Sen. Leila de Lima. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines 鈥� As the end of her term nears, detained Sen. Leila de Lima gave a withering assessment of the country鈥檚 criminal justice system, describing it as 鈥渂roken in spirit鈥� and 鈥渓acking soul鈥� because of its propensity to view the accused as 鈥渘o longer fully human鈥� and unworthy of human rights.
鈥淥ur criminal justice system is broken not just in the 鈥榟ow鈥� but also as to 鈥榳hy.鈥� If it were a person, the criminal justice system is not only broken in body, it is broken in spirit. I would go so far as to say that it is lacking a soul,鈥� said the senator, who spoke at a recent University of the Philippines forum through her deputy chief of staff.
鈥淚t moves, but never toward anything productive. It moves just for the sake of being able to say that it moves. A zombie in the legal world,鈥� she said in a presentation delivered on her behalf by Catherine Sy during the Sixth Spanish-Filipino Scientific Congress on June 10.
De Lima, whose term is ending after she failed to get reelected in the just concluded May polls, titled her talk 鈥淢odernizing Criminal Law by Updating Our Approach to Criminal Behavior: Taking the Path of Transformative Justice.鈥�
Detained since 2017
The senator has been detained at the headquarters in Camp Crame in Quezon City since February 2017 on what she claimed were 鈥渢rumped up鈥� charges that she was involved in illegal drug trading at New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City during her stint as justice secretary under the Aquino administration.
Several key witnesses have since recanted all their allegations against her, prompting human rights organizations to demand her immediate release and pressuring justice department officials to review two of her three illegal drug cases, with one already dismissed.
鈥楿tterly disappointed鈥�
According to De Lima, none of the necessary and urgent reforms on criminal law have been instituted because of people鈥檚 tendency to look at the accused as 鈥渘o longer fully human and, therefore, are no longer worthy of full respect for their humanity and their rights.鈥�
鈥淭o say that I am utterly disappointed with the lack of progress in the efforts to modernize our criminal law system is to understate the problem,鈥� she said in her talk.
De Lima said she believed that the real first step to truly solving the problems relating to modernizing the country鈥檚 criminal law system was to 鈥渃ommit ourselves to see these real ills and want to resolve them.鈥�
She said her experience of being 鈥渦njustly detained for the last five years鈥� had given her a perspective that is rare in history鈥斺�渢hat of an advocate and defender, turned victim, turned survivor, turned reformist.鈥�
鈥淏eing shown how the wheel of justice operates from all possible sides, I can say that we have to approach criminal laws from a more inquisitive perspective, i.e., one that searches for the anatomy of crimes beyond looking at the motive, the instrumentality and the opportunity of each particular incident,鈥� she said.
鈥淚nstead, one that starts with one fundamental and, to my mind, game-changing question: What kind of society do we want to live in?鈥� De Lima said.
鈥淎nd, from there, asking what should be done to bring us closer to that aspirational society,鈥� she added.
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