SC denies Laude plea to intervene in EDCA cases

(Updated 12:57 p.m.) The Supreme Court has denied a bid from the family of slain transgender woman Jeffrey "Jennifer" Laude to intervene in the pending cases against the controversial Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the Philippines and the US.

 

“We deny the Motion to Admit the Attached Petition-In-Intervention for lack of merit and strike out the Petition-In-Intervention and all its annexes from the record," said the high court in an en banc ruling on Tuesday.

 

The SC said the Laude family"s intervention plea discusses in detail a matter that is pending before a prosecutor's office and is "inherently a criminal proceeding and is not related to the constitutionality of the EDCA."

 

The petition tackles issues that are evidentiary and factual in nature, and ruling on it might pre-empt the ongoing preliminary imvestigation, the SC said.

 

"Discussing the sensitive nature (i.e., arguments and evidence) of a pending criminal invgstigation is misplaced in the oral arguments concerning the constitutionality of the EDCA and must thus be disallowed during the oral arguments, so as not to pre-judge and affect the pending criminal proceedings in the Laude case," said the SC Public Information in a summary sent to media.

 

The SC also ordered that the petiton and its annexes be stricken out from the records. "They pertain to sensitive evidence, which as of now is apparently unrelated to the questions concerning the constitutionality of EDCA," said the SC.