JOSE JESUS M. DISINI, JR., ROWENA S. DISINI, LIANNE IVY P. MEDINA, JANETTE TORAL AND ERNESTO SONIDO, JR., PETITIONERS, VS. THE SECRETARY OF JUSTICE, THE SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTM…

Disini versus the Secretary of Justice

The Case

This is the Supreme Court's resolution of the motions for reconsideration filed against its earlier decision on the constitutionality of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. The petitioners are a group of citizens, bloggers, and netizens led by Jose Jesus Disini, Junior, while the respondents are the Secretary of Justice, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, and other public officials. The Court had earlier struck down several provisions of the law as unconstitutional while upholding others, and both sides now ask the Court to change its mind. This case matters because it settles, with finality, that the government may regulate speech in cyberspace, that online libel is not protected speech, and that the heavier penalty for crimes committed through information and communication technology is a valid exercise of the legislative power to fix penalties.

Procedural History

The petitioners filed a petition before the Supreme Court assailing the constitutionality of several provisions of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. The Court, in its decision of February 18, 2014, declared certain provisions invalid and unconstitutional but upheld the validity of the others. The petitioners and the respondents, through the Office of the Solicitor General, each filed motions for reconsideration of that decision. The Court, finding no substantial arguments to warrant a reversal, denied both motions with finality.

Facts

Congress enacted Republic Act 10125, the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, to regulate the use of and access to the internet and to punish crimes committed through information and communication technology. Among its provisions, Section 4 penalizes online libel, and Section 6 provides that crimes under the Revised Penal Code and special laws, when committed through information and communication technology, carry a penalty one degree higher than that provided by law.

Various petitioners challenged the law before the Supreme Court, raising concerns that Section 6 and the online libel provision violate the freedom of speech and expression. The Court issued its decision on February 18, 2014, invalidating some provisions and upholding others, including Section 6 and Section 4, paragraph c, subparagraph 4.

Both the petitioners and the respondents moved for reconsideration. The petitioners argued that Section 6 produces an unusual chilling effect on cyberspace users, that the term information and communication technology is undefined, and that the stiffer penalty for online libel violates free expression. The respondents likewise sought reconsideration of portions of the decision. The Court resolved both motions in this resolution.

Issues

• Whether or not Section 6 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act is invalid for producing a chilling effect on the freedom of expression of cyberspace users.
• Whether or not Section 6 is invalid because the term information and communication technology is not defined in the law.
• Whether or not Section 6 violates the equal protection clause.
• Whether or not the increase in the prescriptive periods for cybercrimes is valid.
• Whether or not Section 4, paragraph c, subparagraph 4, which penalizes online libel, is unconstitutional for being vague and overbroad and for trampling upon the right to free expression.

Applicable Provisions

Section 6 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act provides:

All crimes defined and penalized by the Revised Penal Code, as amended, and special laws, if committed by, through and with the use of information and communications technologies shall be covered by the relevant provisions of this Act: Provided, That the penalty to be imposed shall be one degree higher than that provided for by the Revised Penal Code, as amended, and special laws, as the case may be.

This provision is the core of the controversy, because it raises by one degree the penalty for crimes committed through information and communication technology, including online libel.

Article 355 of the Revised Penal Code provides for libel the penalty of prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods. The Court discussed this penalty to show how Section 6 increases it, but the provision itself is not quoted in full in the decision.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that Section 6 does not produce an unconstitutional chilling effect. The power to fix penalties for violations of penal laws exclusively belongs to Congress. Section 6 merely makes the commission of existing crimes through the internet a qualifying circumstance that raises the penalty by one degree. This is not arbitrary, because a substantial distinction exists between crimes committed through information and communication technology and similar crimes committed using conventional means. The United Nations Special Rapporteur, Frank La Rue, acknowledged that the internet has unique characteristics such as speed, worldwide reach, and relative anonymity, which justify regulation to protect the most vulnerable.

On the second issue, the Court held that the absence of a definition of information and communication technology does not invalidate Section 6. Statutes should not be read in isolation from one another. The parameters of that term exist in many other laws, and these, along with common usage, provide the needed boundary within which the law may be applied.

On the third issue, the Court held that Section 6 does not violate the equal protection clause. A substantial distinction exists between crimes committed through information and communication technology and those committed through conventional means. Cybercrimes are more perverse because they cross national boundaries, allow anonymity, and embolden offenders to reach more victims or cause greater harm.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that prescription is not a matter of procedure but substantive law, since it assumes the existence of the authority to punish a wrong, which the Constitution vests in Congress alone. Congress may provide a variety of periods for the prescription of offenses as it sees fit. What it cannot do is pass a law that extends the periods of prescription to impact crimes committed before its passage.

On the fifth issue, the Court held that online libel is not a new crime but the old crime of libel found in the 1930 Revised Penal Code, transposed to operate in cyberspace. Libel is not protected speech. As early as 1912, the Court held that libel is a form of expression not protected by the Constitution. The Court quoted the United States Supreme Court in Chaplinsky versus New Hampshire:

Allowing the broadest scope to the language and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or fighting words, those which, by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution, and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument.

The Court also held that the constitutional guarantee against prior restraint and subsequent punishment, the requirement of actual malice, and the protection afforded by privileged communications ensure that protected speech remains protected. Any vagueness in the online libel provision has long been settled by precedents.

Doctrine

The power to fix the penalties for violations of penal laws exclusively belongs to Congress. The legislature may validly impose a penalty one degree higher for crimes committed through information and communication technology, because a substantial distinction exists between cybercrimes and conventional crimes. Statutes should not be read in isolation from one another; the parameters of a term used in one law may be supplied by other laws and by common usage. Prescription is substantive law, not procedural law, and Congress may provide a variety of periods for the prescription of offenses, provided it does not extend the periods to impact crimes committed before the passage of the law. Libel is not protected speech; it belongs to those forms of speech that have never attained constitutional protection. Online libel is not a new crime but the old crime of libel transposed to cyberspace, and the jurisprudence securing freedom of expression from the reach of libel applies to it.

Disposition

The Court denied with finality the motions for reconsideration filed by both the petitioners and the respondents for lack of merit, thereby upholding the constitutionality of Section 6 and Section 4, paragraph c, subparagraph 4 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

Remember This

Remember that the power to fix penalties belongs exclusively to Congress, and that a one degree higher penalty for crimes committed through information and communication technology is valid because cybercrimes are substantially distinct from conventional crimes. Examiners like to use this case to test the limits of the freedom of expression in cyberspace and the rule that libel is not protected speech.