JARDELEZA v. SERENO, G.R. No.

213181 [733 SCRA 279]

August 19, 2014

FACTS: Associate Justice Roberto Abad was about to retire and the Judicial and Bar Coun-
cil (JBC) announce an opening for application and recommendation for the said vacancy.
Francis H. Jardeleza (Jardeleza), incumbent Solicitor General of the Republic was included
in the list of candidates. Hence, he was interviewed.

However, he received calls from some Justices that the Chief Justice herself – CJ Sereno,
will be invoking unanimity rule against him. It is invoked because Jardeleza’s integrity is in
question.

During the meeting, Justice Carpio disclosed a confidential information which characterized
Jardeleza’s integrity as dubious. Jardeleza answered that he would defend himself provided
that due process would be observed. His request was denied and he was not included in
the shortlist.

Hence, Jardeleza filed for certiorari and mandamus with prayer for TRO to compel the JBC
to include him in the list on the grounds that the JBC and CJ Sereno acted with grave abuse
of discretion in excluding him, despite having garnered a sufficient number of votes to qualify
for the position.

ISSUE: Whether or not the right to due process is available in the course of JBC proceedings
in cases where an objection or opposition to an application is raised.

HELD: Yes. While it is true that the JBC proceedings are sui generis, it does not automati-
cally denigrate an applicant’s entitlement to due process.

The Court does not brush aside the unique and special nature of JBC proceedings. Not-
withstanding being “a class of its own,” the right to be heard and to explain one’s self is
availing.
In cases where an objection to an applicant’s qualifications is raised, the observance of due
process neither contradicts the fulfillment of the JBC’s duty to recommend. This holding is
not an encroachment on its discretion in the nomination process. Actually, its adherence to
the precepts of due process supports and enriches the exercise of its discretion. When an
applicant, who vehemently denies the truth of the objections, is afforded the chance to pro-
test, the JBC is presented with a clearer understanding of the situation it faces, thereby
guarding the body from making an unsound and capricious assessment of information
brought before it. The JBC is not expected to strictly apply the rules of evidence in its as-
sessment of an objection against an applicant. Just the same, to hear the side of the person
challenged complies with the dictates of fairness because the only test that an exercise of
discretion must surmount is that of soundness.

Consequently, the Court is compelled to rule that Jardeleza should have been included in
the shortlist submitted to the President for the vacated position of Associate Justice Abad.
This consequence arose from the violation by the JBC of its own rules of procedure and the
basic tenets of due process.

True, Jardeleza has no vested right to a nomination, but this does not prescind from the fact
that the JBC failed to observe the minimum requirements of due process.
ZULUETA VS. COURT OF APPEALS, G.R. No. 107383 [253 SCRA 699]
Feb. 20,1996

DOCTRINE: The privacy of communication and correspondence shall be inviolable, except

upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order requires otherwise as pre-
scrbied by law.

FACTS: Petitioner Cecilia Zulueta is the wife of private respondent Alfredo Martin. On March
26, 1962, petitioner entered the clinic of her husband, a doctor of medicine, and in the pres-
ence of her mother, a driver and private respondent's secretary, forcibly opened the drawers
and cabinet of her husband's clinic and took 157 documents consisting of private respond-
ents between Dr. Martin and his alleged paramours, greeting cards, cancelled check, dia-
ries, Dr. Martin's passport, and photographs. The documents and papers were seized for
use in evidence in a case for legal separation and for disqualification from the practice of
medicine which petitioner had filed against her husband.

ISSUE: Whether or not the papers and other materials obtained from forcible entrusion and
from unlawful means are admissible as evidence in court regarding marital separation and
disqualification from medical practice.

HELD: Indeed the documents and papers in question are inadmissible in evidence. The
constitutional injuction declaring "the privacy of communication and correspondence to be
inviolable" is no less applicable simply because it is the wife (who thinks herself aggrieved
by her husband's infedility) who is the party against whom the constitutional provision is to
be enforced. The only exception to the prohibition in the constitution is if there is a "lawful
order from the court or which public safety or order require otherwise, as prescribed by law."
Any violation of this provision renders the evidence obtained inadmissible "for any purpose
in any proceeding."

The intimacies between husband and wife do not justify anyone of them in breaking the
drawers and cabinets of the other and in ransacking them for any telltale evidence of marital
infedility. A person, by contracting marriage, does not shed her/his integrity or her/his right
to privacy as an individual and the constitutional protection is ever available to him or to her.

The law insures absolute freedom of communication between the spouses by making it
privileged. Neither husband nor wife may testify for or against the other without the consent
of the affected spouse while the marriage subsists. Neither may be examined without the
consent of the other as to any communication received in confidence by one from the other
during the marriage, save for specified exceptions. But one thing is freedom of communica-
tion; quite another is a compulsion for each one to share what one knows with the other.
And this has nothing to do with the duty of fidelity that each owes to the other.