COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, PETITIONER, VS. HON.  TOMAS B. NOYNAY, ACTING PRESIDING JUDGE, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, BRANCH 23, ALLEN, NORTHERN SAMAR, AND DIOSDADA F. AMOR, ESBEL CHUA,…

Commission on Elections versus Noynay

The Case

This is a special civil action for certiorari with mandamus brought by the Commission on Elections against Judge Tomas B. Noynay, in his capacity as Acting Presiding Judge of Branch 23 of the Regional Trial Court of Allen, Northern Samar, and against several private respondents who were charged with election offenses. The Commission asks the Supreme Court to set aside the judge's orders withdrawing the criminal cases from his own court and directing that they be filed instead with the appropriate Municipal Trial Court. The case matters because it settles a question every student of remedial law and election law must answer: did the law expanding the jurisdiction of the lower trial courts strip the Regional Trial Courts of their exclusive original jurisdiction over election offenses? The Court answers no, and in doing so teaches the enduring rule that a general amendatory law does not repeal a special law that vests jurisdiction in a particular court.

Procedural History

The Commission on Elections, through its Minute Resolution, authorized the filing of informations for violation of the Omnibus Election Code against the private respondents, who were a public school principal and two public school teachers. Nine informations were filed with Branch 23 of the Regional Trial Court of Allen, Northern Samar. Acting on his own initiative, the respondent judge issued an order withdrawing the records of the cases and directing the Commission's Law Department to file them with the appropriate Municipal Trial Court, on the ground that the maximum imposable penalty did not exceed six years of imprisonment. The Commission's Regional Director for Region Eight and the Commission itself separately moved for reconsideration, and both motions were denied. The Commission then came directly to the Supreme Court by a special civil action for certiorari with mandamus. The Court required the respondents and the Office of the Solicitor General to comment; the Solicitor General adopted the petition as its own, and the private respondents defended the challenged orders. The Court gave due course to the petition and decided it.

Facts

In its Minute Resolution of 29 October 1996, the Commission on Elections resolved to file an information for violation of Section 261, paragraph i, of the Omnibus Election Code against Diosdada Amor, a public school principal, and Esbel Chua and Ruben Magluyoan, both public school teachers. The charge was that they had engaged in partisan political activities. The Commission authorized its Regional Director in Region Eight to handle the prosecution.

Nine informations were then filed with Branch 23 of the Regional Trial Court of Allen, Northern Samar. Some were filed against all three respondents, some against two of them, and some against one alone.

On 25 August 1997, the respondent judge, on his own motion, ordered the records of the cases withdrawn and directed the Commission's Law Department to file them with the appropriate Municipal Trial Court. He reasoned that under Section 32 of the Judiciary Reorganization Act of 1980, as amended by the law expanding the jurisdiction of the lower trial courts, the Regional Trial Court had no jurisdiction, since the maximum imposable penalty in each case did not exceed six years of imprisonment. The Commission's motions for reconsideration were denied on 17 October 1997, and the Commission brought this petition.

Issues

• Whether or not the law expanding the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Trial Courts, Municipal Trial Courts, and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts has divested the Regional Trial Courts of their exclusive original jurisdiction over election offenses punishable with imprisonment of not more than six years.
• Whether or not the respondent judge acted correctly in withdrawing the cases from his court and directing their filing with the Municipal Trial Court.

Applicable Provisions

Section 268 of the Omnibus Election Code provides:

Section 268. Jurisdiction of courts. The regional trial court shall have the exclusive original jurisdiction to try and decide any criminal action or proceedings for violation of this Code, except those relating to the offense of failure to register or failure to vote which shall be under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan or municipal trial courts. From the decision of the courts, appeal will lie as in other criminal cases.

This is the special provision that vests exclusive original jurisdiction over election offenses in the Regional Trial Courts, and it is the provision the respondent judge failed to read.

Section 261, paragraph i, of the Omnibus Election Code, the offense charged, provides:

Section 261. Prohibited Acts. The following shall be guilty of an election offense: (i) Intervention of public officers and employees. Any officer or employee in the civil service, except those holding political offices; any officer, employee, or member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or any police forces, special forces, home defense forces, barangay self-defense units and all other para-military units that now exist or which may hereafter be organized who, directly or indirectly, intervenes in any election campaign or engages in any partisan political activity, except to vote or to preserve public order, if he is a peace officer.

This defines the offense with which the private respondents were charged.

Section 32 of the Judiciary Reorganization Act of 1980, as amended by the law expanding the jurisdiction of the lower trial courts, provides:

Section 32. Jurisdiction of Metropolitan Trial Courts, Municipal Trial Courts and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts in Criminal Cases. Except in cases falling within the exclusive original jurisdiction of Regional Trial Court and of the Sandiganbayan, the Metropolitan Trial Courts, Municipal Trial Courts, and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts shall exercise: (1) Exclusive original jurisdiction over all violations of city or municipal ordinances committed within their respective territorial jurisdiction; and (2) Exclusive original jurisdiction over all offenses punishable with imprisonment not exceeding six (6) years irrespective of the amount of fine, and regardless of other imposable accessory or other penalties, including the civil liability arising from such offenses or predicated thereon, irrespective of kind, nature, value or amount thereof: Provided, however, That in offenses involving damage to property through criminal negligence, they shall have exclusive original jurisdiction thereof.

The opening sentence of this provision carves out an exception, and the entire case turns on whether election offenses fall within that exception.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled that the Regional Trial Courts retain exclusive original jurisdiction over election offenses. The Court had already held, in Morales versus Court of Appeals, that by virtue of the exception in the opening sentence of Section 32, the exclusive original jurisdiction of the lower trial courts does not cover criminal cases which by specific provisions of law fall within the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Courts and of the Sandiganbayan, regardless of the penalty prescribed. Even if those excepted cases are punishable by imprisonment of not exceeding six years, jurisdiction over them is retained by the Regional Trial Courts or the Sandiganbayan. The Court held that election offenses fall within that exception because of Section 268 of the Omnibus Election Code.

The Court explained that jurisdiction is conferred by the Constitution or by Congress, and that outside the cases enumerated in the Constitution, Congress has the plenary power to define, prescribe, and apportion the jurisdiction of the various courts. Congress may provide by law that a certain class of cases should be exclusively heard and determined by one court. Such a law is a special law and must be construed as an exception to the general law on jurisdiction. The amendatory law is not a special law on jurisdiction; it is merely an amendatory law intended to amend specific sections of the Judiciary Reorganization Act of 1980. Hence it does not repeal laws vesting exclusive original jurisdiction in the Regional Trial Courts or the Sandiganbayan. The Court found it evident that Congress never intended such a repeal, because the amendatory law did not touch at all the opening sentence of Section 32 that provides for the exception.

On the second issue, the Court held that the respondent judge plainly did not read the opening sentence of Section 32. It took the occasion to remind him, and other judges, of the duty to be studious of the principles of law, to administer the office with due regard to the integrity of the system of the law itself, to be faithful to the law, and to maintain professional competence. The Court also admonished the Commission's counsel for carelessness: he misnamed the complainant in the case he cited, falsely represented the volume of the Supreme Court Reports Annotated in which it was published, and made it appear that the quoted passage was the Court's own ruling when it was in fact part of the memorandum of the Court Administrator quoted in the decision. The Court reminded him that a lawyer shall not knowingly misquote or misrepresent the text of a decision or authority.

Doctrine

A Bar candidate should retain these rules. First, the Regional Trial Courts have exclusive original jurisdiction to try and decide criminal actions for violation of the Omnibus Election Code, except those relating to failure to register or failure to vote, which belong to the metropolitan or municipal trial courts. Second, the exception in the opening sentence of Section 32 of the Judiciary Reorganization Act of 1980, as amended, preserves the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Courts and the Sandiganbayan over cases that specific laws place within their jurisdiction, regardless of the penalty prescribed. Third, a law that merely amends specific sections of a general jurisdiction law is not a special law on jurisdiction and does not repeal special laws vesting jurisdiction in particular courts. Fourth, jurisdiction is conferred only by the Constitution or by Congress, and Congress has the plenary power to define, prescribe, and apportion the jurisdiction of the various courts.

Disposition

The petition was granted; the challenged orders of the respondent judge were set aside, and he was directed to try and decide the cases with purposeful dispatch, while the Commission's counsel was admonished to be more careful in his duty to the court.

Remember This

Memorize this line: the amendatory law expanding the jurisdiction of the lower trial courts did not divest the Regional Trial Courts of their exclusive original jurisdiction over election offenses, because the opening sentence of Section 32 preserves the exception. Examiners use this case to test the interplay between a general jurisdiction law and a special law, and to test whether you know that election offenses are tried by the Regional Trial Courts and not by the Municipal Trial Courts.