SC sets guidelines for establishing administrative warrants’ validity

MANILA, Philippines — To prevent administrative agencies or officers from legally performing oppressive acts, the Supreme Court (SC) established a set of conditions for administrative warrants to be considered valid and justified.

According to the SC on Friday, it recognizes the need to fix a set of guidelines regarding administrative warrants, which are writs directing or authorizing an administrative body to search for violations of administrative rules and regulations.

The following are the conditions laid by the court, which must be present and strictly complied with in validating and justifying administrative warrants:

• The danger, harm, or evil sought to be prevented by the warrant must be imminent and must be greater than the damage or injury which will be sustained by the one who shall be temporarily deprived of a right to liberty or property;
• The warrant’s resultant deprivation of a right or legitimate claim of entitlement must be temporary or provisional, aimed only at suppressing imminent danger, harm, or evil, with such deprivation’s permanency strictly subjected to procedural due process requirements;
• The issuing administrative authority must be empowered by law to perform specific implementing acts pursuant to regulatory purposes;
• The issuing administrative authority must be necessarily authorized by law to pass upon and make final pronouncements on conflicting rights and obligations of contending parties, as well as to issue warrants or orders that are incidental to the performance of the executive or administrative duty entrusted to it;
• The issuance of an administrative warrant must be based on tangible proof or probable cause and must state a specific purpose or infraction allegedly committed, with particular descriptions of the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized;
• The warrant issued must not pertain to a criminal offense or pursued as a precursor for the filing of criminal charges and any object seized pursuant to such writ shall not be admissible in evidence in any criminal proceeding;
• The person temporarily deprived of a right or entitlement by an administrative warrant shall be formally charged within a reasonable time, if no such period is provided, and shall not be denied access to a competent counsel of his or her choice. In cases where a person is deprived of liberty by virtue of an administrative warrant, the administrative body that issued said warrant shall immediately submit a verified notice to the RTC nearest to the detained for purposes of issuing a judicial commitment order; and
• A violation of any item of these guidelines is a prima facie proof of usurpation of judicial functions, malfeasance, misfeasance, nonfeasance, or graft and corrupt practices on the part of responsible officers.

The SC said that the establishment of the conditions above stemmed from the case of the Chinese National Yuan Wenle and his companions.

According to the SC, a Summary Deportation Order (SDO) was issued against Wenle in 2018 for being undocumented and undesirable. His and his companions’ passports were revoked by China for their supposed involvement in crimes within the country’s territory.

Wenle then filed a petition for habeas corpus, or protection against unlawful detention, claiming that their arrest was arbitrary and illegal. He argued that the SDO issued by the Bureau of Immigration (BI) was null and void as it was issued without notice and hearing, and not by a court of law.

Wenle’s petition was granted, the SC noted. The Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Manila ruled that his constitutional and statutory rights to due process were violated as “he was not afforded the chance to refute the charges against him in a hearing.”

However, the SC eventually nullified RTC’s ruling, after a certiorari—an order asking a higher court to review a lower court’s decision—was filed.

“Opting to resolve the issue of the constitutionality of administrative warrants in the instant case, the Court acknowledged that any doctrine It would hand out by choosing to resolve issues concerning administrative issuances such as administrative warrants without addressing the constitutional validity of such warrants themselves would amount to an ex post facto promulgation of doctrinal policies,” SC said in a press release.

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