Judicial Independence

The independence of the judiciary is enshrined in our 1987

Constitution by ensuring the interdependence of all the branches
of the government: the executive, the legislative and the
judiciary. It delineates the powers of the three branches: the
legislature is generally limited to the enactment of laws, the
executive department to the enforcement of laws and the
judiciary to their interpretation and application to cases and
controversies. Each branch is independent and supreme within its
own sphere and the encroachment by one branch on another is to
be avoided at all costs.1

As one of the co-equal branches of the government, the judiciary

is expected to decide matters before them impartially, on the
basis of facts and in accordance with the law, without any
restrictions, improper influences, pressures, or interferences. Its
constitutionally guaranteed independence, as well as its integrity,
are its ultimate characteristics which sets it apart from the rest of
the bureaucracy.2 Hence, judicial independence is achieved by
focusing on strengthening its institutions and by upholding the
rule of law.

While each branch of the government has exclusive cognizance of

matters within its jurisdiction, and is supreme within its own
sphere, the Supreme Court has a bounden duty to defend and
protect the Constitution when it has been called to nullify several
executive and legislative acts which blatantly breached the
fundamental provisions of the law.3 It does not follow from the
fact, however, 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. 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. 4
1G.R. No. 192935, December 07, 2010, Biraogo V. Lagman
2Judicial Independence: A Fact or Myth? By Justice Myrna Dimaranan Vidal
3Ibid
4G.R. Nos. 124360 & 127867, November 5, 1997, 281 SCRA 330
Moreover, through the expanded jurisdiction granted to the
Supreme Court by Article VIII, Section 1 of the Constitution, it
can nullify certain acts that are exclusively within the domain of
certain respective competencies, as provided by the Constitution
or the law. In such situation, presumptively, the Court should act
with deference. It will decline to void an act unless the exercise of
that power was so capricious and arbitrary so as to amount to
grave abuse of discretion.
The Supreme Court, citing a multitude of precedents, was
called upon to exercise its expanded jurisdiction:
Daza and Coseteng involved a question as to the
application of Article VI, Section 18 of the 1987
Constitution involving the removal of petitioners from
the Commission on Appointments. In times past, this
would have involved a quintessentially political question
as it related to the dominance of political parties in
Congress. However, in these cases, this court exercised
its power of judicial review noting that the requirement
of interpreting the constitutional provision involved the
legality and not the wisdom of a manner by which a
constitutional duty or power was exercised. This
approach was again reiterated in Defensor Santiago v.
Guingona, Jr.
In Integrated Bar of the Philippines v. Zamora, this
court declared again that the possible existence of a
political question did not bar an examination of whether
the exercise of discretion was done with grave abuse of
discretion. In that case, this court ruled on the question
of whether there was grave abuse of discretion in the
Presidents use of his power to call out the armed
forces to prevent and suppress lawless violence.

In Estrada v. Desierto, this court ruled that the legal

question as to whether a former President resigned was
not a political question even if the consequences would
be to ascertain the political legitimacy of a successor
President.

Many constitutional cases arise from political crises.

The actors in such crises may use the resolution of
constitutional issues as leverage. But the expanded
jurisdiction of this court now mandates a duty for
 it to exercise its power of judicial review
expanding on principles that may avert
catastrophe or resolve social conflict.
In Francisco vs. House of Representative,5 the High Court, in
invalidating the house impeachment complaint lodged against
then Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide, Jr., elucidated that when the
Supreme Court mediates to allocate constitutional boundaries or
invalidates the acts of a coordinate body, what it is upholding is
not its own supremacy, but the supremacy of the constitution.
When this supremacy is invoked, it compels the errant branches
of government to obey not the Supreme Court, but the
Constitution.6
In the separate opinion of then Associate Justice Corona
addressing the second impeachment complaint lodged against
Chief Justice Davide, he debunked the power of the Congress to
audit the disbursements of the JDF just because it did not agree
to the report submitted by the COA clearing then Chief Justice
Davide of any illegality or irregularity in the use and
disbursement of the JDF. As it is a basic postulate that no one is
above the law, Congress, despite its tremendous power of the
purse, should respect and uphold the judiciary's fiscal autonomy
and the COA's exclusive power to audit it under the Constitution.

In Bayan Muna vs. Ermita,7 which was notably promulgated

during Chief Justice ARTEMIO V. PANGANIBAN's watch, the
Supreme Court, without hesitation, axed an executive
department's policy which coined a seemingly new, yet martial
law-like concept, that is, the calibrated preemptive response
(CPR) in connection with the rallies and other public assemblies.
In that case, all petitioners assail the constitutionality and
legality of the policy of Calibrated Preemptive Response (CPR).
The Supreme Court found that the CPR serves no valid purpose if
it means the same thing as maximum tolerance and is illegal if it
means something else.
In sum, this Court reiterates its basic policy of
upholding the fundamental rights of our people,
especially freedom of expression and freedom of
assembly. In several policy addresses, Chief Justice
5GR No. 160261, 10 November 2003
6Ibid
7GR Nos. 169838, 169848 & 169881
 Artemio V. Panganiban has repeatedly vowed to uphold
the liberty of our people and to nurture their prosperity.
He said that "in cases involving liberty, the scales of
justice should weigh heavily against the government
and in favor of the poor, the oppressed, the
marginalized, the dispossessed and the weak. Indeed,
laws and actions that restrict fundamental rights come
to the courts with a heavy presumption against their
validity. These laws and actions are subjected to
heightened scrutiny."

For this reason, the so-called calibrated preemptive

response policy has no place in our legal firmament and
must be struck down as a darkness that shrouds
freedom. It merely confuses our people and is used by
some police agents to justify abuses.
In 2006, the case of David vs Arroyo relates to President Arroyo's
Presidential Proclamation No. 1017 (PP 1017) declaring a state of
national emergency on 24 February 2006. In this case, the
Supreme Court ruled that PP 1017's extraneous provisions giving
the President express or implied power (1) to issue decrees; (2)
to direct the AFP to enforce obedience to all laws even those not
related to lawless violence as well as decrees promulgated by the
President; and (3) to impose standards on media or any form of
prior restrain on the press are ultra vires and unconstitutional.
The High Tribunal likewise made it clear that the President, in the
absence of a legislation, cannot take over privately-owned public
utility and private business affected with public interest, thereby
declaring the raid undertaken in the offices of the Daily Tribune
by the operatives of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection
Group (CIDG) as constitutionally unauthorized.
Perhaps, the vital lesson that we must learn from
the theorists who studied the various competing
political philosophies is that, it is possible to grant
government the authority to cope with crises without
surrendering the two vital principles of
constitutionalism: the maintenance of legal limits to
arbitrary power, and political responsibility of the
government to the governed.
Another case where the Supreme Court decided with finality its
order of dismissal of the rebellion charges filed by the
Department of Justice against party-list representatives Crispin B.
Beltran, Liza L. Maza, Joel G. Virador, Saturnino C. Ocampo,
Teodoro A. Casio, And Rafael V. Mariano. The Court in posing a
stern warning to government prosecutors in maintaining the
integrity of criminal prosecution, in general, and preliminary
investigations, in particular, said:

We cannot emphasize too strongly that prosecutors

should not allow and should avoid, giving the
impression that their noble office is being used or
prostituted, wittingly and unwittingly, for political ends,
or other purposes alien to, or subversive of, the basic
and fundamental objective of observing the interest of
justice evenhandedly, without fear or favour, to any
and all litigants alike, whether rich or poor, weak or
strong, powerless or mighty. Only strict adherence to
the established procedure may the public's perception
of the impartiality of the prosecutor be enhanced.

In July 2007, the Supreme Court, through the leadership of then

Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno convened the first-ever "National
Consultative Summit on Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced
Disappearances -- Searching for Solutions" in response to the
spate of extralegal killings and enforced disappearances in the
country, particularly of political activists and media personalities.
In said summit, Chief Justice PUNO, a GMA appointee at that,
boldly declared that human rights under the Arroyo
administration is under assault. He has been very vocal in his
frustration over the inadequacies of the system in dealing with
extrajudicial killings. He categorically and candidly declared that:
over the years, the expectation that human rights could best be
protected by the political branches of government has been
diluted.
In 2012, following his impeachment, then Chief Justice Renato
Corona filed a petition for certiorari before the Supreme Court
assailing the impeachment case initiated by the Members of the
House of Representatives (HOR) and trial being conducted by
respondent Senate of the Philippines. The core issue presented is
whether the certiorari jurisdiction of the Court may be invoked to
assail matters or incidents arising from impeachment
proceedings, and to obtain injunctive relief for alleged violations
of right to due process of the person being tried by the Senate
sitting as Impeachment Court. The Supreme Court held:
Given their concededly political character, the
precise role of the judiciary in impeachment cases is a
matter of utmost importance to ensure the effective
functioning of the separate branches while preserving
the structure of checks and balance in our government.
Moreover, in this jurisdiction, the acts of any branch or
instrumentality of the government, including those
traditionally entrusted to the political departments, are
proper subjects of judicial review if tainted with grave
abuse or arbitrariness.

In The Diocese Of Bacolod V. Commission On Elections And The

Election Officer Of Bacolod City, Atty. Mavil V. Majarucon, 8 the
Supreme Court struck down COMELEC's infringement on speech
and the chilling effect caused by its notice and letter. The High
Court ruled that a breach of the fundamental right of expression
by COMELEC is a grave abuse of discretion, thus the
constitutionality of the notice and letter coming from COMELEC is
within the courts power to review. Since it is the Courts
constitutional mandate to protect the people against
governments infringement of their fundamental rights, this
constitutional mandate outweighs the jurisdiction vested with the
COMELEC.

As indicated in Angara v. Electoral Commission,9 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.

These factual backdrops proved at least one clear and

fundamental truth: the power of the Judiciary to interpret the
constitution is a power paramount to other powers. Significantly,
this empowerment truly reflects the Judiciary's INDEPENDENCE. 10

8G.R. No. 205728, January 21, 2015

9G.R. No. 83551, July 11, 1989, 175 SCRA 264
10 Supra Note 2