Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno has expressed concerns over attacks against human rights lawyers.
“It has been noted that public interest lawyers, especially defenders of human rights, have been under increasing attack,” she said in her speech at the 16th National Convention of Lawyers of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Friday night.
She noted that since 2015 there have been three lawyers killed, apart from the 83 who were slain from 1999 to 2014.
“As a result of assassinations of lawyers and their clients, individual members of the bar and even an IBP chapter have made the step of publicly articulating their fears to the extent that the IBP chapter indicated its desistance in defending certain types of clients,” she lamented.
In spite of this, the Chief Justice called on lawyers to remain brave in the face of adversities.
“To preserve the rule of law, lawyers must steel themselves, to a certain degree, develop a level of indifference to the ambient noise, and discharge their duties to the best of their abilities as their conscience dictates,” she stated.
“Good lawyers must swim against whatever tide meets them,” Sereno stressed.
She explained that “an environment of fear and violence is anathematic to the rule of law and contributes to impunity.”
The chief magistrate warned “impunity sows seeds of hopelessness and if we are not careful, those seeds will take root and bear fruit,” she warned.
“When judges and lawyers hesitate to do the right thing for fear of being derogated for the company they keep or when they respond to vilification, threats, and actual violence with surrender and capitulation, the rule of law is shoved out and impunity steps in,” she said. (Jeffrey Damicog)