Setting priorities correctly

Two occasions commemorated during the last week of October are still worth writing about even if they have already gone by without so much publicity. Both events are quite important to our society as they concern the criminal justice system in this country. In fact a whole week has been precisely set aside to generate more public attention and interest on them, particularly the prisoners and juvenile offenders. This has been designated as Prison Awareness and the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Consciousness week.

Common in these two events is the human being, the person whose acts or omissions may have transgressed the law or the “man-made rules and methods by which society compels or restrains the action of its members” (Bouviere’s Law Dictionary p. 1876). Specifically these are the Revised Penal Code (RPC) and Special Laws punishing certain acts and omissions.

Our noted professor and author of books on Criminal Law, Luis B. Reyes taught us then that in determining culpability for one’s unlawful acts or omissions, the RPC has divided a man’s life into several periods: the period of infancy or nine years and under, when a person is absolutely presumed incapable of committing a crime because of the complete absence of intelligence (age of absolute irresponsibility); over 9 years and under 15 years, when a person is not likewise culpable except when it is proven that he/she acted with discernment or that he /she has a mental capacity to fully appreciate the consequences of his/her unlawful acts (age of conditional responsibility); 18 years or over (adolescence) to 70 years (maturity) when a person is fully responsible for his unlawful acts or omissions (age of full responsibility). Persons over 9 and under 15 acting with discernment, 15 or over but less than 18, and over 70 years also incurs criminal liability but on a lesser degree (age of mitigated responsibility).

Primarily therefore, the period in a man’s life for determining criminal liability under the RPC may be divided into two major ages: 9 years or less when there is total exemption from criminal liability (Article 12 (2) , and over 9 years up to 70 when criminal liability attaches either conditionally, fully or in a lesser degree.

In April, 2006 however, RA 9344, otherwise known as the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act was passed by Congress. The main feature of this law is the increase in the age of total exemption from criminal liability from 9 years to 15 years and below. Obviously, this law just amended or “improved” Article 12, paragraph 3 of the RPC where a minor is also presumed to have acted without discernment and therefore exempt from criminal liability unless the presumption is rebutted by proof that he/she acted with discernment. In other words RA 9344 made that presumption no longer rebuttable or conditional but absolute for minors 15 years and under.

Actually, RA 9344 had a very laudable purpose of trying to dispense justice to minors or children in conflict with law in a more humane, kind and compassionate way. It just adopts the spirit of Article 40 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to treat minors in conflict with law with a view to their reintegration into society, according to Ms. Lira L. Polaran who works at the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council (JJWC). It is a way of achieving restorative instead of retributive justice which is the main purpose of our Penal Laws.

Unfortunately since its passage, some criminal acts involving minors especially 15 years down to 13 years of age have been unduly played up in media. Such reports somehow created the impression that these young criminals escape liability under the law simply because of their age. The public perception is that syndicates even use these kids to perpetrate their crimes and get away with them considering that these minors cannot be prosecuted anyway pursuant to RA 9344. Hence there are on-going moves to amend the law and lower the minimum age to 12 years instead of 15 years.

Apparently this move to amend the law involves a seeming clash of priorities: between giving restorative justice with kindness, understanding and compassion to these minors and preventing crimes committed by the supposedly increasing number of juvenile offenders. This seeming clash is more apparent than real. It is just a matter of determining first things first.

Before even thinking of amending the law, the authorities should first improve two aspects in the criminal justice system. One of them is of course the crime prevention aspect. Apparently there is an increase in crime incidence committed not only among minors because of lax law enforcement or lack of law enforcers in the right place at the right time. Lowering the minimum age to 12 years for exemption from criminal liability will not reduce the number of juvenile offenders for as long as they feel that they can easily get away with it because nobody is around to prevent them from doing so.

Second is the improvement of the jail conditions in the country. For so many years now, I have been pointing out the inhuman conditions in our jails consisting of congestion due to lack of sleeping space and also lack of clean facilities that exposes them to all sorts of ailments and illnesses that even result in death. Even the foods they eat are not sometimes fit for human consumption. If minor offender will be detained in those jails, they will just become hardened and would only commit more crimes when subsequently freed.

The problem therefore is just a matter of setting our priorities correctly.

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