A human rights group on Monday asked the Supreme Court to revisit its rules allowing some trial courts in the National Capital Region to issue search warrants that can be implemented anywhere in the country.
Kapatid, a human rights advocates group supporting families of political prisoners, said the so-called “remote search warrants” issued by courts “are being manipulated and weaponized by state agents to go after activists and even kill them.”
Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim was referring to Section 12, Chapter 5 of a 2004 Supreme Court Administrative Circular which allows Manila and Quezon City executive judges of regional trial courts and, in their absence, vice-executive judges, to issue search warrants outside their territorial jurisdiction on the basis of applications filed by the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippine National Police and the Anti-Crime Task Force.
“We believe it is imperative that the High Court take prompt action on the standing requests of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines and human rights lawyers to check the police practice of getting warrants from courts outside the jurisdiction of their targets as this has triggered massive rights violations, including the increase of political prisoners,” Lim said in a statement.
The group cited the “remote warrants” used by the police and the military in simultaneous operations in South Luzon provinces that resulted in the death of nine activists and the arrest of six other persons.
“As police-military attacks escalate against activists and rights lawyers, Kapatid urges Supreme Court Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta to take action on remote search warrants that led to arrests of activists on trumped-up charges and outright killings in the Calabarzon region on March 7 and to suspend allowing Manila and Quezon City trial courts to issue search warrants anywhere in the country,” Lim said.
