A/HRC/44/22 Philippines is obliged to establish rules and procedures for mandatory reporting, review, and investigation of lethal and other life-threatening incidents by law enforcement personnel. Where there are allegations that it knows or should have known of potentially unlawful deprivations of life, it has the duty to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute perpetrators.39 29. Relatives – mostly female – of victims, as well as lawyers and journalists interviewed by OHCHR, cited numerous obstacles in documenting cases and pursuing justice. These included surveillance, harassment, threats, intimidation, lack of education, lack of protection of witnesses and victims, a feeling of powerlessness in the face of official statements encouraging killings, unwillingness by law enforcement agencies to investigate, and reluctance by judges to critically examine drug-related cases.40 Families interviewed by the country’s Commission on Human Rights also expressed fears over the safety of relatives, stigma, limited financial resources, and pressing basic needs of household members – especially children – as reasons not to pursue legal action.41 Public assurances by the President to protect police officers even if they killed 1,000 people while on duty42 have deterred victims from pursuing justice, and law enforcement agencies from investigating killings. 30. Submissions received by OHCHR also suggest widespread impunity for drugrelated killings committed by unidentified persons and describe the disturbing familiarity of masked perpetrators with locations and victims, suggesting their possible collusion with police and local government officials in some cases. 3. Deprivation of liberty 31. International law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention. Arrest or detention is arbitrary if it is unlawful or where there are sufficient elements of inappropriateness, injustice, lack of predictability and insufficient due process. Arbitrariness must also be assessed in the light of necessity, proportionality and reasonableness.43 32. Government figures indicate that 223,780 “drug personalities” were arrested from 1 July 2016 to 31 December 2019. 44 The Government stated that 204,721 of those individuals were charged in criminal cases. It remains unclear how many charges related to trade in drugs as opposed to personal drug use, and how many persons were convicted, released, or remain in pretrial detention. The lack of clarity, coupled with due process irregularities, raises concerns that many cases may amount to arbitrary detention. 33. The high number of arrests strain the judiciary and prisons. With low court disposition rates, 45 and delays in the administration of justice, detainees have been languishing in often protracted pretrial detention. In 2016, the Committee against Torture noted that pretrial detainees accounted for 85 to 90 per cent of the detained population, mostly due to strict application of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.46 The Government is implementing measures to enhance efficiency in the administration of justice, including through projects with international partners. 34. In February 2020, the prison congestion rate stood at 534 per cent,47 and remains among the highest in the world. The congestion has worsened with the increase in drugrelated cases, lack of judicial capacity for timely processing of criminal cases, and poverty precluding many detainees from posting bail. A government audit in 2018 assessed that this 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 See Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 36 (2018), paras. 13 and 27–29. See also the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death. OHCHR interviews, 24 and 26–27 February and 4 March 2020. Panaghoy, p. 39. See www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/07/02/1598740/duterte-pnp-kill-1000-ill-protect-you. See Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 35 (2014) on liberty and security of person, paras. 10–12. Co-Chairperson’s Report, p. 11. Judiciary annual reports, 2017 and 2018. CAT/C/PHL/CO/3, para. 13. Government submission, 1 May 2020. 7