Constitutional Basis of Judicial review.

- All cases involving the constitutionality of a treaty,

international or executive agreement, or law, which shall be heard by the Supreme Court en banc, and
all other cases which under the Rules of Court are required to be heard en banc, including those
involving the constitutionality, application, or operation of presidential decrees, proclamations, orders,
instructions, ordinances, and other regulations, shall be decided with the concurrence of a majority of
the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon.
(Article VIII Section 4 (2)
Requisite of judicial review:
(1) an actual and appropriate case exists; (2) there is a personal and substantial interest of the party
raising the constitutional question; (3) the exercise of judicial review is pleaded at the earliest
opportunity; and (4) the constitutional question is the lis mota of the case.
Locus standi or standing to sue.
(1) he has personally suffered some actual or threatened injury because of the allegedly illegal conduct
of the government; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action; and (3) the injury is likely to
be redressed by the remedy being sought.
@ The separation of powers is a fundamental principle in our system of government.
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. For example, the Chief Executive under our
Constitution is so far made a check on the legislative power that this assent is required in the enactment
of laws. This, however, is subject to the further check that a bill may become a law notwithstanding the
refusal of the President to approve it, by a vote of two-thirds or three-fourths, as the case may be, of the
National Assembly. The President has also the right to convene the Assembly in special session
whenever he chooses. On the other hand, the National Assembly operates as a check on the Executive in
the sense that its consent through its Commission on Appointments is necessary in the appointments of
certain officers; and the concurrence of a majority of all its members is essential to the conclusion of
treaties. Furthermore, in its power to determine what courts other than the Supreme Court shall be
established, to define their jurisdiction and to appropriate funds for their support, the National
Assembly controls the judicial department to a certain extent. The Assembly also exercises the judicial
power of trying impeachments. 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.
@ "judicial supremacy" which properly is the power of judicial review under the Constitution.
And when the judiciary mediates to allocate constitutional boundaries, it does not assert any superiority
over the other departments; it does not in reality nullify or invalidate an act of the legislature, but only
asserts the solemn and sacred obligation assigned to it by the Constitution to determine conflicting

claims of authority under the Constitution and to establish for the parties in an actual controversy the
rights which that instrument secures and guarantees to them.
The only instance when the Courts ought to interfere is when a department or an agency has acted with
grave abuse of discretion or violated a law.
@ Presumption of Constitutionality

Case: Perez vs. People

Rule: It is established doctrine that a statute should be construed whenever possible in harmony with,
rather than in violation of, the Constitution. The presumption is that the legislature intended to enact a
valid, sensible and just law and one which operates no further than may be necessary to effectuate the
specific purpose of the law.
@ Judicial power is the authority to settle justiciable controversies or disputes involving rights that are
enforceable and demandable before the courts of justice or the redress of wrongs for violations of such
right.
@ There is grave abuse of discretion (1) when an act is done contrary to the Constitution, the law or
jurisprudence; or (2) when it is executed whimsically, capriciously or arbitrarily out of malice, ill will or
personal bias. Thus, when seeking the corrective hand of certiorari, a clear showing of caprice and
arbitrariness in the exercise of discretion is imperative.
@ Functions of Judicial Review
1. Checking in validating a law or an executive act that is found to be contrary to the Constitution.
2. Legitimating (legitimizing) - upholding the validity of the law which results from a mere dismissal of a
case challenging the validity of that law.
it uses the double negative by declaring that the law is "not unconstitutional".
3. Symbolic - to educate the bench and bar as to the controlling principles and concepts on matters of
great public importance
@ Generally, courts decline jurisdiction over such case or dismiss it on ground of mootness. However,
Courts will decide cases, otherwisemoot and academic, if:
First, there is a grave violation of the Constitution;
Second, the exceptional character of the situation and the paramount public interest is involved;
Third, when the constitutional issue raised requires formulation of controlling principles to guide the
bench, the bar, and the public; and
fourth, the case is capable of repetition yet evading review.
@ The Supreme Court shall have the following powers:

2. Review, revise, reverse, modify, or affirm on appeal or certiorari, as the law or the Rules of Court may
provide, final judgments and orders of lower courts in
@ Effect of a Declaration of Unconstitutionality "When the courts declare a law to be inconsistent with
the Constitution, the former shall be void and the latter shall govern. The effect of a declaration that a
law is unconstitutional is to make the law either void or voidable.
Civil Code reflects the orthodox view that an unconstitutional act, whether legislative or executive, is not
a law, confers no rights, imposes no duties, and affords no protection. An unconstitutional act is not a
law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal
contemplation, inoperative, as if it had not been passed. It is therefore stricken from the statute books
and considered never to have existed at all.
Unorthodox view) - But a law declared unconstitutional is only voidable if, on its face, it enjoys the
presumption of validity. In this case, it becomes inoperative only upon the judicial declaration of its
invalidity.
That for a period of time such a statute, treaty, executive order, or ordinance was in "actual existence"
appears to be indisputable. What is more appropriate and logical then than to consider it as the doctrine
of "an operative fact."
@ Political Questions. , According to the court, what at first was a legal question became a political
question because it was overtaken by events
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."
A justiciable controversy refers to an existing case or controversy that is appropriate or ripe for judicial
determination, not one that is conjectural or merely anticipatory.
Judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights
which are legally demandable and enforceable, and to determine whether or not there has been a grave
abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or
instrumentality of the Government.
@ The elements of a state are: territory, people, sovereignty, government
Territory (Archipelagic Doctrine)
NATIONAL TERRITORY The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands
and waters embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or
jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed,
the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and

connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the
internal waters of the Philippines.
the baselines from which the territorial sea of the Philippines is determined consist of straight lines
joining appropriate points of the outermost islands of the archipelago; RA 3046 (as amnd by RA 5446)
The archipelagic doctrine has a two-fold purpose: (1) economic reasons; (2) national security. The
archipelagic doctrine is the principle that it is an integrated unit; everything within it comprises the
archipelago
Philippine archipelago and classified adjacent territories, namely, the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and
the Scarborough, as "regimes of islands" whose islands generated their own applicable maritime zones.