A PETITION has been filed before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking the creation of a new procedure that would protect drug suspects and ensure justice to victims of extrajudicial killings.
In a 14-page petition letter, the legal advocacy group Center for International Law (CIL) asked the Court to promulgate new rules creating a writ of contra homo sacer that would ensure that due process would be accorded to drug suspects or other criminal suspects.
Homo sacer refers to a class of persons in ancient Rome that were treated as outlaws and without any rights and is defined in legal terms as someone who can be killed without the killer being regarded as a murderer.
Under the proposed writ, a new mandatory inquest procedure will be instituted to address deaths arising from police operations, as well as from vigilante-style killings.
The CIL explained the writ would require a full documentation of any operation—from planning to implementation and results—on the part of the National Police.
“This includes the mandatory submission of detailed reports, forensic evidence, autopsy reports and the like, which comply with international standards. Many of these documentary requirements, while already provided under existing rules of the Department of Justice and the National Police, are often ignored by authorities,” the CIL said in the petition.
“The obligation of police officers to turn over records, documents and all evidence in connection with the commission of a crime, as they themselves allege, must be required all the more if the suspect ends up dead, either at the hands of police officers or unknown assailants,” it added.
The CIL suggested to the Court the adoption of international standards laid down by the United Nations Minnesota Protocol on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal Killings, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, Enforced Disappearances and Torture in crafting the new writ.
The group pointed out that drug suspects under the Duterte administration are being treated as such, saying they are “reduced to mere biological existence, denied of all rights, marked for execution anytime and anywhere”, and “subject to banishment to the realm of uncertain fate”.
This classification of drug suspects under the administration’s war on drugs is seen to bolster the complaint for crimes against humanity filed against President Duterte before the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands earlier this week.
Charges of crimes against humanity, like mass murder, require that the victims belong to a single class of people.
The group, consisting of human-rights lawyers, led by Joel Butuyan, claimed the war on illegal drugs, officially dubbed as Oplan Tokhang by the National Police, has already killed at least 8,000 persons in the last 10 months.
The SC had already put in place the writs of amparo and habeas data as protective remedies against human-rights abuses of law-enforcement authorities.
It can be recalled that that CIL has filed an a writ of amparo petition earlier this year for a survivor and families of four men allegedly killed by members of the Quezon City Police District in Payatas during an Oplan Tokhang operation last year.
The Court of Appeals eventually issued permanent protection order in favor of the victims, after state solicitors hardly objected to the plea of petitioners, saying it is the duty of authorities to protect the citizens.
1 comment
what for to embolden those drug addicts and drug pushers to continue their ways. We need death penalty much better if its death by hanging.