THE Supreme Court on Tuesday acceded to mounting calls from members of the legal profession for it to come up with measures to protect lawyers and judges from threats, harassment and killings.
In a statement released to the public by the members of the court en banc, the magistrates led by retiring Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta expressed “serious and urgent concerns” over the spate of lawyer killings in the country.
The SC issued the statement after receiving letters from different lawyer groups such as the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law, the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and lawyers and parties in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 (ATA), all seeking action from the SC on the issues.
The SC announced several measures in response to the calls, which include a deliberation on the possibility of including in its Rules of Procedure a provision regulating the conduct of buy-bust operations in the enforcement of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act.
The Court en banc also agreed to work on, deliberate, and promulgate rules on the use of body cameras for the service of search and arrest warrants to prevent speculations of extrajudicial killings.
Meanwhile, the SC said it has requested all lower courts, as well as the various law enforcement offices, to furnish it with relevant information to shed light on the number and context of each and every threat or killing of a lawyer or judge within the past 10 years.
It also urged the public—including public interest organizations, lawyers and judges’ groups—to provide the Court with vetted information on any incident of such threat or killing from the remainder of this month and the whole month of April.
The Court en banc also designated the Court’s Public Information Office to receive and collate the data and to provide the Court with a report prior to its deliberations en banc scheduled for the last week of April 2021.
The Court also directed the Office of the Court Administration (OCA) to coordinate with relevant law enforcement agencies and investigate the reports that Mandaluyong City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Monique Quisumbing-Ignacio has been red-tagged in a tarpaulin that was posted along Shaw Edsa.
The OCA will also conduct a survey among trial court and Shari’a court judges on the extent of threats they have received for the past 10 years, and assured they would provide security and counseling to them.
The SC said it would also refer the letters it received from various groups to the relevant trial courts, which would then order the parties to convert their letters to proper remedies such as writs of amparo and habeas corpus.
The Court added that it would coordinate through existing mechanisms with all concerned groups, whether belonging to civil society or law enforcement.
It is the first time the SC en banc come up with comprehensive measures intended to address red-tagging,harassment and extrajudicial killing of lawyers as well as judges.
“We are too aware that everything the Court stands for must bend its arc toward ensuring that all its officers can fairly and equitably dispense their duties within the legal system, unbridled by the constant fear that such exercise may exact the highest cost,” the SC en banc said in a statement signed by all the 15 members of the Court.
“In this light, the Court condemns in the strongest sense every instance where a lawyer is threatened or killed, and where a judge is threatened and unfairly labeled. We do not and will not tolerate such acts that only perverse justice, defeat the rule of law, undermine the most basic of constitutional principle, and speculate on the worth of human lives,” the magistrates added.
The FLAG earlier counted 89 lawyers either killed or gone missing from the term of the late President Ferdinand Marcos up to the term of President Duterte.
FLAG’s data showed the Duterte administration has the highest number of recorded killings and disappearances involving lawyers, prosecutors and judges with 67.
Earlier, around 900 independent lawyers and members of various law faculties have pressed the SC to take proactive measures that would protect judges, lawyers and members of the legal profession from threats and killings.
The UP College of Law through Dean Edgardo Carlo Vistan II also led its 157 faculty members and the other lawyers in seeking action from the SC.
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