VINUYA VS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

G.R. No. 162230, April 28, 2010

(Justiciable & Political Questions)

FACTS:

Petitioners, members of the MALAYA LOLAS, a non-stock, non-profit organization registered with
the SEC, established for the purpose of providing aid to the victims of rape by Japanese military
forces in the Philippines during the Second World War, claim that since 1998, they have approached
the Executive Department through the DOJ, DFA, and OSG, requesting assistance in filing a claim
against the Japanese officials and military officers who ordered the establishment of the comfort
women stations in the Philippines.

But officials of the Executive Department declined to assist the petitioners, and took the position
that the individual claims of the comfort women for compensation had already been fully satisfied
by Japans compliance with the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 and the bilateral Reparations
Agreement of 1956 between the Philippines and Japan.

ISSUES:
1. Whether or not the Executive Department committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to
lack or excess of discretion in refusing;
a. to espouse their claims for the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against
them?
b. to espouse their claims for official apology and other forms of reparations against Japan
before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and other international tribunals?

HELD:

Petition lacks merit. This is a foreign relations matter that present political question. Political
questions refer to those questions which, under the Constitution, are to be decided by the people
in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full discretionary authority has been delegated to
the legislative or executive branch of the government. It is concerned with issues dependent upon
the wisdom, not legality of a particular measure. Thus, the authority for which is demonstrably
committed by our Constitution not to the courts but to the political branches (executive &
legistlative).

In this case, the Executive Department has already decided that it is to the best interest of the
country to waive all claims of its nationals for reparations against Japan in the Treaty of Peace of
1951. The wisdom of such decision is not for the courts to question.

Even the invocation of jus cogens norms and erga omnes obligations will not alter this analysis.
Petitioners have not shown that the crimes committed by the Japanese army violated jus cogens
prohibitions at the time the Treaty of Peace was signed, or that the duty to prosecute perpetrators of
international crimes is an erga omnes obligation or has attained the status of jus cogens.

Erga omnes (Latin: in relation to everyone) is a legal term describing obligations owed by States
towards the community of states as a whole.
Jus cogens (literally, compelling law) refers to norms that command peremptory authority,
superseding conflicting treaties and custom.