Ineffective investigations and a climate of impunity
Prosecution and punishment break the cycle of crime and impunity. It protects the public from the culprits repeating their crimes and it helps to deter others from committing similar crimes by raising the real threat that they too, may be caught and punished.
Failure to investigate political killings effectively and to prosecute the perpetrators risks perpetuating a cycle of human rights violations, not least by sending a message of de facto state tolerance for such practices. If military or other officials, or others linked to them, believe that they are, in practice, immune from prosecution for such crimes they will be more likely to repeat them. Such a climate of impunity undermines public confidence in the administration of justice, eroding the rule of law and respect for human rights.
In the Philippines while the authorities routinely launch police investigations into political and other killings, and in May 2006 established a special unit – Task Force Usig – to better coordinate investigations into political killings at a national level, Amnesty International is concerned at persistent reports that the majority of investigations do not meet international standards as set forth in the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, as supplemented by UN Manual Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions. Amnesty International is further concerned that these investigations have reportedly not led to the conviction of any of the perpetrators of the hundreds of killings of leftist activists since 2001.
An international fact-finding mission of lawyers and judges, who visited the Philippines in June 2006 in response to reported extrajudicial executions of members of the legal profession within the context of a pattern of political killings, found that in the cases of 15 lawyers and ten judges killed since 2001 none of the perpetrators have been convicted. The Secretary of the Interior and Local Government, responsible for the police, also informed the mission that Task Force Usig had recorded a total of 114 party-list members killed since 2001. Out of this total, 27 cases had been filed in court and the remaining 86 are still under investigation. Out of the 27 cases filed in court, the PNP has arrested suspects in only three cases. No convictions have been reported.
Difficulty in investigating?
In explaining the difficulties in investigating such cases, senior police officers described how forensic capability and technology was not yet sufficiently developed, so that it cannot stand alone as evidence in the absence of eye-witnesses. In May 2006, a police director working with Task Force Usig had also acknowledged that the refusal of witnesses to come forward is a major obstacle in PNP efforts to investigate and to collect evidence sufficient to support the filing of criminal charges. The police also blamed witnesses for their unwillingness to cooperate, stating that it “unnecessarily” caused undue delays in the prosecution of such cases. While acknowledging that witnesses are fearful of reprisals, one officer suggested this was due not to government institutions, but to a “general fear” of revenge by the NPA. However the lawyers and families of the victims questioned by the international fact-finding mission confirmed that they mistrusted and feared the police and that in one case, the witnesses to a killing had told the victims family that they had been instructed to sign a statement different from they one they had given police.
Families of the victims have repeatedly complained of protracted and inconclusive police investigations which are reported to be indefinitely “stalled” due to an “absence of leads”, or to have been “solved” if the investigating officers have filed an initial police investigation report with the prosecutor which subsequently may not lead to the prosecutor filing charges and applying for a warrant of arrest. In conjunction with lack of confidence in the impartiality of the police, fear of reprisals and a lack of an effective witness protection program, most investigations remain ineffective and fail to lead to the identification, arrest, trial and conviction of the perpetrators.
Based on the requirement of Principle 9 of the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions which states that “there shall be thorough, prompt and impartial investigations”, Amnesty International believes that urgent steps are needed to ensure investigations are indeed effective. In order to exercise due diligence in the protection of the right to life and to combat the current pattern of political killings, police and other investigative units must be independent and impartial, be adequately resourced and have the necessary criminal detection, forensic and other investigative skills.
Ineffective investigations, which fail to lead to prosecutions and convictions, have played a role in sustaining a broader climate of impunity that has been allowed to persist since the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos (1965-1986). The vast majority of soldiers, paramilitaries and police responsible for endemic human rights violations during the Marcos years have never been prosecuted and most of their victims have received neither justice nor redress. Although President Marcos successor, President Corazon Aquino (1986-1992), promulgated a new Constitution, restored democratic institutions and instituted mechanisms for the protection of human rights, an entrenched public belief that a climate of impunity protected security forces personnel responsible for past and continuing patterns of grave human violations remained intact. President Aquinos administration, attempting to manage a political transition from the former martial law regime and facing direct challenges from repeated coup attempts by right-wing military rebels, considered it necessary to maintain the support of loyal military leaders. To this end there was no government pressure for systematic investigation and prosecution of security personnel accused of perpetrating human violations under martial law and in the context of past and renewed counter-insurgency operations.
Extrajudicial Killings
