SC panel: Rights should be protected … even ex parte

Former Chief Justice Reynato Puno (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)

MANILA, Philippines — Although the country’s antiterror law leans heavily in favor of the government, the Supreme Court will keep a keen eye on civil rights, particularly in ex parte matters, according to retired Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

Puno, who was chief justice from 2006 to 2010 and served in the Supreme Court for 17 years, was tapped to head the committee currently drafting judicial rules on antiterrorism cases.

One peculiarity of Republic Act No. 11479, enacted in 2020, is that it allows court hearings even in the absence of one of the parties, known as ex parte proceedings, Puno said during a judicial forum in Mandaue City.

The antiterror law allows the government to present uncontroverted evidence against a person or group and request for a surveillance order, designate them as a terrorist, conduct bank inquiries, and freeze their assets, while the accused are denied the right to defend themselves.

However, the retired chief justice said, “There is no stage in the proceedings where the constitutional rights of a party are left unprotected, even when a party is excluded from the proceedings.”

Puno said judicial protection “calls for courts not to be laid back in the protection of constitutional rights. This transformation is sanctioned by our 1987 Constitution … our courts, especially our Supreme Court, can strike out any order or act—judicial, legislative, executive in nature—that constitutes grave abuse of discretion.”

Puno echoed the call of incumbent Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo for jurists to step up and extend judicial protection to parties vulnerable to possible abuse by state agents of the law.

Like Gesmundo, the retired jurist also called on magistrates across the country “to transform itself from a passive court to an active court.”

“Active in the sense that it ought to be more interventionist in order that the rights of the excluded party can be protected despite the absence of that party … [the] government cannot take advantage of the absence of a party; violate his rights just because he is absent from the court—an absence that is not his own making, but an absence dictated by the law,” Puno added.

Ealier this week, Gesmundo also expressed the same concern for the possible abuse by state agents of the law.

Gesmundo hoped that the procedural rules being studied by Puno’s committee would compel courts at all levels to balance the safety of the public and the safety of fundamental rights in dealing with antiterror cases.