Due Process in Everyday Life

“The closed mind has no place in the open society.”
- Cruz, J., Ynot v. Intermediate Appellate Court, 148 SCRA 659

We have just about finished discussing the due process clause of the Philippine Constitution in our Constitutional Law II class. Considering that there is only one provision in the 1987 Constitution, it’s quite interesting to note that this obscure term encompasses quite a broad field of topics. Heck, in our class syllabus, it’s the section that covers the most areas (and paper space, almost two full pages devoted entirely to it). Anyway, going back to the provision, it states that, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws” (Art. III, Sec. 1 of the 1987 Constitution). In essence, it says that no person can be hanged without trial. Doesn’t sound vague, doesn’t it? However, you would be really surprised just how many cases have due process as its main issue, and how many others having it on the side (with mashed potatoes and gravy, if you please). A huge source of the problem is that sometimes, it really is quite hard to decide between the interests of a single person versus the interest of the State, or, as they claim, the greater good. Both are equally weighty, but since there are supposedly more people on the latter side, the scales usually tilt in their favor.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this, whether an individual right can always be sacrificed for the greater good. That’s the whole idea of the social contract theories. Even if it divides into various directions, it generally states the same thing: that each individual has to surrender a bit of personal freedom for the society. Salus populi est suprema lex and sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas. The subordination of individual interest to the benefit of the greater number. While everyone else will greatly advantage the larger group, what about that other person? Is it right to deprive a person of what is due him just so others can benefit at his expense? I’m not here to be an activist for selfishness, but doesn’t that person have an inherent right, too, the same as everyone else’s? Think about it this way: if a ship filled with people gets marooned in some far-flung island, would it be right to murder one of their number (which would probably escalate as time passes) to serve as food for the others? When you get down to it, that’s still murder, no matter how many stomachs that poor person filled. I suppose it wouldn’t matter if that person gave that right willingly, but what if it was forcibly taken from his hands?

On the flip side, wouldn’t that person be so incredibly self-centered that he would go about brandishing his rights about, while knowing that everyone else is suffering? In the social contract theory, the individuals surrender a chunk of their rights to enjoy something greater: peace and harmony in the society. That’s why criminals and felons are punished, because they stand to threaten something that a large number of people have subscribed to, and not without their expense. Can a person just flaunt that he is enjoying something, knowing all the while that he is directly running over other people’s interests? Can an individual continually assume that his rights are always ascendant over other persons, to the extent that that would be the only thing he would be pursuing, and disregarding whether he breached others’ rights? Would it be right for a person to take justice in his own hands and be a crusader for what he believes in, to the extent that he is practically shoving down his beliefs, which might not possibly be completely right, down everyone else’s throats?

If due process were to be strictly enforced in society, we all would have broken it, and possibly in every day of our lives. We automatically judge something or someone without even giving it/them the benefit of doubt, assuming that our perceptions are right just because. But the thing is, what we see might not necessarily be what is real, what is true. We believe in what we want to believe, and when it gets disproved, our world would feel as though it collapsed. I think it’s the pride in us that’s talking a lot of times. It’s one of those brash things about humanity that just makes us disgusted with ourselves, but does not prevent us from doing it anyway. We choose to go with people when their opinions are relatively the same as others. However, if we see something wrong in that, we see them in a negative light that has the danger of being a stigma which cannot be removed easily. Alternatively, a society accepts those that follow its own traditions and beliefs, but if an individual acts contrary to that general construct that that circle is following, he becomes in danger of being treated as a pariah. In short, we hang people (at least in our heads) just because their thoughts do not always coincide with our beliefs. In plain speaking, “bad shot na siya sa iyo.” We tend to forget that we are called individuals precisely because we are individuals, that is, we really are quite different from each other. We can’t expect others to feel the same way that we do, to think the same way we do, to act the same way we do. Each person will always be different. There might be some things that a couple of people have in similarity, but most probably, there is a greater difference between them. I think that’s what makes people interesting, don’t you think? If people were like you in every possible way, wouldn’t that be incredibly boring? I mean, it would be as good as talking to yourself – hold on, it would really be talking to yourself. But seriously, everyone’s different because everyone’s special in that way. Whether a person belongs to a group, or goes by himself, God loves them just the way they are. That’s where my musing started. Which would He prefer, the individual right, or the greater number? Personally, I don’t think He’d choose sides. He wouldn’t choose the group to be the party that he would love just because they’re many-er (fine, more in number). On the other hand, He wouldn’t really choose a single person with prejudice against the group just because that person is alone. First of all, thinking about one’s self is just contrary to what He teaches. As Marley said in her recent entry, we’re called to be losers for Christ. It’s not about who is superior or inferior, as the brothers James and John found out in Mt 10:35-45. In the end, He loves all of us, and for me, that’s all that matters.