PH-HK Prisoner Swap

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Wednesday announced that the governments of the Philippines and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) are finalizing arrangements for the transfer of a number of their nationals serving prison sentences in their respective territories pursuant to the Philippines-Hong Kong SAR Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement (TSPA).

TSPA is an agreement which provides individuals who have been tried and convicted in a foreign country the option to serve the remaining portion of their sentences in their home country.
With a humanitarian objective, the TSPA is aimed at aiding the social rehabilitation of sentenced individuals.

The DFA said a number of Filipinos in jail in Hong Kong have applied for the transfer to the Philippines. The Hong Kong authorities have “agreed in principle” to eight applications.
Expected to be among the first to be transferred is a Filipina sentenced in 2006 to 12 years in prison by a Hong Kong Court of First Instance.

Five Hong Kong nationals serving sentences at the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa City and other correctional institutions in the Philippines for various offenses have expressed intention before the Department of Justice (DoJ) to be repatriated to Hong Kong to serve the remaining portion of their sentences.

Their transfer applications are being processed by the DoJ.

The issuance by the DoJ in December, 2010, of Circular No. 90, “Prescribing Rules in the Implementation of the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreements” has paved the way for the implementation of the agreement.

The DFA and the Philippine Consulate-General in Hong Kong, in coordination with the DoJ, are assisting and facilitating the documentary and technical requirements for the transfers.
As of Wednesday, the Philippines has three TSPAs – with Spain, Thailand, and Hong Kong.

Likewise, the government is finalizing the country’s accession to the Strasbourg Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, a multilateral treaty signed in 1983 by 64 state parties.
Based on the treaty, a sentenced person may be transferred only if the judgment is final and if, at the time of receipt of the request for transfer, he/she still has at least six months of the sentence to serve or if the sentence is indeterminate.

A sentenced person may likewise be transferred if the sentencing and administering state agree to the transfer.

Meanwhile, Chief State counsel Ricardo Paras III, who is reportedly privy to the details of the prisoner swap agreement between Hongkong and the Philippines, is in China with Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, who held a bilateral meeting with her counterpart Madam Wu Aiying of China’s Ministry of Justice to discuss how to strengthen cooperation in judicial administration and the active implementation of existing agreements in judicial and legal matters.