It’s not about lawyers either

THANKS TO the media, any incident including the pettiest crimes can become high profile subjects of debate and discussion. Since the mauling of comedian and TV host Vhong Navarro last January, media, particularly television audiences, have been deluged with reports on practically all aspects and angles of the incident and the consequent legal cases, including on-camera interviews with Navarro, his alleged tormentors, as well as their respective lawyers. The result has been to transform an incident of little relevance to much of the public into a subject overshadowing even the most pressing citizen concerns: the media focus on the Navarro incident is illustrative of the media’s power to set the agenda of public discourse.

Media reports and interviews with the protagonists in legal cases before the courts function in aid of harnessing public opinion for or against either side. Almost inevitably do these have a bearing on how such cases will be decided. Media interviews with the lawyers are especially crucial: because the outcome of such cases as that of Navarro’s complaint against his alleged attackers would presumably be decided on the legal merits, the lawyers’ arguments aired over the media, particularly television, can and do often constitute pre-trial hearings that can influence how the actual trial will proceed as well as its outcome. What looks like a simple interview with individuals involved in legal cases is too often also a form of virtual litigation via the media.

The Philippines has no jury system, in which insulating jurors from external including media influence is crucial. Judges who, like everyone else, can be influenced by what they see and hear over the media, instead decide the guilt or innocence of those on trial. When lawyers are interviewed over the media, and their legal arguments for or against their clients solicited by media interviewers, there is at least the possibility that what they say will resonate among their fellow lawyers, including the judges.

The injunction against trial by publicity as a factor in the possible miscarriage of justice is thus even more relevant as far as lawyers are concerned. But the lawyers involved in those cases the media have made into high profile subjects of public discourse are nevertheless regularly interviewed, and their opinions on questions of guilt and innocence solicited despite their obvious bias for their clients and against the latter’s adversaries.

The media focus on the Vhong Navarro incident has followed the same media template, in which the principal antagonists are interviewed, the details of the incident reported, and the lawyers interviewed. But on February 17 the resignation of businessman Cedric Lee’s lawyer and spokesman, Raymond Fortun, occupied significant portions of  the TV networks’ news programs, in the course of which Fortun presented himself as an advocate of the right to a fair trial and due process—but urged the Supreme Court to  resolve the issues of constitutionality that have prevented the implementation of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (Republic Act 10175), in favor, Fortun’s statement implied, of declaring it constitutional.

Fortun’s employment as spokesman of Cedric Lee, the businessman accused of beating Navarro, was clearly in recognition of the necessity to orchestrate the Lee group’s media statements towards preventing its members from saying anything that may be used against them in court. As Lee’s spokesman, Fortun could control public opinion and direct it towards a favorable judgment for his client by serving as the group gate-keeper.

Although he did mention his “failure” to do so among the reasons for his resignation, Fortun also cited in his interview over TV network ABS-CBN attacks on his person via social media as one of the reasons for his resignation as Lee’s lawyer and spokesperson. While declaring that everyone has a right to free expression, Fortun nevertheless declared that “if the Cyber Crime Prevention Act were being implemented,” such attacks may have been prevented, because then people would be “more careful” about how and whom they criticize.

Ironic that Fortun was arguing over the media in favor of a law that if implemented would severely limit free expression via any computer-based medium and not only over the Internet. While name-calling, bad language, insults and other abuse of the right to free expression do happen over the Internet, and while Fortun has been subjected to personal attacks over social media, neither justifies abridging the right to free expression, or imposing penalties not commensurate to such offenses as libel, as RA 10175 would.

A further irony is that press freedom and the very right to free expression RA 10175 would abridge make such interviews with Fortun possible—interviews that often serve to enhance both the protagonist lawyers’ status as well as their clients’ legal arguments. Such interviews cross the boundary between the right of the public to information and the transformation of cases that should be tried in the courts into issues whose resolution becomes dependent on public opinion. And yet such cases are about legal issues. They’re not about how much public support one side or the other has—and they’re certainly not about lawyers either.