adoption of the Jury System is the basic and proper

solution to the Muslim/Christian conflict in Mindanao.
The point here is to let the Muslims decide justice in their
localities as they see it fit and not by a judge who is a
lapdog and favorite appointee of, and directed by, the
most powerful politician sitting almost a thousand
kilometers up north in Malacaniang..

Selection of jurors by appointment shall be void and

confers no power to decide in a jury trial. A party or his
lawyer in a case has the pre-emptive right without any need
for an argument or reason to decline 7 prospective jurors
and in such event 7 names of jurors shall be drawn further
from the lottery bin to replace those declined jurors.
Example: If there are 2 criminal defendants facing trial in
the same criminal case, there shall be at least 36 citizens
who shall be summoned to appear in court from which 12
regular jurors and 3 alternate jurors shall be seated as the
jury. The 3 alternate serve like a spare tire just in case one
of the regular jurors is defunct and unable to finish his jury
service. Why 36 citizens is needed?

Download and read the proposed Jury Law at:

http://tinyurl.com/p847ohy
To fast track the transition from Solo Judge
Trials to Trial By Jury, download and read at:
http://tinyurl.com/no5rvtb

The prosecutor has 7 pre-emptive rights to decline. The

2 criminal defendants through their separate lawyers shall
likewise each have 7 (times 2) pre-emptive rights equals 14
plus 12 regular finalist and 3 finalist alternate jurors to be
seated as jurors. Recap: 7+7+7+12+3 = 36.

Read the Arguments for the establishment of

the Philippine National Jury Law & Procedures.
Download at: http://tinyurl.com/np3jlde

If a jury trial is conducted in a criminal court in Jolo, the

chances are that probably 95% of the 12 jurors (or 11of
them) shall be Joloanos and probably 1 Ilocano.

Question: Will it be proper for a Christian President

to bomb Muslim villages every time chaos arises in those
places? It must be recalled that he is just as much as a
President of those Muslim localities as he is in Christian
localities. It is an unpresidential act that must stop.

Assuming further that the Presiding Judge is an Ilongo

and
both accused are Joloanos for bombing and
manufacturing of bombs and both are found innocent (not
guilty) verdict by the jury, then the question would be:

The Jury is the only anchor ever yet imagined by

man that can hold a government to the principles of its
constitution... U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.

Will the Joloanus stage a riot for acquitting those