THE Philippines and Poland have held a second round of negotiations over the proposed repatriation or Agreement on Transfer of Sentenced Persons, as well as initial talks on the projected Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.
The proposed treaty on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons allows citizens convicted of crimes in either state to serve their remaining sentence in their own country, with a view to facilitating the convicts’ rehabilitation and reintegration into mainstream society.
Meanwhile, the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (MLA) involves a process by which either country conducting investigation or prosecution of criminal cases requests legal assistance from the other country, notably in obtaining evidence or taking voluntary statements from persons, confiscation, or forfeiture of property or proceeds of the crime.
MLA requests are key to obtaining evidence and confiscating illegal proceeds of the crime located outside the state where the crime was committed.
The Philippine delegation was composed of chief state counsel Dennis Arvin Chan, assistant chief state counsel Mildred Bernadette Alvor, and state counsels Lourdes Gisela Mendoza, Jane Hazel Marie Garcia-Doble, Ma. Lorena Calo, and Armie Gutierrez-Bugarin, and Department of Foreign Affairs’ officers lawyers Sheila Mae Briones, Catherine Sy, Jose Garcia III, and Lara Dominique De Jesus.
The Polish delegation consisted of Judge Przemysław Domagała, deputy director of the Department of International Cooperation and Human Rights, Ministry of Justice; Marzena Górzyńska, chief of Public International Law Division, Ministry of Justice; andTomasz Chałański, head of the Division of International Legal Cooperation on Criminal Matters, Department of International Cooperation and Human Rights, Ministry of Justice.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline “Philippines, Poland strengthen international legal cooperation.”
