Another modality considered to ensure participation of persons with disabilities
in the legal process is the provision of sign language interpreters for deaf
litigants which is still a problematic area due to “lack of funds”.
4.
Does your country monitor and collect disaggregated data with respect to
access to judicial or quasi-judicial procedures concerning:
a. the participation of persons with disabilities in judicial or quasi-judicial
procedures, including the number of complaints submitted, nature of complaints
and outcomes;
The Supreme Court of the Philippines is consistently monitoring cases of persons
with disabilities. Data on cases involving the deaf have been gathered from
Supreme Court records as early as the 1920s.13
Aside from monitoring made by the Supreme Court, civil society organizations
such as the Philippine Deaf Resource Center regularly reports data in relation to
cases of persons with disabilities with corresponding recommendation on how to
better administer justice while taking into consideration the special needs of the
said litigants.
Despite the presence of efforts from the government and civil society
organizations to provide monitoring mechanisms and disaggregated data
pertaining to persons with disabilities, data has not been sufficiently gathered
nationwide. In 2013, the Philippine Coalition on the U.N Convention of the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (PCCRPD) noted as an example that reported
rape cases of persons with disabilities and all other women have largely been
documented only for the National Capital Region. Currently, there is no way to
systematically secure information about cases in trial courts except for those
which have reached the Supreme Court. Request for assistance by civil society
from the Supreme Court – Office of the Court Administrator to track and followup cases involving deaf parties for instance, have yielded only a few responses
from the lower courts.
Without information on the status of cases involving persons with disabilities,
or effective mechanisms to secure these information, the pursuit of justice by
such persons become very difficult thus pushing them even deeper into
marginalization.
b. persons with disabilities obtaining remedies and the nature of those remedies,
whether they are adequate, effective, prompt and appropriate, responding to their
specific situation;
13
In 2012, the Philippine Deaf Resource Center presented data on over 346 cases
involving deaf parties in 15 regions from 2006 to 2012. For cases of deaf
respondents, the most common type of charge was rape, followed by theft. In
Philippine Deaf Resource Center, Access to Justice: Case monitoring by the Philippine Deaf Resource
Center (2006-2012). http://www.phildeafres.org/files/PDRC_Case_Monitoring_2006-2012.pdf (last
accessed on 28 April 2017)