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| Is Congress Violating the Law? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 30 2010, 12:51 PM (344 Views) | |
| GenoVee | Sep 30 2010, 12:51 PM Post #1 |
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Can we really blame the Supreme Court for the looming Constitutional crisis brought about by the refusal of some members of the House of Representatives to follow its order stopping the impeachment proceedings against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez? I am asking this question because Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II is reported as saying that if ever there is any animosity between the tribunal and the lower house of Congress at this point, the Supreme Court has no one else to blame but itself because it was the one that stopped Congress from performing its exclusive power to impeach erring officials. That kind of a statement, from a lawmaker at that, presupposes that the Supreme Court did not have the power to issue an order against a co-equal branch of government. But this is an erroneous supposition, because under our legal system, the Supreme Court has been given the power to issue orders even against a co-equal branch of government, in the discharge of its duties and responsibilities. This is, in fact, the "law" established for all of us by the 1936 case of "Jose A. Angara vs. The Electoral Commission, et. al.", G.R. No. L-45081, July 15, 1936, where the Supreme Court ruled: "The separation of powers is a fundamental principle in our system of government. It obtains not through express provision but by actual division in our Constitution. "Each department of the government has exclusive cognizance of matters within its jurisdiction, and is supreme within its own sphere. But it does not follow from the fact 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 same case also clarified this rule: "The Constitution is a definition of the powers of government. Who is to determine the nature, scope and extent of such powers? The Constitution itself has provided for the instrumentality of the judiciary as the rational way. "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. "…(It) 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…" SOURCE: Atty. Batas Mauricio |
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2:12 AM Jul 11