President
Rodrigo Roa Duterte in his recent speeches ( a strong and expletive laden reply
to United Nations' special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions, Agnes Callamard ) made a reference to the French law,
this is regarding the presumption of
guilty. A direct contrast to Philippine criminal laws, where the presumption is of innocence until proven guilty.
The French
embassy in Manila, even issued a press
statement regarding the President Duterte’s reference to its French law.
Today, Mr.
Rigoberto Tiglao of Manila Times have
written another article titled “France
does have presumed-guilty laws: We should have these, too”.
Im quoting the
full article below:
PRESIDENT
Duterte said in a recent speech:
“There in France, they can detain a person almost indefinitely, under the French law. And the French law says you are guilty, and you have to prove your innocence. Gano’n ‘yan. Presumption dito, inosente ka (It’s like that. Here in the Philippines the presumption is, you are innocent),” he said.
A veteran anti-Duterte
columnist was almost in religious ecstasy gloating over what he claimed was an
unforgivable boo-boo for a President of the Republic. The French embassy
promptly issued a press statement saying that “the presumption of innocence until
proven guilty is at the core of the French judicial system.”
Read on, and you will find
that despite what at first impression seem to be shocking statements about the
country that claims to be the ”cradle of human rights,” Duterte is correct, or
very nearly correct.
Duterte was nearly correct
when he said that the French “can detain a person almost indefinitely, under
French law.” Duterte’s mistake was that he didn’t qualify that the French laws
he was referring to were those aimed at fighting terrorism.
A paper by the US-based
think-tank Brookings Institution pointed out: “Pre-trial detention (in France)
can last for up to four
years in terrorism cases with the investigating magistrate
effectively determining the pace of the investigation and therefore the trial.”
*
If a terrorism suspect is held
without trial for four
years while the investigators look for evidence against him in
their own sweet time, isn’t he being presumed to be guilty? If it were you who
was detained for four years without trial, wouldn’t you say you felt that you
were “almost indefinitely” jailed?
Guilty for future acts
In fact, the current centerpiece of the French approach to terrorism not only in effect presumes a suspect guilty until proven innocent. Believe it or not, there is a French law, Law 96-647 of July 22, 1996, that says that a terrorist
This law
penalizes what is called “criminal association in relation to a terrorist
undertaking” (“association
de malfaiteurs en relation avec une enterprise terroriste”). The
international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) explained what it is about (emphasis
mine):
“It allows the authorities to
intervene with the aim of preventing terrorism well before the commission of
a crime. No
specific terrorist act need be planned, much less executed, to
give rise to the offense. Intended to criminalize all preparatory acts short of
direct complicity in a terrorist plot, an association de malfaiteurs charge may be leveled
for providing any kind of logistical or financial support to, or associating in
a sustained fashion with, groups allegedly formed with the ultimate goal of
engaging in terrorist activity.” *
The HRW reported: “The vast
majority of terrorism suspects are detained and prosecuted on this charge.
According to government statistics, 300 of the 358 individuals in prison for
terrorism offenses in September 2005—both convicted and those awaiting
trial—had been charged with ‘association de malfaiteurs’ in relation to a
terrorist undertaking.”
It means for instance that if
military intelligence manages to eavesdrop on a conversation among Muslims that
it would be a good idea to attack Davao City, that audio tape would be enough
for the police to arrest and detain for up to four years those who were heard
having that conversation. And if you just allowed this would-be terrorists to
use your living room to discuss their plan, you would be charged and thrown in
jail too.
Incommunicado
Also, under the recent French anti-terrorist laws, a suspect involved in terrorism, drug trafficking or organized crime cases can be detained incommunicado, without being charged in court for as long as four days.
In our case, even under
martial law, you have a right to consult a lawyer the second you are arrested,
and can be detained without charges only up to one-and-a-half days.
While he controls Congress,
Duterte should ask it to pass similar laws. So we won’t be accused by the likes
of the French human rights militant Agnes Callamard, we should just copy word
for word the English translation of France’s Law 96-647 of July 22, 1996.
Duterte wouldn’t need to go through the big hassle of declaring martial law, if
we have laws similar to the French laws on terrorism. *
Imagine, under such a charge
as “criminal association in relation to a terrorist undertaking,” suspected
members of the communist New People’s Army—which after all has been declared a
terrorist organization by the US—could be arrested and detained for four years.
The need to fight terrorism,
however cannot be an excuse for French laws that essentially presume a terrorist
suspect guilty. French criminal laws are harsh, according to one explanation,
because these originated from the need to fight criminal gangs that emerged
after the chaos of the French Revolution that threatened the stability of
government.
Indeed, the notion that French
law presumes an accused guilty has been so widespread that it is an item in the
respected debunker of fake news snopes.com, which tried to disprove it,
although unconvincingly.
Outreau trials
That notion was bolstered by the infamous, so-called Outreau trials that started in 2004 which was such a scandalous abomination of justice in France that it shocked the nation. About six films were made on this episode.
I watched just a few months
ago one of this, a dramatization, Présumé coupable(translated as “presumed
guilty”, although the movie’s title was solely “Guilty”), which depicted in
detail how the French prosecutorial system was so against a suspect that it had
been seared in my mind that, as Duterte thought, France’s legal system does presume
an accused guilty, that he has to prove his innocence. *
In that very sad episode,
French authorities astonishingly presumed that 18 residents of the
working-class town of Outreau in northern France were guilty of sexual abuse
and rape of a dozen minors, even of their own children, even if they had no
past criminal records and were known to be ordinary law-abiding citizens. One
of them, who is the subject of the movie, was even a bailiff. The allegations
were based entirely on the claims of three residents, who didn’t even know
them.
Were the French authorities,
using the Embassy’s words, guided by the principle of “the presumption of
innocence until proven guilty”? If they were, the 18 suspects would not have
been jailed for years, their lives ruined.
After four years in prison
while the trial went on, and with one dying in jail, all the 18 accused were
acquitted. The three accusers admitted they were lying; one of them was
portrayed in the movie as being crazy. Then President Chirac called the episode
a “judicial disaster” and extended the French government’s official apology to
those very falsely accused.
The French parliament
investigated the case, and found flaws in the judicial system that in effect
presumed an accused guilty, until he proves himself innocent. One big defect
was the dominant role of the magistrate.
*
This was dramatized well in
the “Presume
Coupable” movie, in which the magistrate was fresh out of college,
had so many cases to handle, and was so driven to prove his mettle as a
prosecutor that he ignored all the evidence provided by the accused. The French
legal system, if adopted here, would in effect make our fiscals (prosecutors),
the accuser, the jury, and the judge.
In the way of the real world
though, the supposed universal right of being presumed innocent until proven
guilty is a myth. It is a reality only if anybody accused of even the most
heinous crimes is immediately released after being charged.
If he is presumed innocent,
shouldn’t a suspect be freed without even requiring bail? But you would reply:
bail or incarceration is necessary to prevent his flight from justice. But I
thought we were presuming him innocent, in which case he wouldn’t flee?
Under a dictatorship, I was
detained for two years as then Philippine Constabulary Chief Fidel Ramos
presumed that I was guilty of subversion, no need for a trial. Under a
so-called rule of law, President Gloria Arroyo was accused of misuse of PCSO
funds and spent four years in detention before she was acquitted. Was she
presumed innocent? *
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