A lack of judges is a problem that worries the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) and the chairman of the Council of the Judicial Branch. Magistrate Mariano German Mejia told Dialogo Libre, the discussion show sponsored by Diario Libre, that there are not enough judges in the system to take care of the workload of cases that grows each day.
He noted that in the jurisdiction in the provinces, most Justices of the Peace are not career judges, since they are practicing lawyers. For their part, the career track Justices of the Peace are being promoted to Permanent Attention and to the collegiate tribunals as recent graduates of the National Judiciary School. He emphasized that they have to put the country in a condition to feel that the Justice System is working and that Justice is done. He believes that the problem is complex, salaries continue to be low, and the law profession earns money, and few want to be magistrates because of the limited benefits involved. “So, we don’t have sufficient judges, number one, number two if you go and examine 600, only 80 pass the test.”
The judge comments that the rest do not qualify, because there is also a problem with training, where some have the intellectual capacity, but emotionally, they are not suitable for the position. He said that the chance of increasing salaries and pay is difficult. “We have a budget that reaches about 2% of the National Budget,” he said. German Mejia stated that the problem is not that easily solved. In addition to the level of the requirements, he said that a judge is a slave, in terms of his or her work, especially with the current judicial structure, with few judges and a lot of work every day. “Because society, as it grows and develops, exercises its rights more and more, and because of this, in a system of accessible justice, the cases do not add up, they multiply.”