WHILE the Ombudsman is no longer spared from judicial review in investigating those in government, officials may no longer invoke reelection to evade administrative liabilities, the Inquirer learned Tuesday.
The Supreme Court en banc issued the ruling Tuesday, according to court sources, giving points for both Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales and Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay Jr. in resolving the former’s plea to stop Court of Appeals’ (CA) proceedings on the latter’s petition against his suspension for his alleged role in overpricing of Makati City Hall Building II.
The ruling has not been officially released.
On the one hand, the high court struck down as unconstitutional Section 14 of the Ombudsman Act of 1989, which had spared the office from the issuance of writ of injunctions by courts and from “any appeal of application for remedy” against its decisions or findings before any court, sources privy to Tuesday’s proceedings said.
Voting unanimously to invalidate such a provision, the magistrates gave courts the “limited” power to review rulings of the Office of the Ombudsman in case its actions are confronted with charges of “grave abuse of discretion only.”
The court remanded the case to the Court of Appeals, giving it the green light to proceed with determining whether Morales had gravely abused her discretion in suspending Binay pending its investigation on the Makati City Hall Building II anomaly.
In October, pending petitions before the CA and high court, Morales ordered Binay’s dismissal from service for grave misconduct and dishonesty, citing “irregularities in the services and contract for the construction in several phases of the parking building.”
On the other hand, the high court abandoned the condonation doctrine, a principle that effectively extinguishes an elected official’s administrative liabilities from wrongdoing in his or her previous term by virtue of reelection.
Binay’s legal team had invoked the doctrine in asserting that the mayor should no longer be held administratively accountable for alleged irregularities in a previous term because he was reelected.
Sources said the principle was “abandoned because it is no longer consistent with the Constitution and lacked solid legal basis.” Magistrates voted 7-3 to exorcise Philippine jurisprudence of the principle.
The doctrine, which Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno had described as an “unfortunate doctrine… based on bad case law” during oral arguments on the case in April, was based on American jurisprudence.
It first cropped up in Philippine law in a 1959 Supreme Court ruling, which absolved a San Jose, Nueva Ecija, mayor from administrative charges when he was reelected.
Sereno had centered on the doctrine in her interpellation of Binay’s legal team in April, telling counsel Sandra Marie Olaso-Coronel: “We believe that this is wrong and you are telling us to continue along that doctrine? You will insist on a rule of procedure that will wreak havoc on our constitutional framework?”
Before his dismissal, Binay also challenged a second suspension order that Morales issued against him in June, this time for his alleged role in the supposed rigged bidding for the construction of the 10-story Makati Science High School building.
The mayor stepped down on July 1, after failing to secure an immediate temporary restraining order from CA’s Ninth Division.