by Atty. Neri Colmenares*
OPENING STATEMENT
on Cluster 4 Issues
During Oral Arguments on the Anti-Terrorism Act of 202
02 February 2021
Your Honors, I was assigned to argue that various sections of RA 11479 violate, inter alia, the constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws.
At its core, the Anti-Terrorism Act is today’s oppressive and arbitrary legislative vehicle for the attribution of guilt and the imposition of punishment essentially without the need for trial and conviction by a court of law.
And that is the essence of a bill of attainder – a law that inflicts punishment without judicial trial.
Firstly, Your Honors, the law is intrinsically invalid because it suffers from overbreadth and impermissible vagueness. The law punishes any act, including acts which were perfectly innocent when done, for as long as the Anti-Terrorism Council, acting as roving law makers and star chamber judges, imputes vaguely defined terrorist intentions and purposes on the suspect.
After all, who would know what acts are encompassed by a law that penalizes “any act” intended to “endanger another person’s life”? or “seriously interfere with critical infrastructure”? Worse, the act need not even actually result in “endangering” a person’s life. The mere naked imputation that it intended to “endanger” a person’s life would suffice.
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