TAADA VS.

TUVERA 136 SCRA 27 (April 24, 1985) FACTS: The petitioners filed for writ of mandamus to compel respondent public officials to publish and/or cause to publish various presidential decrees, letters of instructions, general orders, proclamations, executive orders, letters of implementations and administrative orders, invoking that the people has the right to be informed on matters of public concern, a right recognized in Section 6, Article IV of the 1973 Philippine Constitution as well as the principle that in order for laws to be valid and enforceable, these must be published in the Official Gazette. The Solicitor General in behalf of the respondents, contends that the petitioners have no legal personality to bring the instant petition. Thus, Solicitor General moved to dismiss the case. ISSUE: Whether or not before any law or statute becomes valid and enforceable, publication in the Official Gazette is required. RULING: Yes. The clear object of the provision in Article 2 of the Civil Code that even the law itself provides for the date of its effectivity, the general public should be given adequate notice of the various laws which are to regulate their actions and conduct as citizens by having these published in the Official Gazette. There would be no basis for the application of the latin maxim ignoratia legis nominem excusat in the absence of such notice and publication. It would be the height of injustice to punish or otherwise burden a citizen for the transgression of a law which he had no notice whatsoever, not even a constructive one. The very first clause of Section I of Commonwealth Act 638 reads: "There shall be published in the Official Gazette ... ." The word shall imposes an imperative duty which must be enforced if the constitutional right of the people to be informed on matters of public concern is to be given substance and reality. This is the requirement of due process. The implementation/enforcement of presidential decrees prior to their publication in the Official Gazette is "an operative fact which may have consequences which cannot be justly ignored. The past cannot always be erased by a new judicial declaration ... that an all-inclusive statement of a principle of absolute retroactive invalidity cannot be justified." The Court hereby orders respondents to publish in the Official Gazette all unpublished presidential issuances which are of general application, and unless so published, they shall have no binding force and effect.