SC works to resolve backlog in court processes

Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert Naraja yesterday said he would set up a meeting with Attorney General Pamela Brown and Department of Public Safety Commissioner Santiago Tudela to reach an agreement regarding the service of court processes.

Naraja said the Superior Court is wiling to work things out with the DPS and the AGO, since all agencies get their money from taxpayer’s money. He said he would set the meeting possibly next week.

Court processes are documents that are served to parties in court cases to notify them of the proceedings.

The AGO recently justified the police department’s decision to stop serving court processes except for criminal summons and arrest warrants, saying that it is consistent with the department’s statutory duties not only to assist the courts but also to save taxpayers’ money.

Naraja earlier said the law mandates the DPS to assist the courts in serving its processes, regardless of their nature.

The police department, however, said it could no longer keep up with the high number of court processes due to manpower shortage.

Earlier this year, the DPS disclosed that court processes that remain unserved had already reached more than 5,000, with only two policemen doing all the work. About 3,000 processes relate to traffic cases, most of them bench warrants.

But the attorney general came up with a proposal on how the CNMI courts could facilitate the service of processes despite limited DPS assistance.

While Brown and Tudela said that the DPS would continue to serve criminal bench warrants, they proposed that traffic bench warrants should be an exception. Traffic bench warrants comprise the bulk of criminal warrants, with those pending reaching some 245 from the current year alone.

They said the CNMI should follow the practice of other jurisdictions and serve the warrants only if an officer stops an individual who has one outstanding. The court could assist the police department by providing a copy of its database and allowing the DPS to update the database weekly.

Like most jurisdictions in the United States, CNMI courts should also serve jury summons to prospective jurors by mail, they added. Brown and Tudela said the court does not need help regarding civil cases.