Last week, the Supreme Court demonstrated that legal doctrines are not cast in stone but, in fact, move with the times to respond to current realities. In ruling on the case involving Makati Mayor Junjun Binay whose suspension from office as mayor by the Ombudsman was restrained by the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court said the Appeals Court did not commit grave abuse of discretion.
The Supreme Court said that the Court of Appeals cannot be faulted for applying the condonation doctrine in Binay’s case as it remained in effect as a good case law until abandoned by the Supreme Court. To explain, the condonation doctrine has been in effect as far back as the mid-fifties and reiterated by the Supreme Court in several more cases, the most notable of which was that of Aguinaldo vs. Santos in 1992—the reason why it is often referred to as the Aguinaldo doctrine. The doctrine says that a reelected public official cannot be removed for misconduct committed during a prior or previous term. As the word condonation suggests, an elective official’s reelection operates as a forgiveness of the officer’s misconduct during a previous term. Reelection is the manifestation of the people’s will. The rationale for this condonation doctrine originated from American authorities, specifically the 1887 case of Conant v Brogan.
The Supreme Court in the Aguinaldo case explained that a public officer should never be removed for acts done prior to his present term of office. “To do otherwise would be to deprive the people of their right to elect their officers. When the people have elected a man to office, it must be assumed that they did this with the knowledge of his life and character, and that they disregarded or forgave his fault or misconduct, if he had been guilty of any. It is not for the court, by reason of such fault or misconduct, to practically overrule the will of the people.” However, the electorate’s power to condone the misdeeds of an elected official doctrine in his previous term is limited only to administrative misconduct, not to criminal acts committed by a reelected official during his previous term. Thus, the pendency of a criminal case may be the legal basis for the suspension or removal from office in a subsequent term if an elective official gets reelected.
Essentially, the doctrine says that if a public official is not removed for his misconduct during his term of office, he can no longer be removed if he is thereafter reelected for another term. In other words, removal cannot extend beyond the term during which the alleged misconduct was committed.
In the case of Junjun Binay, while the Supreme Court was left with no choice but to apply the doctrine to him, it declared that the doctrine abandoned and can no longer be invoked by public officials in the future. In the same case, the Supreme Court also ruled that the second paragraph of Section 14, Republic Act 6770 or The Ombudsman Act of 1989 is deemed unconstitutional. The paragraph reads: “No court shall hear any appeal or application for remedy against the decision or findings of the Ombudsman, except the Supreme Court, on pure question of law.” The Court said that by limiting the power of all other courts over any investigation by the Ombudsman, Congress has eliminated a provisional remedy included in the Rules of Court, effectively violating the doctrine of separation of powers by the three branches of government.
To lawyers and students of law, the ruling in the Junjun Binay case is a positive development in jurisprudence as it shows the dynamism of the Supreme Court. After all, our electoral system is so flawed that a candidate running for reelection may get reelected without the greater number of people ever knowing that he has committed misconduct for which he should be made accountable. Unless his misconduct immediately gets public attention, his getting reelected cannot be a gauge of forgiveness or condonation by the people. The picture would have been quite different had there been a Freedom of Information Law in effect to give people access to information about the goings-on in government.
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