POSITION PAPER IN BEHALF OF THEÂ CATHOLIC BISHOPS CONFERENCE OF THE PHILIPPINES
ON LOWERING THE AGE OF CRIMINAL LIABILITY
The present provision of Republic Act No. 9344 reads:
SEC. 6. Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility. – A child fifteen (15) years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall be exempt from criminal liability. However, the child shall be subjected to an intervention program pursuant to Section 20 of this Act.
A child above fifteen (15) years but below eighteen (18) years of age shall likewise be exempt from criminal liability and be subjected to an intervention program, unless he/she has acted with discernment, in which case, such child shall be subjected to the appropriate proceedings in accordance with this Act.
The exemption from criminal liability herein established does not include exemption from civil liability, which shall be enforced in accordance with existing laws.
But because it has been frequently complained that criminals and criminal syndicates use children old enough to be able to accomplish criminal assignments efficiently but below the threshold of criminal responsibility, they get away with crime and can perpetrate crime. There is therefore the proposal to lower the age of criminal responsibility.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines strenuously objects to the proposal and maintains that the present threshold of criminal responsibility is correct and is consistent not only with international law but also with the Church’s teaching on the welfare of children.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which the Philippines is a state-party, provides:
Article 37
States Parties shall ensure that:
(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age;
(b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time;
(c) Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so and shall have the right to maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits, save in exceptional circumstances;
(d) Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority, and to a prompt decision on any such action.
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child requires:
Article 17: Every child accused or found guilty of having broken the law should receive special treatment, and no child who is imprisoned or should be tortured or otherwise mistreated.
And the Charter defines a child as a human being below eighteen years of age.
In an essential Annex to the 1985 UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, one reads:
4. Age of criminal responsibility
4.1 In those legal systems recognizing the concept of the age of criminal responsibility for juveniles, the beginning of that age shall not be fixed at too low an age level, bearing in mind the facts of emotional, mental and intellectual maturity.
Commentary
The minimum age of criminal responsibility differs widely owing to history and culture. The modern approach would be to consider whether a child can live up to the moral and psychological components of criminal responsibility; that is, whether a child, by virtue of her or his individual discernment and understanding, can be held responsible for essentially anti-social behaviour. If the age of criminal responsibility is fixed too low or if there is no lower age limit at all, the notion of responsibility would become meaningless. In general, there is a close relationship between the notion of responsibility for delinquent or criminal behaviour and other social
rights and responsibilities (such as marital status, civil majority, etc.).
Efforts should therefore be made to agree on a reasonable lowest age limit that is applicable internationally.
The Salutary Purpose of Present Provisions of Law
One principle stands out very clearly under existing Philippine legislation: No to burden a person with the faults of one’s childhood and not to prejudice the future by the offenses of one’s minority.
There can be no doubt that this is an important principle fully consonant with present-day understanding of human rights and a scientific understanding of the psycho-emotional development of the human person.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:
2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery – the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the “material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.”31 Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:
He who loves his son will not spare the rod. . . . He who disciplines his son will profit by him.32
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.33
2224 The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies.
If the Church thus enshrines the home as the haven of protection, nurture and formation, it cannot, at the same time, consent to snatching children from the home, under the pretext of criminal process, to be incarcerated, detained or confined to some facility, in many ways resembling if not identical to prison!
Proposals:
Rather than lowering the age of criminal responsibility, the CBCP proposes the following:
- Providing the use of children in the commission and perpetration of crime, in whatever manner, shall constitute an aggravating circumstance resulting in an increase in penalty for the adult perpetrator;
- Involving Church social action desks and community service units in the diversion programs on the barangay, police, prosecution and judicial levels of the administration of Juvenile Justice;
- Imposing criminal liability on the parents of children who are conscripted by criminal syndicates or individual offenders when it is proved that the parents of such children were remiss in their duties of vigilance and care.
Approved by:
+ SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS
Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan
President, CBCP
26 November 2016
