CHAPTER 3

JUSTICE
AND
MORALITY

SOCSCI 103
PREPARED BY: HS-T1E
AYAO, ARLENE
BELO, GEYMARIEL C.
OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be
able to:

A. Discuss the Meaning of Justice

B. Identify the different Kinds of Justice and;
C. Discover the Philippine Criminal Justice
System Using Caputo’s Concept of
Repetition.
A. Meaning of Justice

Justice- habit that give every human person

his due or his own right.

-derived from the Latin word “jus” which

means “right.”
 -also denotes a relation, one can give each
human person his due only in the context
of a relation.

-there is justice in the Philippines when

every Filipino be given his due or his right
as a citizen of the country and as a human
person.
 B. Kinds of Justice

1. General Legal Justice

-one by which human wishes and

does what is right in relation to the
common good.

-these laws are not for the good of

individuals but for the good of the
whole community.
2. Particular Legal Justice
-is one by which a human person
wishes and does what is right in relation
to another person who is accounted as
an individual with inherent right to his
own private good. Particular justice,
therefore is justice between persons.
C. On the Philippine Criminal Justice
System Using Caputo’s Concept of
Repetition

The pace of the movement of criminal justice system

revolves around the four elements that are intrinsically
involved in the prosecution of cases. These elements
are as follows: accused, lawyer, law enforcers and
judges.
1.The Accused

In the 1987 Philippine Constitution specifically in the

Bill of Rights, says that it is one of the constitutional
rights of the accused to be presumed innocent until
proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt (Sec.14, Par.2,
Art III). Under the law, the accused is a person who is
charged with an offense, be it a crime a felony or an
infraction of law.
The Revised Penal Code of the Philippines
classified the accused as follows:

1.The Principal - those who take a direct part in the

execution of the act and those who induce others to
commit it.

-those who cooperate in the commission of the

offense by another act without which it would not
have been accomplished.
2. Accomplices -person who are not included in the Art
17, cooperate in the execution of the offense by the
previous or simultaneous acts (RPC, Art 18):

3. Accessories-those who having knowledge of the

commission of the crime or accomplices to take part
subsequent to its commission in any of the following
manner:
1.By profiting themselves or assisting the offender to
profit by the effects of the crime.
2. By concealing or destroying the body of the crime
or the effects of the instruments
3. by harboring, concealing or assisting in the escape
of the principal of the crime (RPC. Art 19).
2. The Lawyers - under the provision of rules in the code of
ethics (Legal Ethics) among lawyers, lawyers are members of the
Bar. They are persons who are imbued with virtues becoming of a
man of law.
-They are entrusted with lofty, broad and sacred mission.
-Necessarily a leader of the community and being look up as a
model citizen.
-a high tone of morality is to be unfailingly expected from the
lawyer because he is a man who advises the people and the
government on the legal matters and who assists the judges and the
courts in the administration of justice and exaltation of civil
rights(See Fritz V. Quinanola.
“ The Lawyer’s Moral Ambience ,” in IBP LAW JOURNAL AND
THE MAGAZINE , Vol. XXIV, No.1( 1ST Quarter 1998 p.57).
3. The Law Enforcers
-according to the Penal Code of the Philippines, deemed
persons in authority but are rather than duly considered as
Agents of Persons in Authority like legislators from
National to local levels, judges lawyers -as they dispense
their functions as partners of courts in the administration
of justice and teachers as they execute their functions in
the auspices of their respective workplaces.
 
4. The Judges
-Prosecuting an offense is so complicated a job to accomplish so
that observably, almost always, durations of litigations fixed by the
Supreme Court are placed under the rag. This setup is
advantageous only to the "guilty" accused, but a horrible torment
on the part of innocent persons who languish in jail because they
had been accused of offending or committing this or that offense.
This is why for the latter scenario; the Department of Justice
remunerates prisoners if in the end they are found out to be
innocent
 
1.De Constructive Critique
-the bulk of our critique rests on the role of the judge
as he hears studies, analyzes and finally draws his
decision based on the quantum of evidence presented
before his court.
In the Philippine Justice System offenses that deemed
criminal shall be prosecuted as follows:

1.Filling of the complaint by aggrieved party

2.Preliminary Investigation
3. Filling if the information before the court
4.Arrest
5. Bail
6. Arrangement of the Plea
7. Motion to Quash
8. Pre-trial
9.Trial
10.Judgement
11.New Trial or Reconsideration
12. Appeal
2.Legal Hermeneutics

- the life and liberty of the accused put in vain if he is

placed behind bars because he is maliciously charged of
an offense that he is not guilty of. On the contrary, society
per se maybe exposed to danger before demonical
perversity of an alleged criminal who is not incarcerated.
-under the provision of law in the Code of Ethics (Judicial
Ethics), judges are expected to done justice with cold
neutrality or impartiality, objectivity, integrity, honesty,
and candor as they persecute and offense.
Caputo’s Concept of Repetition in Relation to
Philippine Criminal Justice System

Repetition of the Flux

-John Caputo in his “Radical Hermeneutics “explains

that repetition is creative production which pushes ahead,
which produces as its repeats which makes a life for
itself in the midst of difficulties in the midst of the flux.
Repetition
-is the power of the individual to forge his
personality out of the chaos of events in the midst
of the flux.

-the power to create an identity in the face of the

incessant dispersal of the self of the dissipating
effects of the flux.
Caputo's line of thinking, indeed, is heading towards a God-
centered enterprise. Applying this to our concern, it is clear that
justice in the administration and/or prosecution of criminal
offenses in the Philippines can only be realized if God's presence
is ever felt, believed, and humbly understood by law enforcers as
they apprehend an accused; by lawyers as they help their clients go
through the twist and turns of the whole setup of prosecution; and
by the Judges as they try their best by objectively weighing the
merit of the evidence presented before their sala in order to
justifiably send the guilty to the gallows or to the iron box and the
innocent to the freedom of the prick of conscience and peace and
breath the air of conquest and harmony with their fellow human
beings.
Conclusions
 
 
1.Purgation from among the members of the law enforcement
forces ranging from the members of the Philippine National
Police up to the agents of the National Bureau of Investigation
and other law enforcement bodies and agencies.
 
2.Disbarment and conviction of dishonest, immoral, and corrupt
members of the Bar.
 
3.Stiffer punitive measures for corrupt, inept, and ignorant judges.
These sanctions may be crafted in a form of dismissal,
imprisonment, and forfeiture of benefits, among others.
 
4.Legal (use of the letter of law or resort to rule of law) and substantive (use
of the spirit of the law) means in interpreting the law in application to
judicial decisions. This requires Judges to bracket their biases and prejudices
in drafting a judicial decision.
 
(5) Use of DNA testing not only in the due prosecution of criminal offenses
but also in post-conviction8 instances to convicts whose guilt beyond
reasonable doubt is not justifiably proven. This could assail unjust and
prejudicial conviction of innocent convicts. This would result to true, valid,
and objective legal justice to the accused.
 
Theo-centric (God- centred) prosecution and nitration of justice. Only if
God is "seen" right at enter of the prosecution of criminal offenses can there
use justice to offenders. This could result to the missal or acquittal of
charges pinned down against cent persons and conviction to truly guilty
offenders.
 
THANK
YOU !!