Real justice

On a smoggy December afternoon, I found my Twitter feed filled with tweets about how President Noynoy Aquino lambasted Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona who was seated on the stage while President Aquino gave his speech at the 1st National Criminal Justice Summit.

Some characterized President Aquino’s actions as whiny, bratty, rude, and uncouth. There were accusations that President Aquino was out for revenge because of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Hacienda Luisita. Others said that his comments were called for considering the Supreme Court’s previous actions on the cityhood laws, the FASAP decision that did not become final because of a letter from Atty. Estelito Mendoza, and the President Gloria Arroyo conditional TRO which became effective despite her non-compliance with its conditions.

A criminal justice summit involving all branches of government is long overdue. It is unfortunate that President Aquino’s speech focused on how the Supreme Court failed to do its job. While he raised valid points, there are far more important issues in our criminal justice system that I hope the summit will address. Besides, not all criminal cases make it to the Supreme Court.

We studied Criminal Procedure in our second year of law school. My teacher was Dean Marvic Leonen, who now heads the government peace panel. He pictured criminal procedure as a train with several carriages, with each carriage representing a stage in the process, following a particular order. Arrest was a moveable carriage, as it could happen during or right after a crime was committed, after the filing of the information in court and the issuance of a warrant of arrest, after conviction, and so forth.

The cases assigned to us in class gave me a vague idea of how much more complicated practice would be compared to Dean Leonen’s drawing of the train. Actually litigating proved just how disadvantageous the system is towards the poor.I could not bear to look at the prisoners who wore orange and were handcuffed together as I stood beside them in court. Some of them had languished in jail for years, serving time beyond the heaviest sentence the judge could impose.The delays could have been caused by a combination of factors: the court’s clogged dockets, postponements due to typhoons or (gasp) a seminar for judges or prosecutors, even the death of the judge or the lawyer.

In contrast, a rich accused can hire lawyers to wait at the Prosecutor’s Office and know immediately if a criminal case will be filed against him. The same lawyers can wait in court for a warrant of arrest to be issued. If it is, the rich client can immediately file for bail and never set foot in jail. And then there are accused like President Arroyo who was allowed to be put under hospital arrest. In my years of practice, I never saw amotion for hospital arrest being heard. Maybe more accused will be asking judges for similar treatment now. They could argue equal protection. Colitis is colitis. And they can always claim that someone wants to put them to sleep.

I was also looking forward to reading the draft of the new Penal Code, which was supposed to be unveiled at the summit. Our Revised Penal Code dates back to 1932 and contains several anachronistic provisions. It has crimes like offending religious feelings and charivari or discordant singing. It penalizes a woman who has sex with a man not her husband but requires more than just infidelity for her husband to be punished, sex under scandalous circumstances for one.

With all the attention focused on President Aquino’s speech, I hope that participants at the summit will not forget to do what they set out to do and to come up with solutions to improve the Philippine criminal justice system. Real justice demands it.