Press Release
September 8, 2016

OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF SEN. LEILA M. DE LIMA ON THE PROPOSED SUSPENSION OF THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS FOR DRUGS AND TERRORISM

"The privilege of the writ can only be suspended in cases of rebellion and invasion. The drug war is not really an invasion or rebellion. Using 'war' to describe the anti-drug campaign is just a figure of speech. We should not take the analogy too far as to think that the drug war is a literal war between armed combatants dedicated to waging said war, and treat drug lords and pushes as foreign invaders or rebels out to overthrow government. They are not. Let us keep that basic constitutional consideration in mind.

"Habeas corpus basically is the power of the court to require the State in general to produce before the court the physical body of a person in its custody, whether detained legally or illegally. The privilege of the writ is the remedy of a petitioner to question the legality of the detention and to ask the court to order the release of the body in the event that his detention is illegal, e.g. arrested without warrant.

"Suspension of the writ means that the court can still ask the State to produce the body, but it can no longer inquire into the legality of the arrest or detention. In short, anybody can be arrested without a warrant and the legality of the arrest cannot be immediately questioned via a petition for habeas corpus, but maybe in some other later proceeding.

"The only limitation thus to warrantless arrests when the privilege of the writ is suspended is that the arrest effected must be related to the offenses of rebellion and invasion and the person arrested for rebellion or invasion, or any offense related to such must be formally charged in court within three days after his arrest.

"It will effectively legitimize situations of warrantless arrests, prolonged detentions without being formally charged in court (at least up to three days) or other situations which would otherwise be deemed arbitrary or illegal were it not for the suspension of the privilege of the writ.

"So basically, what is suspended is the proscription against warrantless arrests as enshrined in the bill of rights. That is the very heart of the situation when we do not have the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus."

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