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human rights

human rights

“It is time to bring back sanity and restore reason.”

February 3, 2021 by
&

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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human rights, peace and order

A Field Guide to the Anti-Terrorism Law Without Preempting the Courts on the Issue of its Constitutionality

July 6, 2020 by
A

by Adolf Azcuna

It is Rep Act No 11479 signed into law on July 3, 2020 and effective after publication for 15 days in the Official Gazette or newspaper of general circulation in the country. The Anti-Terrorism Council and the Secretary of Justice are to draw up the IRR or implementing rules in 90 days after the law’s effectivity.

It repeals or replaces the Human Security Act of 2007 which was allegedly largely unused because of the heavy fines provided against law enforcers who violated its safeguards.

It adopts a policy against terrorism and seeks to defend the nation against it. It then defines what constitutes terrorism, penalizes proposals to commit it, terrorist training, funding and recruitment activities and membership in designated terrorist organizations. It covers foreign terrorist activities that have links to the Philippines.

It creates an Anti-Terrorism Council composed of Executive Officials that will oversee the Act’s implementation.

It provides for an elaborate system of surveillance including wiretapping by state agents of suspected terrorists upon directive or permission from the Anti-Terrorism Council with the approval of the Court of Appeals, for a period of 60 days extendible for another 30 days.

It allows arrests without judicial warrants and detention without filing of charges in court for a period of 14 days extendible for another 10 days in the name of fighting terrorism.

And it removes the heavy fines on law enforcers if they transgress the law’s safeguards and instead provides for imprisonment of up to 12 years.

The thrust of the objections and of petitions to declare all or parts of the law invalid are or are likely to be—

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