Francisco v. House of Representatives

Francisco vs.
House of Representatives
Facts:
On 28 November 2001, the 12th Congress of the House of
Representatives adopted and approved the Rules of Procedure in
Impeachment Proceedings, superseding the previous House Impeachment
Rules approved by the 11th Congress. On 22 July 2002, the House of
Representatives adopted a Resolution, which directed the Committee on
Justice "to conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, on the manner of
disbursements and expenditures by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF). On 2 June 2003, former President
Joseph E. Estrada filed an impeachment complaint (first impeachment
complaint) against Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide Jr. and seven Associate
Justices of the Supreme Court for "culpable violation of the Constitution,
betrayal of the public trust and other high crimes." The complaint was
endorsed by House Representatives, and was referred to the House
Committee on Justice on 5 August 2003 in accordance with Section 3(2) of
Article XI of the Constitution. The House Committee on Justice ruled on 13
October 2003 that the first impeachment complaint was "sufficient in form,"
but voted to dismiss the same on 22 October 2003 for being insufficient in
substance. Four months and three weeks since the filing of the first
complaint or on 23 October 2003, a day after the House Committee on
Justice voted to dismiss it, the second impeachment complaint was filed with
the Secretary General of the House by House Representatives against Chief
Justice Hilario G. Davide, Jr., founded on the alleged results of the legislative
inquiry initiated by above-mentioned House Resolution. The second
impeachment complaint was accompanied by a "Resolution of
Endorsement/Impeachment" signed by at least 1/3 of all the Members of the
House of Representatives. Various petitions for certiorari, prohibition, and
mandamus were filed with the Supreme Court against the House of
Representatives, et. al., most of which petitions contend that the filing of the
second impeachment complaint is unconstitutional as it violates the
provision of Section 5 of Article XI of the Constitution that "no impeachment
proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once
within a period of one year."
Issue:
Whether the power of judicial review extends to those arising from
impeachment proceedings.
Held:
The Court's power of judicial review is conferred on the judicial branch
of the government in Section 1, Article VIII of our present 1987 Constitution.
The "moderating power" to "determine the proper allocation of powers" of
the different branches of government and "to direct the course of
government along constitutional channels" is inherent in all courts as a
necessary consequence of the judicial power itself, which is "the power of
the court to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally
demandable and enforceable." As indicated in Angara v. Electoral
Commission, judicial review is indeed an integral component of the delicate
system of checks and balances which, together with the corollary principle of
separation of powers, forms the bedrock of our republican form of
government and insures that its vast powers are utilized only for the benefit
of the people for which it serves. The separation of powers is a fundamental
principle in our system of government. It obtains not through express
provision but by actual division in our Constitution. Each department of the
government has exclusive cognizance of matters within its jurisdiction, and is
supreme within its own sphere. But it does not follow from the fact that the
three powers are to be kept separate and distinct that the Constitution
intended them to be absolutely unrestrained and independent of each other.
The Constitution has provided for an elaborate system of checks and
balances to secure coordination in the workings of the various departments
of the government. And the judiciary in turn, with the Supreme Court as the
final arbiter, effectively checks the other departments in the exercise of its
power to determine the law, and hence to declare executive and legislative
acts void if violative of the Constitution.
The major difference between the judicial power of the Philippine
Supreme Court and that of the U.S. Supreme Court is that while the power of
judicial review is only impliedly granted to the U.S. Supreme Court and is
discretionary in nature, that granted to the Philippine Supreme Court and
lower courts, as expressly provided for in the Constitution, is not just a power
but also a duty, and it was given an expanded definition to include the power
to correct any grave abuse of discretion on the part of any government
branch or instrumentality. There are also glaring distinctions between the
U.S. Constitution and the Philippine Constitution with respect to the power of
the House of Representatives over impeachment proceedings. While the U.S.
Constitution bestows sole power of impeachment to the House of
Representatives without limitation, our Constitution, though vesting in the
House of Representatives the exclusive power to initiate impeachment
cases, provides for several limitations to the exercise of such power as
embodied in Section 3(2), (3), (4) and (5), Article XI thereof. These limitations
include the manner of filing, required vote to impeach, and the one year bar
on the impeachment of one and the same official. The people expressed
their will when they instituted the above-mentioned safeguards in the
Constitution. This shows that the Constitution did not intend to leave the
matter of impeachment to the sole discretion of Congress. Instead, it
provided for certain well-defined limits, or "judicially discoverable standards"
for determining the validity of the exercise of such discretion, through the
power of judicial review. There is indeed a plethora of cases in which this
Court exercised the power of judicial review over congressional action.
Finally, there exists no constitutional basis for the contention that the
exercise of judicial review over impeachment proceedings would upset the
system of checks and balances. Verily, the Constitution is to be interpreted
as a whole and "one section is not to be allowed to defeat another." Both are
integral components of the calibrated system of independence and
interdependence that insures that no branch of government act beyond the
powers assigned to it by the Constitution.

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