Group seeks SC protective order

The Duterte administration has relegated drug suspects to homo sacer—persons bereft of human rights—in advancing its merciless antinarcotics campaign, according to a group of human rights lawyers.

In a 15-page petition it filed on Wednesday, the Center for International Law (Centerlaw) asked the Supreme Court to formulate a new protective order to stem the spiraling summary killings in the country triggered by President Duterte’s war on drugs.

 ‘Carnage’

It urged the high court to intercede in the “carnage” by making use of existing international laws in coming up with supplemental rules on criminal prosecution to protect the rights of drug suspects and other suspected criminals.

Taking its cue from the tribunal’s previous actions in creating the writ of amparo and the writ of habeas data, Centerlaw said the new judicial order may be called the “writ contra homo sacer,” a legal principle based on an ancient Roman law.

“The high court itself—the supreme interpreter of the laws—considers suspected criminals entitled to protection from the abuses of police officers or the depredations of unaccountable assassination squads,” the group said in its petition.

“We write to implore the Supreme Court to promulgate additional rules on criminal procedure to help prevent the disturbing emergence of a class of people who … are no more than homo sacer, or beings reduced to mere biological existence, denied of all rights, marked for execution anytime and anywhere,” it added.

Interestingly, Kabayan Rep. Harry Roque, one of Mr. Duterte’s staunchest apologists in the House, is a founding partner of Centerlaw.

The petition noticeably did not mention the name of the President, who has repeatedly declared in his speeches that drug users are not human beings.

“What is particularly troubling about this horrific drug war is the official assertion that really, the deaths arising from it, whether those that occurred in the course of police operations or those from alleged vigilante killings, are not extralegal killings,” the group said.

Italian philosopher

Centerlaw said the concept of homo sacer was brought to public attention by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who “warned against governments that invoke public emergencies as a basis to treat certain persons as without rights such that they may be killed anytime.”

The lawyers said the high court, in crafting the new protective writ, could adopt the UN Minnesota Protocol on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal Killings, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, Enforced Disappearances and Torture.

Submit documents, evidence

“Under the 1987 Constitution, the Supreme Court is uniquely empowered to issue new rules for the protection of constitutional rights,” the lawyers said.

Centerlaw suggested that policemen who had killed suspected criminals during an operation should be required to submit several documents similar to the process of inquest proceedings as defined in Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code.

Proactive role

“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 said.

It said state prosecutors should take a proactive role in conducting inquest proceedings when a person was killed “under suspicious circumstances” as contained in Department of Justice Circular No. 61.

No incident reports

In fact, the group said Chapter 3, Rule 15.4 of the Revised Operational Procedures of the Philippine National Police mentioned that “in cases of armed confrontation wherein the suspect dies, policemen are required to submit the incident to the prosecutor for inquest proceedings.”

“Notwithstanding the (existing) police regulations, we have seen a widespread practice by police officers of not submitting to prosecutors the written incident reports of police operations where the suspects die at the hands of policemen,” it lamented.

Centerlaw said the killing of suspected criminals without due process was an extralegal killing prohibited by the Constitution and the laws.