Supreme Court asked to order government to improve jail conditions in RP

MANILA, Philippines – In a landmark case, the Supreme Court has been asked to compel the government to improve living conditions in jails in the country.

The Center for International Law (CIL) led by UP professor and lawyer Harry Roque Jr. filed the petition last Sept. 9 on behalf of a British national convicted of rape by a trial court but was later on acquitted by the High Court.

The suit was based on the case of Albert Ernest Wilson, who was jailed at the maximum security compound of the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City after being meted the death penalty in September 1998 by the Regional Trial Court in Valenzuela City that found him guilty of raping his stepdaughter.

While his conviction was on appeal, Wilson said he had suffered financial extortion, torture, inhuman living conditions, and psychological trauma inflicted by prison guards and fellow inmates – with the concurrence and sometimes participation or cooperation of the prison guards – while inside the national penitentiary.

After the SC acquitted him in December 1999, Wilson filed a complaint against the Philippine government before the United Nations Human Rights Committee for violations of his rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), of which the Philippines is a member. He alleged that the government breached its obligations under the covenant not to commit torture and to prevent torture within its jurisdiction.

The Human Rights Committee is a mechanism established under the ICCPR where a group of experts examines reports and rules on individual complaints brought before it against states/parties.

After requiring the Philippines to answer the complaint and to rebut the allegations, the committee decided the case and released a communique in November 2003, finding the Philippines in breach of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in Case no. 868/1999.

The committee has found that “conditions of detention as described, as well as the violent and abusive behavior both of certain prison guards and of other inmates, as apparently acquiesced in by the prison authorities, are seriously in violation of the author’s right, as a prisoner, to be treated with humanity in and with respect for his inherent dignity.”

‘RP has an obligation to compensate Wilson’

It also stressed that Wilson’s wrongful conviction of death penalty was another violation as it caused him “mental suffering and anguish.”

So, the Committee ruled that the Philippines has an obligation to compensate Wilson for the torture he suffered at the national penitentiary.

But instead of complying with its obligations under the ICCPR, Philippine authorities gave Wilson the run-around.

The CIL said the committee’s findings on the Wilson case were clear and convincing evidence that the Philippines had violated its obligations under the ICCPR.

“The failure of the Philippines to observe its obligations to prevent torture and not to commit torture under the Covenant gives rise to the commission of an internationally wrongful act which is a breach of treaty,” said the group in the 39-page mandamus brief submitted to the High Court.

“The acts of the prison officials in Muntinlupa and the prison guards are considered acts of State, and acts of the Philippines, being directly attributable under the doctrine of State organs.”

The Center argues that the conditions of detention in Philippine jails do not comply with the treaty obligations assumed by the Philippine government under the ICCPR.

Citing a landmark case decided by the European Court of Human Rights, CIL said the Philippine government is obligated to institute reforms in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) to prevent the torture suffered by Wilson from happening to others.

In the case of Broniowski v. Poland [Broniowski v. Poland (Grand Chamber)(App no. 31443/96) ECHR 22 June 2004] the ECHR held that there was a violation due to the malfunctioning of domestic legislation and practice, thus denying a whole class of individuals of their human rights protected under the European human rights convention.

The Broniowski case involved thousands of Polish citizens who were unjustly deprived of their property during a forced repatriation carried out by the communist regime in Poland. The claimant Jerzy Broniowski was refused compensation by the Polish government for property lost when his grandmother was repatriated from one side of the Polish border to the other.

The European human rights court then ordered the Polish government to institute measures in its legal system to effectively provide restitution to similarly situated persons.

The Center said following the Broniowski case, the Supreme Court should compel the Philippine government not only to compensate Wilson but also to ensure from now on that conditions in its jails and detention centers comply with the standards of humanness.

The Philippines has since abolished the death penalty but inhuman conditions in its overcrowded jails continue and are turning from bad to worse.

In its suit, the Center said the Philippine Supreme Court has itself deplored in a number of cases brought before it the “incredible overcrowding of prison cells” that lead inevitably to the formation of wolf packs, and that confine prisoners “under circumstances that strangle all sense of decency, reduce convicts to the level of animals, and convert a prison term into prolonged torture and slow death.” –Edu Punay (The Philippine Star)