LAST week Sen. Antonio Trillanes announced that investigators from the International Criminal Court have contacted more than 50 active and retired police officers to detail their participation in Duterte’s war on drugs.
The Philippine National Police quickly countered that “we have a working judicial system and we have courts that can hear police abuses and irregularities.”
The PNP referred to policemen “who were charged, jailed and convicted. That’s what the PNP will do. We will submit to the jurisdiction of the Philippines.”
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The Department of Justice warned that cops cooperating with the ICC investigation will face administrative charges and possible dismissal from the service.
The DOJ said that “the government’s stance has been consistent ever since. The President has been very firm in saying that we will not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC because we indeed have a very well and robust judicial system.”
Does a domestic judicial system defeat the ICC investigation?
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There is no question that the Philippines has a functioning court system.
The Philippine Constitution provides for a Supreme Court that has the power to resolve actual controversies. It can review the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the trial courts.
A trial court conviction for murder, for example, may be reviewed by the Court of Appeals, and ultimately by the Supreme Court.
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The Department of Justice is not a body within the Philippine judiciary. It is a part of the executive department, and the DOJ Secretary is an alter ego of the President.
Among the functions of the DOJ is the investigation and prosecution of crimes. A person can be haled to court and tried for committing a crime only if the DOJ files a charge – called an “Information” – against them.
The courts of law may not commence a criminal trial without such an Information having actually been filed by the DOJ. The executive branch executes the law; the judicial branch interprets it.
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How can the judicial branch try charges of crimes against humanity without the DOJ having previously conducted an investigation and found probable cause against those who implemented the bloody drug war?
Republic Act No. 9851, a domestic law, provides that willful killing, rape, torture, etc., are “crimes against humanity” when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population.
This law was passed in 2009 and had predated the Philippine Senate’s concurrence in the ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC.
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A “robust court system” may not be invoked as an excuse to evade the processes of the ICC when it is the justice department that has failed in its mandate to prosecute violations of RA 9851.
The ICC would have relented had there been an actual investigation leading to prosecution.
Sec. 17 of RA 9851 provides that the Philippines may dispense with the prosecution of crimes against humanity “if another court or international tribunal is already conducting the investigation or undertaking the prosecution of such crime.”
By its inaction, deliberate or otherwise, the executive department has clearly yielded to ICC jurisdiction./PN
