SC tells DOJ, DILG to answer petition vs IRR on good conduct law
The Supreme Court (SC) has required the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to answer the petition that challenged the constitutionality of the new implementing rules and regulations (IRR) on the expanded Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) Law under Republic Act (RA) No. 10592.
In an interview Thursday (October 3) after his speech during the National Summit on the Dangerous Drugs Law at the Manila Hotel, Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin said the DOJ and the DILG were given 10 days to file their comment through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG).
Bersamin said: “Rule making is internal to the DOJ and we (the SC) do not interfere. But now if the guidelines were already issued and there is a case filed, we have to require the other party, that is the government, to comment through the solicitor general.”
The petition against the new IRR on GCTA was filed by several persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) at the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa City.
The PDLs told the SC their petition is in behalf of other prisoners who are similarly situated and would be disadvantaged with the implementation of the new IRR by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).
Specifically, the PDLs – through lawyer Rolito Abing – asked the SC to stop the BuCor and the BJMP from retroactively applying the exclusions introduced under Section 1 and Section 3 of RA 10592.
They sought the nullification of provisions in the new IRR which exclude recidivists, habitual delinquents, escapees and those charged with heinous crimes from benefitting from the expanded GCTA, Time Allowance for Studying, Teaching and Mentoring (TASTM) and Special Time Allowance for Loyalty (STAL).
The new IRR – crafted by a joint committee of the DOJ and the DILG – also states that heinous crime convicts, who were convicted after the law became effective in 2013, shall not be entitled to any type of GCTA.
The petitioners said that Section 1 of RA 10592, amending Article 29 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), and Section 3, thereof, amending Article 97 of the RPC, cannot be applied retroactively due to prohibition against ex post facto law.
“The retroactive application of disadvantageous provisions of RA 10592 would work to the prejudice of petitioners and those who are similarly situated. The same would preclude the decrease in the penalty attached to their respective crimes and lengthens their prior stay,” they said.
An ex post facto law is unconstitutional because “it retroactively criminalizes an act or changes the rules of evidence to easily convict an offender.”
The petitioners told the SC that under RA 10592 any and all convicted prisoners are entitled to GCTA, TASTM and STAL, thus, the IRR of the expanded GCTA went beyond what is provided under the law.
They said the exclusion of disqualified convicts from any GCTA constitute a violation of their right to equal protection of the law.
They added that “the deprivation of application of greater GCTA and consequent prolongation of imprisonment of herein, petitioners and those similarly situated constitute violation of their substantive rights.”
Thus, they asked the SC to compel the BuCor and the BJMP “to re-compute with reasonable dispatch the time allowances due the petitioners and all those who are similarly situated and, thereafter, to cause their immediate release from imprisonment in case of full service of sentence, unless they are being confined for some other lawful cause.”