The controversy over the Cybercrime Prevention Act will serve as the
first test for the Supreme Court (SC) under Chief Justice Maria Lourdes
Sereno, lawyers said Tuesday.
Lawyer Argee Guevarra of
the Philippine Internet Freedom Alliance said the petitions filed
before the high court questioning the constitutionality of Republic Act
(RA) 10175 will gauge how much the SC justices can appreciate modern
forms of communication.
“It requires a lot of
comprehension of how these technologies work to be able to come up with
an intelligent decision on these petitions. I doubt if our justices even
have Facebook or Twitter accounts,” Guevarra said in a phone interview.
He
added that senior justices may have to seek the help of some “friends
of the court” to be able to have sufficient grasp of the Internet, which
is at the center of the controversy involving the Anti-Cybercrime Law.
“Siguro
dapat silang maghanap ng younger lawyers who have the expertise on
e-commerce to help them understand the intricacies of this technology,”
the lawyer said.
Guevarra further said that Sereno—the
youngest SC chief justice to be appointed in this century—will
definitely play a key role in the deliberations on the constitutionality
of RA 10175.
“She [Sereno] can identify well with
these new technologies because of her youth. More senior justices,
however, may have traditional views on these new forms of media. The
chief justice should be able to help bridge this generation gap,” he
said.
The SC failed on Tuesday to issue a temporary restraining order
on the implementation of RA 10175 despite seven petitions already filed
before the high court questioning the law’s constitutionality.
Because
of this, the Cybercrime Prevention Act—which gives the government the
authority to access and block certain computer data—took effect on
Wednesday amid a slew of protests against it.
‘No need to be tech-savvy’
Lawyer
Theodore Te, who teaches criminal law at the University of the
Philippines, meanwhile said that the SC justices do not necessarily have
to be tech-savvy to be able to rule correctly on the petitions against
RA 10175.
“They [the justices] just have to be aware
that this totally new platform exists, and to determine if online
expression should be governed by the same constitutional guarantees that
govern traditional forms of expression,” he said in a separate
interview.
He however agreed that questions on the
constitutionality of the Cybercrime Prevention Act will be the “first
important test” of Sereno’s leadership of the high court.
“She
[Sereno] is leader of the court. I would expect that she would set the
direction on how the court will rule on this,” he said.
On
Saturday, constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ, also said in a blog
post, that the SC’s decision on petitions against the anti-cybercrime
law “should tell us more about the mind of the new chief justice.”
Bernas
also described the new law as “frightening” due to threat it poses on
freedom of expression and on the privacy of communication.
A test of independence
Guevarra, for his part, also considers the controversy surrounding RA 10175 as a test of Sereno’s independence.
“The
vote of the chief justice will be indicative of her mindset, whether
she is progressive or will she just toe the administration’s line,” he
said.
“Would the chief justice interpret the law based
on jurisprudence or just agree with Malacañang’s pronouncements that
this law is good for us?” he added.
Sereno, who was appointed by President Benigno Aquino III as the first woman chief justice last August, has repeatedly vowed to be independent throughout her 18-year term.
The chief justice had also promised
to make the SC more technologically savvy, saying the Philippines’
young population is no longer shaped by school, family, and traditional
media, but by the "insistent and intrusive influence of social media.” — DVM, GMA News
source: gmanetwork.com
