THE Department of Justice yesterday welcomed the recent issuance by the Supreme Court of procedural rules guiding petitions and applications related to the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, which will take effect on January 15.
“The law is now fully operational with the rules as it provides the mechanisms to file petitions and other similar pleadings in relation to the Anti-Terrorism Act,” DOJ Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Jose Dominic Clavano told reporters in a chance interview.
“It addresses contentious topics such as designation, proscription, surveillance, detention without judicial warrant of arrest and significantly it also added the remedy or recourse for those who believe that they have unjustly been designated,” he added.
Clavano said the rules struck the right balance between the competing demands of ensuring the protection of individual and collective rights of the people and the duty of the State to ensure peace and security.
“On the one hand you have data privacy, free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and on the other hand, you have the right to be secure in your person and the peace and security issues that we currently face so we agree with the rules,” he said.
The SC in a statement issued on January 1 said the rules will cover all applications and petitions related to detention without warrants of arrest, surveillance and freeze orders, travel restrictions, designations, proscriptions, and other court issuances meted out in the application of the anti-terror law.
It said the rules will also apply to all individuals or groups who seek judicial relief from their designation as terrorist or terrorist group by the Anti-Terrorism Council and freeze order by the Anti-Money Laundering Council on their respective bank accounts.
Clavano reiterated the DOJ’s defense of the controversial anti-terror law, saying it has undergone and passed judicial scrutiny.
“We’ve already gone through the process. We are a democracy and it’s been contested, it’s been challenged before the SC with no less than 37 petitions filed as against the constitutionality of this law and unanimously, it has been upheld as constitutional except for two very minor provisions of the anti-terror act and for the department and the previous administration, we’ve seen already the advantages of this type of law,” he said.
He added the law equips law enforcement with significant powers to prevent terrorism.
Prior to its passage in 2020, the anti-terrorism law was widely contested by civil society, human rights, media, and other groups largely due to its loose definition of terrorism, raising fears that dissent and legitimate expression of opposition could be unjustly labeled as terrorism by law enforcement authorities.
