In Re letter of Associate Justice Reynato S.

puno 210 SCRA 588

Facts: Associate Justice Reynato S. Puno, member of the Court of Appeals, wrote a letter dated Nov. 14, 1990 addressed to this court, seeking the correction of his seniority ranking in the Court of Appeals. He contends that the error was an Inadvertence. The aftermath of the EDSA Revolution in February 1986 brought about a reorganization of the entire government, including the judiciary. To effect the reorganization of the Intermediate Appellate Court and other lower courts, a screening committee was created. President Corazon C. Aquino, exercising legislative powers by virtue of the revolution, issued EO No. 33 to govern the said reorganization of the judiciary. The screening committee recommended and assigned petitioner in rank eleven (11), but where the appointments were signed by President Aquino, petitioners seniority ranking changed, however, from number eleven (11) to number twenty six (26). The Supreme Court granted the plea of petitioner and ordered the correction, but a motion for reconsideration was filed by Associate Justices Jose G. Campos, Jr. and Luis A. Javellana who were affected by the order. They contended that the present court of appeals is a New Court and that petitioner could not claim a reappointment to a prior court; neither can he claim that he was returning from his former court.

Issue: W/N the present Court of Appeals is a New Court such that it would negate any claim to precedence in the Intermediate Appellate Court existing prior to EO No. 33.

Held: The present Court of Appeals is a New Court, different and distinct from the Court of Appeals or Intermediate Appellate Court existing prior to EO No. 33 for it was created in the wake of the revolutionary government of Corazon Aquino in the aftermath of the People Power Revolution (EDSA) in 1986.

The Gist of the case: The revolution has been defined as the complete overthrow of the established government in any country or state by those who were previously subject to it or as a sudden, radical and fundamental change in the government or political system, usually effected with violence. In Kelsens book, The General Theory of Law and State, it is defined as that which occurs whenever the legal order of a community is nullified and replaced by a new order.a way not prescribed by the first order itself. It was through the February 1986 revolution, a relatively peaceful one, and more popularly known as the People Power Revolution that the Filipino tore themselves away from an existing regime. This revolution also saw the unprecedented rise to power of the Aquino Government. From the natural law point of view, the right of revolution has been defined as an inherent right of the people to cast out their rulers, change their policy or effect radical reforms in their system of government or institution by force or a general uprising when the legal and constitutional method of making such change have proved inadequate or are so obstructed as to be unavailable. It has been said that the locus of the positive law- making power lies with the people of the state and from there is derived the right of the people to abolish, to reform and to alter any existing form of government without regard to the existing constitution.

Republic v. Sandiganbayan 407 SCRA 11 Facts: On 3 March 1986, the constabulary raiding team served at Christine Dimaanos residence a search warrant. Dimaano was not present during the raid, but her cousin witnessed it. The raiding team seized several rifles and pistols, and items not included in the search warrant. The search and seizure was conducted on March 3, 1986, or five (5) days after the successful EDSA revolution. Dimaano questioned the propriety of the search and seizure invoking exclusionary right guaranteed by the 1973 Constitution. Petitioner asserts that revolutionary government effectively withheld the operation of the 1973 Constitution which guaranteed respondents exclusionary right.

Issue: 1. Whether the revolutionary government was bound by the Bill of Rights of the 1973 Constitution during the Interregnum, that is, after the actual and effective takeover by the revolutionary government following the cessation of resistance by loyalist forces up to 24 March 1986 (Immediately before the adoption of the Provisional Constitution) 2. Whether the protection accorded to individuals under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Covenant and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Declaration) remained in effect during the Interregnum.

Held: The Bill of Rights under the 1973 Constitution was not operative during the Interregnum. During the interregnum, a person could not invoke any exclusionary right under the Bill of Rights. But the revolutionary government did not repudiate the Covenant or the Declaration during the interregnum. Article 17 (1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that, No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. Hence, according to the Supreme Court, the seizure of the items was void.

Co Kim Cham v. Valdez Tan Keh, 75 PHIL 113 (1945)

Facts:
This petition for mandamus in which petitioner prays that the respondent judge of the lower court be ordered to continue the proceedings in civil case No. 3012 of said court, which were initiated under the regime of the so-called Republic of the Philippines established during the Japanese military occupation of these Islands. The respondent judge refused to take cognizance of and continue the proceedings in said case on the ground that the proclamation issued on October 23, 1944, by General Douglas MacArthur had the effect of invalidating and nullifying all judicial proceedings and judgments of the court of the Philippines under the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines established during the Japanese military occupation, and that, furthermore, the lower courts have no jurisdiction to take cognizance of and continue judicial proceedings pending in the courts of the defunct Republic of the Philippines in the absence of an enabling law granting such authority. And the same respondent, in his answer and memorandum filed in this Court, contends that the government established in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation were no de facto government.

Issue: whether or not the courts of the Commonwealth, which are the same as those existing prior to, and continued during, the Japanese military occupation by the Philippine Executive Commission and by the so-called Republic of the Philippines, have jurisdiction to continue now the proceedings in actions pending in said courts at the time the Philippine Islands were reoccupied or liberated by the American and Filipino forces, and the Commonwealth Government was restored.

Held: That the present courts as the same courts which had been functioning during the Japanese regime and, therefore, can continue the proceedings in cases pending therein prior to the restoration of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, is confirmed by Executive Order No. 37 which we have already quoted in support of our conclusion in connection with the second question. Said Executive Order provides"(1) that the Court of Appeals created and established under Commonwealth Act No. 3 as amended, be abolished, as it is hereby abolished," and "(2) that all cases which have heretofore been duly appealed to the Court of Appeals shall be transmitted to the Supreme Court for final decision. . . ." In so providing, the said Order considers that the Court of Appeals abolished was the same that existed prior to, and continued after, the restoration of the Commonwealth Government; for, as we have stated in discussing the previous question, almost all, if not all, of the cases pending therein, or which had

theretofore (that is, up to March 10, 1945) been duly appealed to said court, must have been cases coming from the Courts of First Instance during the so-called Republic of the Philippines. If the Court of Appeals abolished by the said Executive Order was not the same one which had been functioning during the Republic, but that which had existed up to the time of the Japanese occupation, it would have provided that all the cases which had, prior to and up to that occupation on January 2, 1942, been dully appealed to the said Court of Appeals shall be transmitted to the Supreme Court for final decision.