VALIDITY OF THE LAW

Every Statute is assumed to be valid Clear and Unequivocal Evidence

ESSENTIAL REQUISITES FOR JUDICIAL INQUIRY INTO THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF A LAW

1. There must be an actual case or controversy involving a conflict of legal rights susceptible of judicial determination;

2. The question of constitutionality must be raised by the proper party;3. The constitutional question must be raised at the earliest possible opportunity; and4. The decision of the constitutional question must be necessary to the determination of the case

itself.

TAXPAYERS,VOTERS, CONCERNED CITIZENS AND LEGISLATORS MAY BE ACCORDED STANDING TO SUE, PROVIDED THAT THE FOLLOWING REQUIREMENTS ARE MET:

1. Cases involve constitutional cases2. For taxpayers, there must be a claim of illegal disbursements of public funds or that the tax

measure is unconstitutional;3. For voters, there must be a showing of obvious interest in the validity of the election law in

question;4. For concerned citizens, there must be a showing that the issues raised are transcendental

importance which must be settled early; and5. For Legislator, there must be a claim that the official action complained of infringes upon their

prerogatives as legislators. Macalintal Vs. Presidential Electoral Tribunal G.R. 191168 Nov. 23, 2010.

LEGISLATIVE INTENT

Legislative intent for constitution purposes does not mean the collection of the subjective wishes, hopes and prejudices of each and every member of the legislature, but rather the objective footprints left on the trial of legislature enactment.

RAMIREZ V CA & GARCIA

Legislative intent is determined principally from the language of a statute. Where the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous to its express terms, and interpretation would be resorted to only where a literal interpretation would be either impossible or absurd or would lead to an injustice.

Sec.1 of R.A. 4200 entitled , “An Act to Prohibit and Penalized Wire Tapping and Other Related Violations of Private Communication and Other Purposes,” provides:

Sec. 1. It shall be unlawful for any person,not being authorized by all the parties to any private communication or spoken word, to tap any wire or cable, or by using any other device or arrangement,

to secretly overhear, intercept, or record such communication or spoken word by using a device commonly known as dictaphone or dictagraph or detectaphone or walkie-talkie or tape recorder, or however otherwise described.

PLAIN MEANING RULE/VERBA LEGIS

The first, foremost and fundamental function of a court in agiven case is to apply the law in accordance with the legislative intent when such intent is clearly expressed from the text of the statute.

GLOBE MACKAY CABLE AND RADIO COMMUNICATION VS. NLRC and IMELDA SALAZAR (G.R. No. 82511, March 3, 1992

Art 279 Sec. 3 Reinstatement –an employee who is unjustly removed from work shall be entitled to reinstatement without loss of seniority rights and to backwages.”

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“An employee who is unjustly removed from work shall be entitled to reinstatement.... and to his full backwages....” Under the principles of statutory construction, if a statute is clears plain and free from ambuguity, it must be given its literal meaning and applied without attempted interpretation.

PP V. AMIGO

G.R No. 116719 January 18, 1996

Courts are not the forum to plead for sympathy. The duty of the courts is to apply the law, disregarding their feelin of sympathy or pity for an accused. DURA LEX SED LEX.

The remedy is elsewhere –clemency from the executive or an amendment of the law by the legislative, but surely, at this point, the court can but apply the law.

PP vs. Hon. VENERACION et. al.

Clearly under the law, the penalty imposable for the case of Rape with Homicide is not Reclusion Perpetua but Death. While Republic Act 7659 punishes cases of ordinary rape with the penalty of Reclusion Perpetua, it allows judges the discretion –depending on the existence of circumstances modifying the offense committed –to impose the penalty of either Reclusion Perpetua only in the three instances mentioned therein. Rape with homicide is not one of these three instances. The law plainly and unequivocally provides that “[w]hen by reason on the occasion of rape, a homicide is committed, the penalty shall be death.” The provision leaves no room for the existence of discretion on the part of the trial judge to impose a penalty under the circumstances described, other than a sentence of death.

We are aware of the trial judge’s misgivings in imposing the death sentence because of his religious convictions. While this court sympathizes with his predicament, it is its bounden duty to emphasize that a court of law is no place for a protracted debate on the morality or propriety of the sentence, where the law itself provides for the sentence of death as a penalty in specific and well-defined instances. The

discomfort faced by those forced by law to impose the death penalty is an ancient one, but it is a matter upon which judges have no choice. Courts are not concerned with the wisdom, efficacy or morality of laws.