Editorial: Europe’s Magnitsky Law

Editorial Cartoon by John Gilbert Manantan
Editorial Cartoon by John Gilbert Manantan

Twenty-seven European Union member nations agreed on a law that will give the bloc a way to punish human rights violators all over the world. It is its answer to the United States’ Magnitsky Act. Yes, the very law that paved the way for the cancellation of Sen. Bato dela Rosa’s US visa on the grounds that the former chief of the national police played top role in a number of extrajudicial killings.

Formally known by a longer name, the Magnitsky Act was a bipartisan bill passed by the US Congress and signed into law by then President Barack Obama in 2012. It was meant to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of whistleblower and Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. The bill, which applies globally, has since 2016 authorized the US government to sanction those it deems as human rights offenders, freeze their assets and ban them entry into US territory.

Europe’s version does not carry the Magnitsky name, but packs the same statement—symbolic and literal—as it reinforces the EU’s foundational principles of commitment to human rights.

The EU’s move comes in anticipation of President Joe Biden’s presidency and while a number of nations around the world suffers assaults on their democratic institutions and rampant human rights violations.

Just last week, on International Human Rights Day, the Philippine National Police arrested journalist Lady Ann Salem with six other individuals as part of its campaign against “loose firearms and criminal gangs.” These arrests form part of a growing pattern of allegedly irregular issuances of search warrants, a case that the National Union of People’s Lawyers raised to the Supreme Court since late last year.

These arrests also come while a number of petitions have been raised against the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, which the President signed in the thick of the pandemic.

The EU’s move also comes at a time when Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte projects a rather schizophrenic singsong—publicly pronouncing that he doesn’t care about human rights on one hand and says he is “proud” of the country’s commitment to the world’s human rights treaties. The ground tales since he was swept to power, however, tell of a pretty dismal picture of the state of human rights in the country.

All 27 EU countries can now act as one in penalizing individuals and institutions that violate human rights. EU banks can freeze assets, cancel travel privileges of offenders—either state or non-state actors. The policy will take effect early next year.

To note, the EU-Philippine trade and investment update in 2018 showed a total trade of P875 billion, Philippine exports to EU at P461.1 billion and imports at P449 billion, according to the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines. Not to mention the thousands of overseas Filipino workers in European countries that amounts to billions as well.

The Philippine government’s seeming lack of concern for the state of human rights in the country will eventually hurt the economy.

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