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Protect, don’t attack lawyers, foreign delegation tells Duterte


A delegation of foreign lawyers has asked President Rodrigo Duterte to protect, and refrain from “publicly attacking,” lawyers, after it found a “sharp increase” in human rights violations against legal professionals during the current administration.

The President should instead publicly condemn attacks, the nine-member delegation said after conducting a brief study of 13 violent incidents against lawyers in the last two years.

The mission learned there was “no structural protection, compensation or remedy for the victims and their families,” as well as a “lack of effective oversight of executive bodies  and law enforcement agencies, supporting a culture of impunity.”

As part of their study, the delegation, whose members come from Belgium, Italy, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, and the United States, also interviewed officers from the Department of Justice and the National Bureau of Investigation, which they said recognized the problem but seemed “frustrated” about local investigations.

 

 

The mission was conducted through interviews and conferences in Metro Manila and Iloilo from March 14 to March 17. Apart from the DOJ and the NBI, the delegation also talked to the Quezon City Prosecutors League, the Commission on Human Rights, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, the Philippine Judges Association, Manlaban, and Karapatan.

The police and the military, however, did not grant the group an audience,  the delegation said. The judiciary was represented by PJA president Felix Reyes.

At least 37 lawyers have been killed in the line of duty since the Duterte administration began, according to the count of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, one of the local groups that hosted the international mission.

Mindanaoan lawyer Rex Jasper Lopoz was the latest to fall, gunned down outside a shopping mall in Tagum City, Davao del Norte last week.

The delegation also urged the government to “put an end to the practice of red-tagging” and the public disclosure of drug lists, and observe the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers in order to protect legal professionals.

It also recommended the provision of legal and financial assistance to families of victims.

ICC route ‘many steps further’

The delegation, however, said they have not planned on submitting their findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC), if the tribunal decides to conduct an investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings under the Duterte administration.

Hans Gaasbeek, a member of the delegation, said the ICC route was "many steps further," but fellow member Suzanne Adely said they are not ruling it out.

The Philippines has just officially withdrawn from the ICC, but the pullout will not affect the court's ongoing preliminary examination of allegations against the president.

The ICC will deem a case inadmissible if the state involved is already conducting an investigation or prosecution, unless the state is unwilling or unable to carry out genuine proceedings.

For now, the delegation intends to share its preliminary findings, and eventually its full report, with other lawyers organizations.

Asked how the group expects the administration to respond to its findings, member Joanna Callewaert said they conducted the mission out of concern for their fellow lawyers.

"It's not because we want to say to the Philippine government what they have to do," she said.

'Killings can't be attributed to Duterte'

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo dismissed the delegation's findings.

"They cannot attribute the lawyer's killing to PRRD and his administration. The killing could be personally motivated. What do they mean by their statement that the administration should refrain from attacking lawyers?" he said in a statement.

"The administration has not attacked any lawyer in any way and/or manner. Coming as it does from lawyers who should know better, blaming the administration for the lawyers' deaths is gross intellectually challenged," he said.—KG/LDF, GMA News

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