NUPL leader elected transitional president of int'l lawyers group

Human rights lawyer Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL), has been elected the transitional president of an international lawyers' group supportive of plans to sue President Rodrigo Duterte after his term ends in 2022.

Olalia was elected transitional president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) until November 2020, at which time his regular presidency may potentially be confirmed until 2023, the NUPL said in a statement.

Prior to his election, Olalia had been a member of the IADL's governing bureau alongside NUPL chairman Neri Colmenares since 2010.

The IADL's members include progressive lawyers, jurists, law professors, judges, prosecutors and law students from 80 countries, including France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In its recent meeting in Brussels, Belgium, the IADL called on the Philippine government to "stop the targeting and red-tagging" of critics of its policies and resolved to conduct or support fact-finding missions into the killings of lawyers.

The NUPL itself has claimed its members have been threatened and attacked in the line of duty. The group sought a writ of amparo but was denied by the Court of Appeals for insufficiency of evidence.

In a resolution, the IADL also said it will endorse pending communications against Duterte before the International Criminal Court (ICC), one of which was filed by the NUPL.

The ICC's Office of the Prosecutor is examining allegations of crimes against humanity against the president and several of his top officials over the conduct of the administration's anti-illegal drug campaign, which has killed thousands.

The prosecutor's preliminary examination continues despite the Philippines' withdrawal from the ICC — a decision of the president — which took effect this year.

The IADL likewise resolved to "earnestly study" the filing of cases in different countries against Duterte and "all those responsible for the killings, torture and other grievous violations of international law."

The group said it "condemn[s] in the strongest terms the attacks committed on activists and legitimate people’s organizations especially lawyers and members of the legal profession who apparently have been killed in the exercise of their profession." —LDF, GMA News