Senate Mintority Leader Aquilinio Pimentel has expressed his dismay with the continued detention of his colleague Senator Antonio Trillanes IV. Voted into office back in 2007, Senator Trillanes has served half of his six year term in detention, without seemingly the prospect of finding a conclusion to his detention.
Pimentel said the l50-nation Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), of which the Philippines is a member, is concerned by the detention of Senator Trillanes.
Senator Pimentel continued to echo that the will of 11 million voters have been negated, and the right to a speedy trial also derailed.
“As Chairman of the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians, I raise this issue to the agencies of the government that have the power under the law to provide a remedy to the problem posed by the continued detention of the accused senator,” he said.
As a member of the Senate, Pimentel said he had introduced two resolutions that were approved by the Chamber that would allow Trillanes to attend the Senate sessions and committee hearings.
The first resolution asked the authorities to allow Trillanes to attend Senate sessions and committee hearings even under heavy guard and the second resolution asked the authorities to allow Sen. Trillanes to participate in Senate proceedings through electronic means, for example, via teleconferencing.
In support of these resolutions, Pimentel cited the fact that in a number of countries, the members of the legislature or parliaments detained under law before conviction are or may be allowed to attend legislative or parliamentary sessions.
He said examples of these countries are:
1. Japan where the Diet (parliament) may authorize the member detained to attend its sessions.
2. Canada where the detained parliamentarians may be allowed by judicial authorities to do so.
3. Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Turkey where competent authorities like the National Council may authorize detained legislators to attend sessions of their respective parliaments.
4. In other countries like Pakistan and Cameroon, the procedure is more simple. A request of the National Assembly suffices to enable detained legislators to attend sessions of their legislatures.
Even with the possible safegaurds in place, and possible teleconferencing, Senator Trillanes has yet to be allowed to attend Senate Sessions.
Pimentel reiterated his suggestion that the authorities concerned should take heed of the concerns expressed by the 150-nation IPU on the prolonged detention of Sen. Trillanes and on the constitutional implications of that detention.
“It does sound unfair, if not unconstitutional, to have a duly-elected member of the Senate or any person for that matter subjected to detention for more than six years as the senator has been restricted of his liberty and prevented from doing his duties as a legislator without any speedy relief in sight,” the minority leader said.
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