A migrant workers group in the Middle East Thursday condemned the dismissal by the Court of Appeals (CA) of the habeas corpus petition filed by the ‘Morong 43’ health workers who were taken at gunpoint last February 6 on suspicions that they are members of the communist New People’s Army.

Meanwhile, Commission on Human Rights Chairwoman Leila M. de Lima Thursday said it’s time to review the martial-law era doctrine that allows the filing of supposedly valid information against the accused to cure the illegality of arrests.

The CA, citing the Ilagan v Enrile case during martial law, ruled last Wednesday that the health workers, mostly women and including two doctors, a nurse, and a midwife, will remain in military detention, as criminal charges had been filed against them in court.

Currently detained at Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal, the health workers were apprehended by the military during the Morong 43’s alleged participation in a bomb-making seminar at a farmhouse.

In a statement, Migrante-Middle East said that the CA now seems to be troubled by the “culture of impunity” fostered by the Arroyo regime.

It noted that many legal experts agree that the manner of arrest and continued detention of the ‘Morong 43’ is illegal and constitute violations on the Constitutional provisions in effecting arrest and detention in respect to the Bill of Rights.

“The junking of the habeas corpus plea is a big blow to the justice system, especially in times when the court’s impartial ruling is needed most,” said John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator.

“The grim face of the 1972 martial law imposition could be easily seen in the case of the Morong 43 aside from the fact the political repression and persecution among social and political activists unabatedly continues,” he said.

Meanwhile, De Lima said she expects the CA decision to become the subject of intense legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court.

In its March 9, 2010, the CA division invoked the verdict on the Ilagan vs Enrile case rendered during the Marcos dictatorship, which held that valid informations filed against those detained provide the cure for the illegal methods employed in the arrest, search, incarceration and prosecution of the accused.

“The propriety of the habeas corpus petition is still a matter sub judice, and it not our role to preempt the courts before the matter is settled with finality. The petitioners appear bent on taking this all the way to the Supreme Court,” De Lima said.

“However,” she continued, “the dissenting Justices Pizarro and Acosta do make a very compelling point about reviewing the jurisprudential development of 'curative informations' and re-examining our obeisance to the doctrine established by Ilagan vs Enrile, which is a martial law-era decision.”

The majority opinion of the March 9 decision practically institutionalized the use of shortcuts in effecting arrests and could legitimately lead to a flood of “curative informations” that could be used to justify the apprehension and detention of anyone, some legal experts said.

The dissenting opinions admit the jurisprudential history of “curative informations,” but stress that the illegality of searches, arrests and inquests should not ripen into valid pieces of criminal information.

Dissenting magistrates hewed closely to the constitutional duty of any court to strike down illegal searches and arrests, in keeping with the Bill of Rights and all international covenants on civil and political rights.

Militant lawyers stressed that illegal searches could not be cured by fabricated information filed in court since it is giving blanket authority to any government to abuse the use of the remedy to justify illegal acts and all other methods proscribed under international treaties.

The duty to protect rights is incongruent with the notion that precedent illegality can be corrected by criminal information, founded precisely on the illegal precedents, and thus, is equally illegal, the dissenters noted.

“While it is true that courts must adhere to judicial precedents, especially for the purpose of maintaining uniformity of rulings, the same courts are capable of overturning themselves if the current circumstances dictate a change,” De Lima said.

“Does our appreciation of human rights today differ significantly from our appreciation of the same back in 1985, the time of the Ilagan vs Enrile case? I should hope so. But does it now require change in jurisprudence? At the very least, I believe it deserves more than a scant re-examination, and the CHR joins the public clamor for this re-examination of this still-prevalent practice of filing curative informations.

We had seen this before, in the suspicious campaign to hold militants in detention, to languish in jail,” the CHR chief argued.

“The most important point of deviation between the majority opinion and the dissent,” De Lima continued, “is whether the court should look past the 'curative informations.' To thoroughly examine all the conditions behind the detention of a person is within the prerogative of a court hearing a habeas corpus petition,” De Lima explained.