consti 2:2 was also in the 1935 consti but the provision is not nuremberg principle specific.

disabuse your mind about it and look at our model as a plain prosecution of AFP personnel for not shooting the Mindanao “invaders” because they were ordered by the Commander-In-Chief not to shoot and the order was unconstitutional. The most that they can be charged with is “derelection of duties”. A purely administrative proceedings where the penalty is dismissal from service.

Look at the other model again where AFP personnel were ordered to shoot innocent people knowing full well that the order was unlawful and they shot people. They can be charged with murder for this act. You do not have to invoke the nuremberg principle or consti 2:2. This is a simple case of homicide or murder and they are defined and penalized by the revised penal code.

When you used the dedactive reasoning that if a=b then b=a. If you apply the equation to our models you will notice that “a” is not really equal to “b” and therefore “b” will not be equal to “a”. It was only you who consider that inasmuch as both “a” and “b” were unlawful or unconstitutional, then one is but the representation of the other.

here is your confusion of the nuremberg:

“as to your 9:01, even if the political reality does demonstrate the SC not having administrative tools to enforce its decisions (being dependent on the executive for its muscle) the SC’s decision in this theoretical case will give rise to a cause for the AFP to disobey their commander in chief, the order not to repulse the invader being unconstitutional, morally untenable, or both (via nuremberg principle iv).”

You already assumed that the soldiers will repel the invaders despite the order of the CIF not to repel, then you support your position that this was by virtue of the nuremberg principle. Actually you were applying the principle in “reverse”.

The nuremberg principle is a concept that if the order given to the soldier to kill is unlawful, the perpetrator cannot raise the defense that he was just following the unlawful order of his commander.

when i said in one of my posts that “lawyering should be left to lawyers” it was for the reason that laymen see legal points from laymen’s point of view but there position is not necessarily incorrect or incoherent, only that some nuances can escape their untrained eyes.

here’s why the philippines is bound to the nuremberg principles:

consti 2:2 (hehe) is Article II, section 2 of the 1987 constitution says, “The Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy, adopts the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the land and adheres to the policy of peace, equality, justice, freedom, cooperation, and amity with all nations. (emphasis mine)

as to your 12:50 and 12:56, they seem to be non-sequiturs to my answers to your 12:58 and 1:08 comments in response to my 8:32. to finally put a tack on that, the statement “if a = b, therefore not a = not b” is simple deductive logic used in law and jurisprudence. do correct me if i am wrong in saying that deductive logic is not something used in the practice of law.

i don’t know your consti: 2.2. but if a soldier kills because of an unlawful order, the court need not delve on consti principle. it will just dispose of it under the criminal code as the unlawful killing of a person without justification. the unlawful order is not a ground to kill unless a gun is put on his head to kill another, in which case he was under duress, but even then such would only serve as a mitigating circumstance but not an exempting circumstance.

how i wish political and criminal law are as simple as a math equation.

in our model one act resulted in killing of some people in the other it did not result in the death of people but though both acts are unconstitutional.

the first calls for the application of one’s sense of moral right (kill because it was ordered) and the latter calls for an iquiry on the soldier’s mind in refusing to kill because the Commander-In-Chief did not give the order to kill.

put in the hands of people who will act as jurors, the soldier in the first model has a lesser chance of getting acquittal while symphaty on the soldier of the second model could be overflowing.

the inquiry on the conduct of man before a court of justice rest not on unbending rules of science as math, but on the bias or fiddleness of human conduct.

re your 1:08 — will you not agree that if a equals b, not a equals not b?

i think it is quite different. the nuremberg principle that the soldier cannot raise the defense of “just following order” that is why he killed people is totally different from a soldier who did not shoot people because he was ordered by his commander-in-chief not to shoot people.

we do not intend to prosecute the AFP in the international court but in our local court. do you think that the nuremberg principle has any bearing on this?

One thing I found odd at this concept of constitutional triumvirate is the idea that where Congress and the Executive transgress the Constitution the people can go to the Judiciary and ask that it be declared void. But where the Judiciary perverts the Constitution we call it the law of the land and the people can go nowhere for its transgressions. Where the two branches which are supposed to be co-equal of the Judiciary are rebuked on this instance the people can boot them out of office comes election time. Meantime the jurists who perverted the Constitution still hold party all year round secured in the thought that they are life-tenured and can dish out their most atrocious constitutional enthusiasms free from censure from the other branches and from the people who is supposed to hold the sovereign power over these distinguished jurists.

as to your post on 11:38, is not the nuremberg trial about foreign military leaders who ordered the massacre of occupied people? we are talking here of our own people who happened to have different faith from us. the AFP may justify its position not to assault them in the light of this particular circumstance.