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; and
4. 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 cases
2. 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; and
5. 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.
XXX
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 judges 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.