GO TIAN CHAI, PETITIONER AND APPELLEE, VS. THE COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION, AND THE OVERSEER, DETENTION STATION OF THE BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION, RESPONDENTS AND APPELLANTS.

Go Tian Chai versus Commissioner of Immigration

The Case

This is the case of Go Tian Chai versus the Commissioner of Immigration. A Chinese national who had overstayed his temporary visitor's visa was ordered deported, and while awaiting actual removal he asked the courts for temporary liberty on bail. The case matters because it draws the line between the detention of a deportable alien, which the law allows, and the grant of bail, which the law leaves to the discretion of the Commissioner of Immigration and not to the courts.

Procedural History

Go Tian Chai filed a petition for habeas corpus in the Court of First Instance of Manila. The trial court denied the petition, finding that he had not yet been detained for an unreasonable length of time, but it ordered that if the Commissioner could not deport him within six months from the date of the order, he should be released on bail in such amount as the Commissioner might deem proper. Only the Commissioner appealed, and only from that portion of the decision ordering release on bail. The appeal went directly to the Supreme Court.

Facts

Go Tian Chai, a Chinese national, was admitted into the country as a temporary visitor on April 23, 1947. He failed to leave when his visa expired, despite several extensions, and so the immigration authorities arrested him on March 17, 1950. During the deportation proceedings against him he was temporarily released on bail.

On February 19, 1951, the Board of Commissioners of the Bureau of Immigration unanimously found that he had unlawfully overstayed and ordered his deportation to his country of origin on the first available transportation. The warrant of deportation was issued on March 8, 1951, but he was actually arrested and taken into custody only on October 8, 1962.

On November 26, 1962, while detained pending deportation to Formosa, he filed a petition for habeas corpus. He alleged that efforts of his counsel to secure his admission to Taiwan had been futile, and that the government was unlikely to effect his deportation in the near future. He prayed for temporary liberty on bail, invoking the ruling in Borovsky versus the Commissioner of Immigration that a foreign national, not an enemy, against whom no criminal charges had been filed and no judicial order issued, is entitled to protection against deprivation of liberty without due process of law.

Issues

• Whether or not a Chinese national duly found subject to deportation may be ordered released on bail during the pendency of negotiations between the Philippine Government and the Republic of Nationalist China for his readmission to China.
• Whether or not the courts may fix a period within which the Commissioner of Immigration must effect deportation, and order the alien's release on bail upon the expiration of that period.

Applicable Provisions

Section 37 (9) (e) of the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940 provides:

Any alien under arrest in a deportation proceeding may be released under bond or under such other conditions as may be imposed by the Commissioner of Immigration.

This provision is the pivot of the case: it confers on the Commissioner, not on the alien, the power to grant bail, and the permissive word "may" makes that power discretionary.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that there is nothing unjust in the detention of unlawfully overstaying Chinese nationals pending their actual deportation. Such detention is in accordance with Philippine law, and its continuance is through no fault of the government or its officials. The Court relied on its earlier ruling in Tan Seng Pao versus the Commissioner of Immigration, where it said that if diplomatic negotiations have not yielded tangible results leading to the immediate removal of the alien, the delay should not be considered a ground for declaring the order of deportation functus officio, that is, exhausted or no longer binding. Otherwise, the countries of undesirable aliens could frustrate deportation simply by refusing to receive them. Unlike the alien in Borovsky, Go Tian Chai was not stateless; he had a known country, Formosa, to which he could be removed.

On the second issue, the Court held that the trial court erred in ordering release on bail after six months. Aliens in deportation proceedings have, as a rule, no inherent right to bail, and a person arrested or detained cannot be released on bail unless that right is granted expressly by law. The Court quoted its earlier ruling with approval:

Note that this provision confers upon the Commissioner of Immigration the power and discretion to grant bail in deportation proceedings, but does not grant to aliens the right to be released on bail. The use of the word 'may' in said provision indicates that the grant of bail is merely permissive and not mandatory or obligatory on the part of the Commissioner.

The determination of the propriety of allowing a deportable alien temporary release on bail, and the conditions of that release, falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commissioner, not the courts, because the courts do not administer immigration laws.

Doctrine

First, a deportable alien has no inherent right to bail; release on bail in deportation proceedings is a matter of grace committed to the discretion of the Commissioner of Immigration under Section 37 (9) (e) of the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940, and the permissive word "may" confirms that the grant is discretionary, not obligatory.

Second, the courts may not fix a period for deportation and order the alien's release on bail upon its expiration, because the courts do not administer immigration laws.

Third, the detention of an unlawfully overstaying alien pending actual deportation is lawful, and delay caused by diplomatic negotiations, through no fault of the government, does not render the deportation order functus officio or entitle the alien to release.

Disposition

The Commissioner of Immigration won: the portion of the trial court's decision ordering release on bail was annulled and set aside, and the dismissal of the petition for habeas corpus was affirmed.

Remember This

Remember the line that bail for a deportable alien is a privilege granted by the Commissioner, never a right demandable from the courts. Examiners use this case to test the limits of judicial interference in immigration matters and the distinction between the discretionary bail power and the alien's lack of an inherent right to liberty on bail.