Thursday, December 06, 2007 Amparo writ can be used ‘even against vigilantes’
THE writ of amparo—a remedy to protect the right to life, liberty and security of every person—may be one of the most significant rulings handed down by the Supreme Court in recent years.
According to Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, even ex-convicts fearing assassination at the hands of the so-called Cebu vigilantes can seek protection through it.
“They can apply for the issuance of a protection order to be effective as soon as they are released. It is one of the scenarios contemplated by the rules,” Azcuna said.
They must first convince the Regional Trial Court (RTC) that their life is in mortal danger, however. If they succeed, they don’t have to wait until the end of their sentence to start benefiting from the protection order.
“They can be transferred to another jail and serve their term there,” he said.
Witnesses to extra-legal killings who would like to voluntarily testify can seek protection via the writ as well.
Under the rules, the RTC can issue interim relief immediately after a verified petition for the issuance of the writ of amparo is filed.
While the Department of Justice (DOJ) witness protection program has its own rules on who may enjoy coverage, the writ of amparo supersedes all of them. A protection order under the writ of amparo may task an agency or party other than the justice department to offer sanctuary.
“It is the power to protect and enforce a constitutional right, the right to life, liberty and security of every person. That is the writ of amparo,” Associate Justice Azcuna said.
The Supreme Court associate justice was in Cebu yesterday to serve as the guest speaker in the University of the Philippines-Visayas Cebu College about human rights and the writ of amparo.
He was instrumental in the development of the rule that, since Oct. 24, has formed part of the Rules of Court.
He said he had first proposed the adoption of the writ of amparo when he was a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention. It wasn’t adopted.
He got another chance to raise it as a delegate in the 1986 Constitutional Commission. The idea got carried not as the writ of amparo, but as a provision in Sec. 5(5) of the Constitution, which grants the Supreme Court the power “to promulgate rules concerning the protection and enforcement of constitutional rights.”
The Philippine Government is a signatory to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Article 2(1) of the covenant requires each signatory “to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present covenant.”
Under Article 17(1), government should ensure that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence.”
The Declaration, on the other hand, provides in Article 17(2) that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.”
“Although the signatories to the declaration did not intend it as a legally binding document, being only a declaration, the court has interpreted the declaration as part of the generally accepted principles of international law and binding on the state,” the Supreme Court en banc said in a 2003 ruling. (KNR)
