Philippines: Justice in the wake of natural disaster
Philippines: Justice in the wake of natural disaster
Typhoon
Haiyan has affected nearly ten million people in the Philippines, with
more than four million displaced in nine regions. In the aftermath of
the disaster, the administration of justice, an essential institution
often overlooked, has been severely affected with court buildings,
equipment and places of detention substantially destroyed in a number of
major centres.
Alphinor
Serrano, Executive Judge of the Regional Trial Court in Tacloban City,
explains: “the scale and destruction brought by Typhoon Haiyan took us
all by surprise. With no emergency plan to rely upon for a disaster of
this scale, our court rooms, offices, files and equipment were
destroyed. Ninety five percent of my case files were under water and mud
and court staff spent their days manually drying files and hanging them
out to dry.”
“While we have made great efforts to get our courts functioning
again, it is difficult and time consuming work and any delay has an
impact on a person’s right to speedy trial and other due process
rights,” Serrano said.
The UN Human Rights Office collaborating with the Human Rights
Commission of the Philippines has undertaken a joint project to assist
in rebuilding the judicial process in the affected regions and to begin a
process which ensures better preparedness for future natural disasters.
After the destruction of a number of prisons, some inmates were moved
to other jails without adequate access to their families, lawyers and
medical care. Often, too, the cases of people who had been arrested and
detained before the typhoon could not be processed as the files had been
destroyed or lost.
Senior Police Superintendant Domingo Say Cabillan, from the city of
Tacloban has reported that he is “dealing with a significant number of
detainees who have been held for five months in police cells. The
maximum time limit in Philippine law for people to be brought before the
Prosecutors office to file a case upon the commission of the crime is
thirty six hours for grave offences.”
“As the case files submitted to the Prosecutor’s office have in many
of these cases been washed away, we have struggled to resolve the
situation of these cases caught in a legal limbo,” Cabillan said.
