Justice Marvic Leonen. INQUIRER/ MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
THE CONSTITUTION is nonpolitical.
This was Associate Justice Marvic Leonen’s response to netizens who criticized him for tweeting his views Sunday on hotly debated issues currently roiling the country.
In another series of tweets on his personal Twitter account, Leonen on Monday maintained that his tweets the other day should not have been taken as political commentary from a member of the Supreme Court.
On his Twitter account @marvicleonen, he said Monday: “Law, like pure air, is colorless.”
“The Constitution is not political commentary. It is, after all, the Constitution,” he added.
In response to user @highway54, the justice said: “legal provisions are normative statements capable of inclusion in a broad set of relevant narratives.”
He added: “I quoted law. Law is law… Laws are legible. They are not, in the words of a critical follower, ‘crypted.’”
“Neither should it be faulted for being ‘bias,’” he said.
Broke ‘dignified silence’
On Sunday, the normally reticent justice broke the so-called “dignified silence” maintained by Supreme Court magistrates when he took to social media and made known his sentiments on the bloody war on drugs and on the threat to show a supposed sex video of Sen. Leila de Lima in the House of Representatives.
On the government war on drugs which has counted over 3,000 killed since President Duterte took office on June 30, Leonen cited Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution: “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
On the threat of Mr. Duterte’s allies in Congress to air De Lima’s supposed sex tape, he tweeted out Republic Act No. 9995, the Anti-Photo and Video Voyeurism Act of 2009.
He also quoted from Article II, Section 11 of the Constitution which affirms that the state shall value the “dignity of every human person and guarantee full respect for human rights.”
Reminder of guarantees
Leonen’s tweets generated mixed reactions from netizens, some of whom criticized him for airing his views in the public sphere.
Others, on the other hand, thanked him for “reminding” the people of the constitutional guarantees of basic freedoms.
“On point! His post is not directed to anyone or any person. It’s just that these people ‘assuming’ or guilty,” said @heyronfol.