Four days after the Republic Act No. 11479 or Anti-Terror Law formally took effect, retired Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales filed a petition to declare the controversial law null and void.
The former justices together with former Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te, former Magdalo party-list representative Francisco Adecillo and University of the Philippines College of Law professors, asked the high court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the bill and filed a motion for oral arguments.
The petition says that the law is unconstitutional, citing provisions on the designation of terrorist individuals and groups, detentions without warrant of arrest and the creation of an anti-terrorism council. These violate the right to due process, the presumption of innocence, the privacy of communication and correspondence and incommunicado detention.
[READ: Terrorism undefined: The Anti-Terrorism Bill is an indication of an authoritarian regime]The petitioners also noted that anyone, including themselves, faces “immediate or imminent danger” in the implementation of the Anti-Terror Law. Under the law’s provisions for inciting to commit terrorism, for example, Carpio may be prosecuted and imprisoned for defending the country’s claim to the West Philippine Sea.
Carpio-Morales, meanwhile, may be accused of supporting terrorist acts as she filed an international criminal complaint against Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“The ATA is unconstitutional as written. It is mired by vagueness and overbreadth that repress protected speech, justifying its facial invalidation,” the petitioners wrote.
This is the eleventh petition filed at the Supreme Court challenging the recently passed law.
Header photos from Inquirer.net
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Writer: ANGELA PATRICIA SUACILLO
