explore my optimistic world

I expect negatives, but all that happened were positive things…

1:50 pm on June 25, 2009 marked the first time of my visit to the Hall of Justice. I and my co-group mates in Mass Com were a bit nervous when we entered inside the “mall-alike” structure building.

Of course, what we did first was befriending the guard and the person in-charge of the entrance. Then we asked them many things related to the court, its branches, and the judge.

Branch 34 of Regional Trial Court was the first door we knocked to ask for a copy of a court decision, our purpose. One of my companions said that when we approach a person in a higher rank in court, we have to low down our voices, and be humble. Okay, so that’s it! We have to follow that.

We got inside the room but the judge and its secretary were not on duty. Ohhh, the first judge referred by our teacher was not there, so we need to find another.

We need to have the courage to face a prominent and brave person in court, so we went inside Branch 36, in Judge Cadiz’s office. Actually, we don’t know anybody inside, be it a small employee or a big persona.

Hoohhh, the tension starts here. Judge Cadiz was there, we were a bit afraid. But when we introduced our names, school, and intention, we were calmed down. And when we heard the voice of Mr. Cadiz, we never thought, he speaks that “cool!” At first, he refused to gave us copies because of confidentiality especially rape cases of minors, but as the talk continues, he asked us a flash drive to save the number of cases in his computer.

He gave us 15 different kinds of case, including criminal, administrative and civil cases. We were lucky enough to see a good judge who’s willing to help.
Then we searched for more. We proceeded to third floor. But unfortunately, we knocked on the wrong door, it was a trial court. The stenographer told us to go to the next room, which was Judge’s Andora’s office.

When we were inside, Judge Andora looks “suplada” and strict. But when we approached her, she was that friendly. She even let us photocopy Supreme Court decisions, and when we found out that there’s no Xerox center near the building, she let his messenger accompany us in photocopying the decisions near NORSU.

Wow, that was an unexpected visit in the hall of justice. We thought that hall officials and employees are not welcoming and responsive, but they are really to us, students.

Maybe, we are blessed and it’s timely for us to knock on the right doors where there are good lawyers.

The next time we’ll visit hall of justice, we already know what to do and where to go.

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