“An urgent and decisive action from the Supreme Court is a matter of life and death for activists and human rights defenders especially now when we are being increasingly targeted in the government’s counterinsurgency and counterterror campaign for our work and causes.”
This translates to an average of seven lawyers killed every year.
“At this crucial juncture when the other institutions have defaulted on us, we fervently welcome these bold and unequivocal declarations, initial steps and further plans from our very own refuge.”
Amid the national outrage and international concern raised over the March 7 “Bloody Sunday” killing of nine activists in the Southern Tagalog region, urgent calls are being addressed to the Supreme Court to do what it can, while it can, to protect the people’s constitutional rights.
“How can [the judiciary] distance themselves [from the police action] if they themselves signed the documents used to make the operations seem legitimate?” – Defend Southern Tagalog
Bulatlat looks back at the decisions of the high court which affect the public the most, and the Filipino people’s fundamental rights and welfare.
Now that the schedule has been set, the focus now is on how the members of the high court would come up with a decision on these. Considering the caliber of the lawyers questioning the ATL’s validity, will they simply brush off the arguments to put a finality on the question and allow the president to do as he wills or will they listen to the arguments and seriously put the law into question?
“When lawyers, prosecutors, and workers in the justice sector are murdered with impunity and alarming regularity, no one feels safe; our people lose trust and faith in our government and its justice system, and the unscrupulous are emboldened to take the law in their criminal hands.”
“The issuance of the IRR has set the stage for the unimpeded implementation of the assailed law; the targeting of activists and critics of the government; the suppression of dissent; and the curtailment of civil and political rights, all in the altar of national security,” the motion read.
“Yet we are still waiting for the Court to deliver what the Chief Justice vowed. One of the petitioners has already given birth and like what we’ve feared, the day after giving birth, she was brought back to prison with her baby.”
“Given the vast and greater powers bestowed under the law, it will have a wide-ranging effects of violating existing constitutionally-guaranteed rights of our people, thus, the issuance of a ?shield against injustice, a temporary restraining order, against its enforcement, effective until the finality of the judgment, is fair and prudent under the circumstances.” By ANNE MARXZE…