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Justice Secretary Leila de Lima clearly has something to tell human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin Clooney: that the continued detention of ex-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is part of the Philippine judicial process.
An Inquirer.net report written by Tetch Torres-Tupas, quotes de Lima as saying, “We are presuming that lawyer Amal Alamuddin-Clooney is knowledgeable of the workings of the Philippine criminal justice system because it is patterned after the American system, which must be familiar to her. She must also therefore know that in such a system, the Executive is not the branch of government that issues commitment or detention orders of those accused of committing a crime.”
According to earlier reports, Alamuddin Clooney wanted to bring GMA’s case up to the UN because according to Mrs. Clooney, the Philippine government has violated several provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Apart from calling Alamuddin Clooney’s act as a “flamboyant gesture,” de Lima also clarified that “under international human rights standards, ‘a commitment or detention order issued against an accused in accordance with a State’s independent judicial processes is recognized as a valid cause for restraining one’s liberty.’”
“’Rep. Arroyo’s predicament are neither made grander nor more dramatic merely because they are raised by a celebrity lawyer before an international forum. The flamboyant gesture only reflects the paucity of her cries of political persecution,'” the report quotes de Lima as saying.
Photo: Amal Alamuddin/Unicef UK/Wiki
