G.R. No. 1853. April 16, 1904

The defendant, John P. Miller, was accused in the Court of Customs
Appeals with having on or about the 8th day of September, 1903, at the
city of Manila, P.I., conspired with one W.D. Ballentine and others
for the purpose of uttering and publishing a false and fraudulent
Chinese certificate of permission and identification, with intent to
deceive and defraud the Government of the United States and of the
Philippine Islands, and to secure admission into the Philippine Islands
of a Chinese person not entitled by law to enter the same.

The defendant was tried in that court and was acquitted.

The Government appealed to this court from the judgment of
acquittal. The defendant made a motion to dismiss this appeal on the
ground that an appeal does not lie from a judgment of acquittal by the
Court of Customs Appeals.

By section 18 of Act No. 136 it is provided that the Supreme Court
shall have appellate jurisdiction of all actions and special
proceedings brought to it from Courts of First Instance, and from other tribunals, from whose judgment the law shall specially provide appeals to the Supreme Court.

Section 290 of Act No. 355, before it was amended by Act No. 864,
provided that no appeal could be taken from the decision of the
Collector of Customs imposing a fine or penalty * * * except in cases
where the amount of the fine or penalty exceeded $500, in which case an
appeal could be taken to the Court of Customs Appeals.

Section 291 of Act No. 355 provides that whenever the penalty of
imprisonment is imposed for violation of the terms of the act, it shall
be the duty of the Attorney-General to institute in proper cases before
the Court of Customs Appeals proceedings in the ordinary form of
criminal prosecutions for the conviction of the person charged, and
that court shall have the power to try and determine the question of
the guilt or innocence of the defendant and impose sentence, and its decision shall be final.

So that prior to the passage of Act No. 864 there could be no appeal
from decisions of the Court of Customs Appeals to this court.

By section 4 of this latter act, amending section 290 of Act No.
355, it is provided that from a judgment of the Court of Customs
Appeals, in criminal causes, there Shall be a right of appeal to the
Supreme Court in every case in which the penalty of imprisonment or a
fine exceeding 600 Philippine pesos, exclusive of costs, is adjudged
against the defendant.

“In all other criminal cases, including those in
which imprisonment is adjudged, in default of payment of a fine, the
judgment of the Court of Customs Appeals shall be final.”

The case at bar comes within the terms of this last paragraph of the section.

The defendant was acquitted and there appears to be no provision of
law authorizing the Government to appeal from a judgment of acquittal.

If the legislators intended to give authority to take an appeal from
a judgment of acquittal, it would have been an easy matter to so state.
On the contrary they expressly provided that in such case “the judgment
of the Court of Customs Appeals is final.”

The right to appeal is purely a statutory right; and a party who
brings an action does not, by such act, acquire a vested right to a
decision from a particular tribunal. (Elliot’s Appellate Procedure,
sec. 15; Ex Parte McCardle, 7 Wallace U. S., 506; Patterson vs. Philbrook, 9 Mass.,151.)

The law-making body may regulate the entire system of appellate
procedure. The method required by this body is exclusive, and courts
can not disregard it or substitute therefor their own rules of
procedure.

From the fact that the Commission provided for the right of appeal
from judgments of imprisonment, or where a fine exceeding 600 pesos was
imposed, it is to be inferred that the intention was to deny the right
of appeal in all other cases, even if that fact were not so expressly
stated in the act, as it is here. (Duronsseau vs. U. S., 6 Cranch., 312.)

As the judgment of acquittal in this case is not appealable, the motion to dismiss the appeal is granted.

Arellano, C.J., Torres, Mapa, and Johnson, JJ., concur.