Rules on writ of amparo out next month--SC
Rights lawyers seek stiff sanctions for defiance
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 01:05pm (Mla time) 09/16/2007
Human rights lawyer Neri Javier Colmenares, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview that Marquez, who delivered the solidarity message of Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno, said the high court’s committee on the revision of rules is now working on the rules for implementing the writ of amparo, which are expected to be promulgated next month.
Recourse to the writ of amparo (Spanish for protection) was first broached by Puno as a deterrent to extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances by requiring state security forces to look for persons suspected to be in their custody instead of merely denying they have the missing persons, their usual defense against the currently used petitions for habeas corpus.
Aside from this, victims’ families will also have recourse to “habeas data,” which will give them the right to access information on their missing kin’s cases.
The writ of amparo was first implemented in Latin America.
Earlier news reports quoted Puno as saying the writ of amparo would be retroactive once the rules for its implementation are released.
Colmenares quoted Marquez as saying the Philippines had an “unfortunate” reputation because of unabated human rights violations.
“We welcome the Chief Justice’s move to promulgate the writ of amparo next month,” Colmenares said. “It is good news for the human rights lawyers’ community, their clients and advocates of human rights and civil liberties in the country.”
But he also said they will be submitting several recommendations that they want the high court to include among the rules for the writ of amparo’s implementation, among these stiff sanctions for state officials who defy court orders.
Among the NUPL’s suggestions, said Colmenares, are:
--To resolve petitions for the writ of amparo “within three days;”
--To “sanction any public official who disobeys court orders with removal from office, after the Argentine model, so that incidents like [that in the Jonas] Burgos, where the military is refusing to obey the court’s order” to produce a report on how the license plates on a vehicle impounded in an Army camp in Bulacan happened to end up on one of the vehicles of the abductors of the son of the late press freedom icon Jose “Joe” Burgos Jr., can be prevented;
--“Despite [authorities’] denial of custody,” to allow the families of victims open access to jails, police stations, military camps and other facilities where their kin may be held, as well as the right to look into records of arrest; and
--“That, other than the injured party, a concerned party or a human rights organization like the NUPL be allowed to file a petition on behalf of the injured party or the missing person.”
“We will use the writ of amparo to challenge the culture of impunity governing the perpetration of human rights by state security forces and attain justice for the victims,” Colmenares said in a separate statement.
“We will invoke the writ of amparo once it is official. The NUPL lawyers will definitely invoke this writ to force the military establishment to surface victims of enforced disappearances,” he added.
Nonoy Espina
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