Justice in jail

OUR democratic system of government, for all its flaws and frailties, remains unarguably creditable with it’s, among other things, principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ for treating suspects in any crime.

This is inextricably tied to true justice.

The presumption of innocence, a basic human right that is included in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights as well as in its International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, guarantees our privilege to due process.

But that is where it gets tricky. Getting due process here has for a long time now meant going through an expensive legal process before a shorthanded judicial system. And for many a suspect, that means languishing in detention while awaiting his or her case resolution. Then the situation gets even more precarious.

The situation has long been taken for granted, in fact, too long, that it had to take the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to bring the issue in sharper focus. The mobile court recently deployed to Manila did not only find itself frantically declogging the courts but discovered the increasing number of inmates who have long been detained without the benefit of a single court hearing. These are the inmates who unduly contribute to the congestion in jails all over the country.

So, like majority of the prison facilities around the country, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Dagupan City is bursting at the seams with a current population of 357 inmates packed in a structure designed to hold a maximum of 100.

No wonder Jail Supt. Edgar Bolcio is disquieted. And we echo his very valid concern.

Something needs to be – could be – done here.

The hiring of more government lawyers who can provide free legal assistance to suspects as well as the creation of more courts to handle cases would take a while but authorities could very well begin initiating this now. Because if not now, when? The more doable actions at this point would at the very least be moving the 15 inmates due for transfer to the Bilibid Prison in Manila and constructing additional structures to give the prisoners even just a little bit more breathing and personal space. The funding problem surely would not require moving mountains to resolve.

It is bad enough that ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’. Spending the delay time in appalling penitentiary conditions makes our government guilty of violating basic human decency.

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