‘DPS’ role in serving court processes mandated by law’

Despite its manpower shortage, the Department of Public Safety should continue serving court processes as part of its statutory duties and responsibilities.

Superior Court presiding judge Robert Naraja said yesterday that the law mandates the DPS to assist the courts in serving its processes, regardless of their nature. Court processes are documents that are served to parties in court cases to notify them of the proceedings.

The department earlier said it would stop serving Superior Court processes other than criminal summons and arrest warrants effective Sunday. The department’s limited service of court processes will seriously hamper the activities of the judiciary, as it includes serving summons to prospective jurors and processes for civil and small claims cases.

“The statute is clear,” Naraja said, citing 1 CMC Section 2504(j), which states: “To assist the courts in the service of process, unless otherwise provided by law.”

But Naraja said that he furnished all of the Superior Court’s judges with a copy of the DPS letter that notified him of the department’s limited ability to handle court processes.

Naraja said he would first solicit the judges’ comments on the DPS letter before responding to the department.

In a letter dated April 29, 2005, police major Juan S. Salas, who was the acting DPS commissioner at that time, told Naraja that the department could no longer keep up with the high number of court processes due to manpower shortage. Salas told the judge that the DPS would only accept and process penal summons, arrest warrants and bench warrants in criminal cases effective May 8.

Court processes that remain unserved have now reached more than 5,000, with only two policemen tasked to do the work. About 3,000 processes pertain to traffic cases, most of them bench warrants.

The DPS’ summons and warrant office only has a staff of three, including officer-in-charge Ronald Dela Cruz, but one of them has been on-leave for some time due to medical reasons. Dela Cruz said he needs about three more additional staff to carry out the job effectively.

More than 6,000 court processes have reached his office since 2004, according to Dela Cruz, but only about a thousand of them had successfully been served. About 2,000 unserved processes pertain to civil and small claims cases, while unserved criminal processes have reached more than 100, Dela Cruz said.

Serving summons for one case could take up to three days, Dela Cruz said. If the person is not in the same location, or has moved to another place, the service process takes longer, he added. He also said that serving jury summons is an easier task.