This document summarizes two criminal law case digests:
1) Liang vs People - An ADB worker charged with defamation claimed immunity. The court found he was not immune as slander was not part of his official duties.
2) Khosrow Minucher vs CA and Arthur Scalzo - Minucher sued Scalzo for false drug charges. Scalzo claimed immunity as a US DEA agent. The court found Scalzo was entitled to immunity as he was acting in his official capacity conducting surveillance.
This document summarizes two criminal law case digests:
1) Liang vs People - An ADB worker charged with defamation claimed immunity. The court found he was not immune as slander was not part of his official duties.
2) Khosrow Minucher vs CA and Arthur Scalzo - Minucher sued Scalzo for false drug charges. Scalzo claimed immunity as a US DEA agent. The court found Scalzo was entitled to immunity as he was acting in his official capacity conducting surveillance.
This document summarizes two criminal law case digests:
1) Liang vs People - An ADB worker charged with defamation claimed immunity. The court found he was not immune as slander was not part of his official duties.
2) Khosrow Minucher vs CA and Arthur Scalzo - Minucher sued Scalzo for false drug charges. Scalzo claimed immunity as a US DEA agent. The court found Scalzo was entitled to immunity as he was acting in his official capacity conducting surveillance.
FACTS: Jeffrey Liang is an economist working in the Asian
Development Bank (ADB). Sometime in 1994, he was charged before the Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC) of Mandaluyong City with two counts of grave oral defamation for allegedly uttering defamatory words against fellow ADB worker Joyce Cabal. Because of this, he was arrested, but then, he was able to post bail, and so he was released from custody. The next day, the MTC judge received an “office of protocol” from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) stating that Liang is covered by immunity from legal process under Section 45 of the Agreement between the ADB and the Philippine Government. Because of this, the MTC judge dismissed the two criminal cases without notice to the prosecution. The prosecution filed a Motion for Reconsideration but it was denied. It then filed a Petition for Certiorari and Mandamus with the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Pasig City. The latter set aside the MTC ruling and ordered for an enforcement of a warrant of arrest. Liang filed a MR but it was denied. Hence, this Petition for Review. ISSUE: Whether or not Liang is covered by immunity under the Agreement??? – NO. HELD: The immunity mentioned in Section 45 of the Agreement is not absolute, but subject to the exception that the act was done in an “official capacity.” Slandering a person could not possibly be covered by the immunity agreement because our laws do not allow the commission of a crime, such as defamation, in the name of official duty. It is well-settled principle of law that a public official may be liable in his personal private capacity for whatever damage he may have caused by his act done with malice or in bad faith or beyond the scope of his authority or jurisdiction. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a diplomatic agent enjoys immunity from criminal jurisdiction of the receiving state except in the case of an action relating to any professional or commercial activity exercised by the diplomatic agent in the receiving state outside his official functions. The commission of a crime is not part of an official duty. CONCURRING OPINION, PUNO, J: The phrase “immunity from every form of legal process” as used in the UN General Convention has been interpreted to mean absolute immunity from a state’s jurisdiction to adjudicate or enforce its law by legal process, and it is said that states have not sought to restrict that immunity of the United Nations by interpretation or amendment. On the other hand, international officials are governed by a different rule. Section 18(a) of the General Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations states that officials of the United Nations shall be immune from legal process in respect of words spoken or written and all acts performed by them in their official capacity. The Convention on Specialized Agencies carries exactly the same provision. The Charter of the ADB provides under Article 55(i) that officers and employees of the bank shall be immune from legal process with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity except when the Bank waives immunity. Section 45 (a) of the ADB Headquarters Agreement accords the same immunity to the officers and staff of the bank. There can be no dispute that international officials are entitled to immunity only with respect to acts performed in their official capacity, unlike international organizations which enjoy absolute immunity. Clearly, the most important immunity to an international official, in the discharge of his international functions, is immunity from local jurisdiction. There is no argument in doctrine or practice with the principle that an international official is independent of the jurisdiction of the local authorities for his official acts. Those acts are not his, but are imputed to the organization, and without waiver the local courts cannot hold him liable for them. In strict law, it would seem that even the organization itself could have no right to waive an official’s immunity for his official acts. This permits local authorities to assume jurisdiction over and individual for an act which is not, in the wider sense of the term, his act at all. It is the organization itself, as a juristic person, which should waive its own immunity and appear in court, not the individual, except insofar as he appears in the name of the organization. Provisions for immunity from jurisdiction for official acts appear, aside from the aforementioned treatises, in the constitution of most modern international organizations. The acceptance of the principle is sufficiently widespread to be regarded as declaratory of international law. KHOSROW MINUCHER V. CA AND ARTHUR SCALZO Facts: Khosrow Minucher is an Iranian national who came to study in the RP in 1974 and was appointed Labor Attaché for the Iranian Embassies in Tokyo, Japan and Manila. When the Shah (monarch title) of Iran was deposed, he became a refugee and continued to stay as head of the Iranian National Resistance Movement. Scalzo, on the other hand, was a special agent of the US Drugs Enforcement Agency. He conducts surveillance operations on suspected drug dealers in the Philippines believed to be the source of prohibited drugs shipped to the US and make the actual arrest. In May 1986, Minucher (and one Abbas Torabian) was charged with for the violation of RA 6425 (Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972). The criminal charge was followed by a “buy-bust operation” conducted by the Philippine police narcotic agents in his house where a quantity of heroin was said to have been seized. The narcotic agents were accompanied by private respondent Arthur Scalzo who became one of the principal witnesses for the prosecution. They were acquitted. On 03 August 1988, Minucher filed a case before the RTC for damages on account of what he claimed to have been trumped-up charges of drug trafficking made by Arthur Scalzo. According to Minucher, he and Scalzo conducted some business. Minucher expressed his desire to obtain a US Visa for him and his Abbas’s wife. Scalzo told him that he could help him for a $2,000 fee per visa. After a series of business transactions between the two, when Scalzo came to deliver the visas to Minucher’s house, he told the latter that he would be leaving the Philippines soon and requested him to come out of the house so he can introduce him to his cousin waiting in the cab. To his surprise, 30-40 armed Filipino soldiers came to arrest him. In his defense, Scalzo asserted his diplomatic immunity as evidenced by a Diplomatic Note. He contended that the US Government, pursuant to the Vienna Convention, recognized it on Diplomatic Relations and the Philippine government itself thru its Executive Department and DFA.The courts ruled in favor of Scalzo on the ground that as a special agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, he was entitled to diplomatic immunity. RTC: decision in favor of plaintiff. CA: Reversed. Scalzo was sufficiently clothed with diplomatic immunity pursuant to the terms of the Vienna Convention. ISSUE: WON SCALZO IS ENTITLED TO DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY - YES. Ratio: The Vienna Convention lists the classes of heads of diplomatic missions to include: (a) ambassadors or nuncios accredited to the heads of state, (b) envoys, ministers or internuncios accredited to the heads of states; and (c) charges d' affairs accredited to the ministers of foreign affairs. Comprising the "staff of the (diplomatic) mission" are the diplomatic staff, the administrative staff and the technical and service staff. Only the heads of missions, as well as members of the diplomatic staff, excluding the members of the administrative, technical and service staff of the mission, are accorded diplomatic rank. Scalzo was an Assistant Attaché of the US diplomatic mission. Attaches assist a chief of mission in his duties and are administratively under him, but their main function is to observe, analyze and interpret trends and developments in their respective fields in the host country and submit reports to their own ministries or departments in the home government. These officials are not generally regarded as members of the diplomatic mission, nor are they normally designated as having diplomatic rank. While the diplomatic immunity of Scalzo might thus remain contentious, it was sufficiently established that, indeed, he worked for the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and was tasked to conduct surveillance of suspected drugactivities within the country on the dates pertinent to this case. If it should be ascertained that Arthur Scalzo was acting well within his assigned functions when he committed the acts alleged in the complaint, the present controversy could then be resolved under the related doctrine of State Immunity from Suit. The precept that a State cannot be sued in the courts of a foreign state is a long-standing rule of customary international law. If the acts giving rise to a suit are those of a foreign government done by its foreign agent, although not necessarily a diplomatic personage, but acting in his official capacity, the complaint could be barred by the immunity of the foreign sovereign from suit without its consent. Suing a representative of a state is believed to be, in effect, suing the state itself. The proscription is not accorded for the benefit of an individual but for the State, in whose service he is, under the maxim – par in parem, non habet imperium – that all states are sovereign equals and cannot assert jurisdiction over one another. The implication is that if the judgment against an official would require the state itself to perform an affirmative act to satisfy the award, such as the appropriation of the amount needed to pay the damages decreed against him, the suit must be regarded as being against the state itself, although it has not been formally impleaded. A foreign agent, operating within a territory, can be cloaked with immunity from suit but only as long as it can be established that he is acting within the directives of the sending state. The consent of the host state is an indispensable requirement of basic courtesy between the two sovereigns. The “buy-bust operation” and other such acts are indication that the Philippine government has given its imprimatur, if not consent, to the activities within
Philippine territory of agent Scalzo of the United States Drug Enforcement
Agency. In conducting surveillance activities on Minucher, later acting as the poseur-buyer during the buy-bust operation, and then becoming a principal witness in the criminal case against Minucher, Scalzo hardly can be said to have acted beyond the scope of his official function or duties.