Reforms in case build-ups to ensure strong criminal prosecution will have to veer away from the mindset of merely establishing "probable cause."
"There's a higher standard of evidence that we are putting up, and not just probable cause," Secretary Jesus Crispin "Boying" Remulla of the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
In an interview with Daily Tribune's digital program Straight Talk," Remulla said the DoJ is working on reforms on case build-ups where the standard followed in criminal prosecutions will not just be probable cause.
Probable cause, as defined by the Supreme Court in Ang-Abaya v. Ang, refers to "such facts as are sufficient to engender a well-founded belief that a crime has been committed and the respondent is probably guilty of."
Remulla noted that probable cause has been overused for the sake of compliance by law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to rack up empty "accomplishments."
The DoJ chief seemed to be referring to the police mindset that cases are already considered "solved" or "closed" once charges had been lodged before prosecutors or the courts.
"Probable cause has been abused by many people who just wish to, again, fill up their quotas for their accomplishments. We have to stop making quotas as the be-all and end-all of law enforcement," he said.
He also lamented the low prosecution rate of drug cases because of the existing practice of respondents opting for plea bargaining — a process whereby the accused and the prosecution work out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case subject to court approval.
It usually involves the defendant pleading guilty to a lesser offense or to only one or some of the counts of a multi-count indictment in return for a lighter sentence than that for the graver charge.
"Plea bargaining is a wrong reason or not really a good way to run it (prosecution of cases)," he said, adding it already has become a routinary compromise between the defense and prosecution because jails and courts are already clogged.
