CONSTITUTIONAL CONSTRUCTION SEMINAR

What is a Constitution?

A fundamental law, established by the people in their sovereign capacity, which prescribes a permanent framework of government, establishes fixed principles upon which the latter is founded upon, and defines, delimits, and delegates the powers thereof and those of its officers. It is supreme, imperious, and unalterable, except upon the authority of the people from which its ultimate authority emanates.

All laws that a government enacts and subsequently executes are naturally considered subservient to it. If not, it will be deemed unconstitutional and considered to be void for being repugnant to the supreme law of the land.

Why is Constitutional Construction important? The purpose of constitutional construction itself

is to not only make sure that a Constitutions provisions are properly interpreted in accordance to the fundamental objective of the organic law, but also, to give force and effect to the intent of its framers which is embodied within a Constitution itself. As future lawyers, it is important to learn how to properly construe the Constitution to adequately defend the rights of ones clients.

It is a skill that is welcomed in any of the three branches of government, be it with the Legislative, Executive, or Judiciary, pursuant to their duties to make, enforce, and interpret laws which do not run contrary to the Constitution.

How do you construe the Constitution?

Construe them in light of present circumstances; the Constitution is meant to be applied not only to the present, but future situations as well. This is not math; there is no fixed formula to follow. It is not a debate either; the words of the Constitution cannot be construed too flexibly just to support ones point.

Guidelines to Construction

The main rule in Constitutional Construction is to establish an effect of the actual intent and purpose of the law written by a competent authority in a way that is accepted by the people who have ratified it. The purpose and intent of its provisions can be gleamed from the actual language of the Constitution itself since it is considered to be its own primary source. Its words should be interpreted in a broad sense and are to be given their general and ordinary meaning, unless technical terms are employed, in which case the latter definition will prevail. The reason why words in the Constitution are given their general meaning is that the Constitution itself is for the people, written in a language understandable by them to facilitate its continued presence in the consciousness of those which gave it power and authority.

Ordillo v. COMELEC

On January 30, 1990, the people of the provinces of Benguet, Mountain Province, Ifugao, Abra and Kalinga-Apayao and the city of Baguio cast their votes in a plebiscite held pursuant to Republic Act No. 6766 providing for the creation of the Cordillera Autonomous Region. Only the Ifugao province ratified while the rest rejected it. Despite the overwhelming loss, the existence of the autonomous region was still deemed ratified by COMELEC, but only insofar as the province of Ifugao is concerned. The petitioners, all members of the Cordillera Regional Assembly, filed a case to render decision of the COMELEC void for being contrary to the Constitution. The Court upheld the petition, saying that the word region, as used in Sec. 15, Art. X of the 1987 Constitution, by its ordinary definition refers to a grouping of more than one province. Ifugao alone cannot constitute the whole CAR.

With respect to words, another settled rule in the art of construing the language of the Constitution is that words or phrases which were used in one part of the Constitution should also be given the same interpretation unless otherwise provided. Where words have both restricted and general meanings, the general meaning prevails over the restricted meaning unless the context in which they are employed indicate a limited interpretation of such a word. When the provision of the Constitution seems to be ambiguous, the words should be read in accordance with the spirit of the provision of Constitution itself, what it seeks to accomplish, and the evil it seeks to prevent. Every provision in a Constitution should be read as a whole and not merely as isolated parts of a bigger law.

Marcos v. Chief of Staff

The case itself is composed of two special civil actions of mandamus instituted by the same petitioners, both of whom are members of the House of Representatives, against the respondents General CourtMartials composed of different members or officers of the Philippine army. The cases alleged that the respondent military tribunals unlawfully excluded them from the enjoyment of their right to appear as counsel for the accused who are prosecuted before the said tribunals a right to which they claim are entitled to because they are attorneys who have duly admitted to practice law in the Philippines on the ground that they are disqualified by reason of Section 17, Article 17 of the Constitution to appear as counsel for said defendants. The Court ruled that the word any court in the cited provision refer to all courts, including Courts-Martial, since it is the normal interpretation of the words in the absence of any other qualifying detail or context in which it is used.