TAADA VS.

TUVERA 136 SCRA 27 (April 24, 1985) FACTS: Invoking the right of the people to be informed on matters of public concern as well as the principle that laws to be valid and enforceable must be published in the Official Gazette, 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. The Solicitor General, representing the respondents, moved for the dismissal of the case, contending that petitioners have no legal personality to bring the instant petition. ISSUE: Whether or not publication in the Official Gazette is required before any law or statute becomes valid and enforceable. HELD: Art. 2 of the Civil Code does not preclude the requirement of publication in the Official Gazette, even if the law itself provides for the date of its effectivity. The clear object of this provision is to give the general public adequate notice of the various laws which are to regulate their actions and conduct as citizens. Without such notice and publication, there would be no basis for the application of the maxim ignoratia legis nominem excusat. It would be the height of injustive 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 1 of CA 638 reads: there shall be published in the Official Gazette. The word shall therein imposes upon respondent officials an imperative duty. That duty must be enforced if the constitutional right of the people to be informed on matter of public concern is to be given substance and validity. The publication of presidential issuances of public nature or of general applicability is a requirement of due process. It is a rule of law that before a person may be bound by law, he must first be officially and specifically informed of its contents. The Court declared that presidential issuances of general application which have not been published have no force and effect.

TAADA VS. TUVERA 146 SCRA 446 (December 29, 1986)

FACTS: This is a motion for reconsideration of the decision promulgated on April 24, 1985. Respondent argued that while publication was necessary as a rule, it was not so when it was otherwise as when the decrees themselves declared that they were to become effective immediately upon their approval. ISSUES: 1. Whether or not a distinction be made between laws of general applicability and laws which are not as to their publication; 2. Whether or not a publication shall be made in publications of general circulation. HELD: The clause unless it is otherwise provided refers to the date of effectivity and not to the requirement of publication itself, which cannot in any event be omitted. This clause does not mean that the legislature may make the law effective immediately upon approval, or in any other date, without its previous publication. Laws should refer to all laws and not only to those of general application, for strictly speaking, all laws relate to the people in general albeit there are some that do not apply to them directly. A law without any bearing on the public would be invalid as an intrusion of privacy or as class legislation or as an ultra vires act of the legislature. To be valid, the law must invariably affect the public interest eve if it might be directly applicable only to one individual, or some of the people only, and not to the public as a whole. All statutes, including those of local application and private laws, shall be published as a condition for their effectivity, which shall begin 15 days after publication unless a different effectivity date is fixed by the legislature. Publication must be in full or it is no publication at all, since its purpose is to inform the public of the content of the law. Article 2 of the Civil Code provides that publication of laws must be made in the Official Gazette, and not elsewhere, as a requirement for their effectivity. The Supreme Court is not called upon to rule upon the wisdom of a law or to repeal or modify it if it finds it impractical. The publication must be made forthwith, or at least as soon as possible. J. Cruz: Laws must come out in the open in the clear light of the sun instead of skulking in the shadows with their dark, deep secrets. Mysterious pronouncements and rumored rules cannot be recognized as binding unless their existence and contents are confirmed by a valid publication

intended to make full disclosure and give proper notice to the people. The furtive law is like a scabbarded saber that cannot faint, parry or cut unless the naked blade is drawn. CASE DIGEST: GR. No. 18081 March 3, 1922 Mora Adong, petitioner and appellant vs. Cheong Seng Gee, opponent and appellant Agpalos Statutory Construction quoted this case to wit: The policy of the law, once ascertained should be given effect by the judiciary. One way of accomplishing this mandate is to give a statute of doubtful meaning, a construction that will promote public policy. FACTS: Cheong Boo, a native of China died in Zamboanga, Philippine Islands on August 5, 1919 and left property worth nearly P100,000 which is now being claimed by two parties - (1) Cheong Seng Gee who alleged that he was a legitimate child by marriag contracted by Cheong Boo with Tan Bit in China in 1985, and (2) Mora Adong who alleged that she had been lawfully married to Cheong Boo in 1896 in Basilan, Philippine Islands and had two daughters with the deceased namely Payang and Rosalia. The conflicting claims to Cheong Boos estate were ventilated in the lower court that ruled that Cheong Seng Gee failed to sufficiently establish the Chinese marriage through a mere letter testifying that Cheong Boo and Tan Bit married each other but that because Cheong Seng Gee had been admitted to the Philippine Islands as the son of the deceased, he should share in the estate as a natural child. With reference to the allegations of Mora Adong and her daughters, the trial court reached the conclusion that the marriage between Adong and Cheong Boo had been adequately proved but that under the laws of the Philippine Islands it could not be held to be a lawful marriage and thus the daughter Payang and Rosalia would inherit as natural children. The lower court believes that Mohammedan marriages are not valid under the Philippine Islands laws this as an Imam as a solemnizing officer and under Quaranic laws. ISSUES: Whether or not the Chinese marriage between Cheong Boo and Tan Dit is valid Whether or not the Mohammedan marriage between Cheong Boo and Mora Adong is valid RULING: The Supreme Court found the (1) Chinese marriage not proved and Chinaman Cheong Seng Gee has only the rights of a natural child while (2) it found the Mohammedan marriage to be proved and to be valid, thus giving to the widow Mora Adong and the legitimate children Payang and Rosalia the rights accruing to them under the law. HELD: (FOR STATCON) The Supreme Court held that marriage in this jurisdiction is not only a civil contract but it is a new relation, an instruction in the maintenance of which the public is deeply interested. Ads by Google Free PDF Converter Convert Doc to Pdf, Pdf to Doc. Get The Free Converter App Now! www.FromDocToPdf.com Free Online Radio Listen to Free Streaming Internet Radio Now with the Radio Toolbar www.RadioRage.com The presumption as to marriage is that every intendment of the law leans toward legalizing matrimony. Persons dwelling together in apparent matrimony are presumed, in the absence of counter-presumption or evidence special to the case, to be in fact married. The reason is that such is the common order of society, and if the parties were not what they thus hold themselves out as being, they would be living in the constant violation of decency of the law. As to retroactive force, marriage laws is in the nature of a curative provision intended to safeguard society by legalizing prior marriages. Public policy should aid acts intended to validate marriages and

should retard acts intended to invalidate marriages. This as for public policy, the courts can properly incline the scales of their decision in favor of that solution which will most effectively promote the public policy. That is the true construction which will best carry legislative intention into effect. (FOR PERSONS) Sec. IV of the Marriage law provides that all marriages contracted outside the islands, which would be valid by the laws of the country in which the same were contracted, are valid in these islands. To establish a valid foreign marriage pursuant to this comity provision, it is first necessary to prove before the courts ofthe Islands the existence of the foreign law as a question of fact, and it is then necessary to prove the alleged foreign marriage by convincing evidence. A Philippine marriage followed by 23 years of uninterrupted marital life, should not be impugned and discredited, after the death of the husband through an alleged prior Chinese marriage, save upon proof so clear, strong and unequivocal as to produce a moral conviction of the existence of such impediment. A marriage alleged to have been contracted in China and proven mainly by a so-called matrimonial letter held not to be valid in the Philippines. Source: http://www.shvoong.com/law-and-politics/1752826-case-digest-adong-vscheong/#ixzz2WMwvXeDt