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COME NOW defendants, by counsel and unto this Honorable Court, most
respectfully move to quash the information filed against the defendants
on the ground of lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter.
ARGUMENTS
Defendants are indicted for committing the crime of "Unjust Vexation"
that is punished under the Article 287, Paragraph 2 of the Revised Penal
Code; Said provision states that:
"Any other coercions or unjust vexations shall be punished by arresto
menor or a fine ranging from 5 pesos to 200 pesos, or both."(emphasis
ours)
"The maxim Nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege has its roots in history.
It is in accordance with both centuries of civil law and common law
tradition. Moreover, it is an indispensable corollary to a regime of liberty
enshrined in our Constitution. It is of the essence then that while antisocial acts should be penalized, there must be a clear definition of the
punishable offense as well as the penalty that may be imposed - a
penalty, to repeat, that can be fixed by the legislative body, and the
legislative body alone. So constitutionalism mandates, with its stress on
jurisdictio rather than guvernaculum. The judiciary as the dispenser of
justice through law must be aware of the limitation on its own power."
(emphasis and underscoring ours).
The rationale of said doctrine that a criminal or penal legislation must
clearly define or specify the particular act or acts punished is ably
explained by the United Stated Supreme Court in the case of LANZETTA
v. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, 306 U.S. 451, where it held that:
"x x x It is the statute, not the accusation under it, that prescribes the
rule to govern conduct and warns against transgression. x x x No one
may be required at peril of life, liberty or property to speculate as to the
meaning of penal statutes. All are entitled to be informed as to what the
State commands or forbids. x x x" (emphasis and underscoring ours).
Article 287, par. 2 of the Revised Penal Code condemns no SPECIFIC act
or omission!Therefore, it does not define any crime or felony.
Paragraph 2 of Article 287 of the Revised Penal Code does not define,
much less specify, the acts constituting or deemed included in the term
"unjust vexations" resulting to making the said provision a sort of a
"catch-all" provision patently offensive to the due process clause;
The right to define and punish crimes is an attribute of sovereignty. Each
State has the authority, under its police power, to define and punish
crimes and to lay down the rules of criminal procedure. Pursuant to this
power to define and punish crimes, the State may not punish an act as a
crime unless it is first defined in a criminal statute so that the people will
be forewarned as to what act is punishable or not. The people cannot be
left guessing at the meaning of criminal statutes;
e)In People v. Abuy, G.R. No. L-17616, May 30, 1962, the accused was
prosecuted for unjust vexation for the act of embracing and taking hold of
the wrist of the complainant;
f)In People v. Carreon, G.R. No. L-17920, May 30, 1962, accused was
convicted of unjust vexation by the act of threatening the complainant by
holding and pushing his shoulder and uttering to the latter in a
threatening tone the following words: "What inspection did you make to
my sister in the mountain when you are not connected with the Bureau of
Education?"
g)In People v. Gilo, G.R. No. L-18202, April 30, 1964, the Court held that
the absence of an allegation of "lewd design" in a complaint for acts of
lasciviousness converts the act into unjust vexation;
h)In Andal v. People of the Philippines, G.R. No. L-29814, March 28,
1969, accused were found guilty of unjust vexation under an information
charging them with the offense of offending religious feelings, by the
performance of acts notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful;
i)In People v. Maravilla, G.R. No. L-47646, September 19, 1988, a
accused was convicted of unjust vexation for the act of grabbing the left
breast of the complainant against her will; and
j) Recently in Kwan v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 113006, November 23,
2000, the act of abruptly cutting off the electric, water pipe and telephone
lines of a business establishment causing interruption of its business
operations during peak hours was held as unjust vexation;
From the above-cited cases, it clearly appears that Art. 287, par. 2 of the
Revised Penal Code does not punish a specific act.Instead, any and all
kind of acts that are not specifically covered by any other provision of the
Revised Penal Code and which may cause annoyance, irritation, vexation,
torment, distress or disturbance to the mind of the person to whom it is
directed may be punished as unjust vexation; art. 287, par. 2 of the
revised penal code suffers from A CONGENITAL DEFECT OF vagueness
and must be stricken down.
The term "unjust vexation" is a highly imprecise and relative term that
has no common law meaning or settled definition by prior judicial or
administrative precedents; Thus, for its vagueness and overbreadth, said
provision violates due process in that it does not give fair warning or
sufficient notice of what it seeks to penalize;
This kind of challenge to the constitutionality of a penal statute on ground
of vagueness and overbreadth is not entirely novel in our jurisdiction. In
an en banc decision in the case of GONZALES v. COMELEC, G.R. No. L27833, April 18, 1969, re: Constitutionality of Republic Act No. 4880, our
Honorable Supreme Court had the occasion to rule that the terms
"election campaign" and "partisan political activity" which are punished in
said R.A. 4880 would have been void for their vagueness were it not for
the express enumeration of the acts deemed included in the said terms.
The Supreme Court held:
"The limitation on the period of "election campaign"or "partisan political
activity" calls for a more intensive scrutiny. According to Republic Act No.
4880: "It is unlawful for any person whether or not a voter or candidate,
or for any group or association of persons, whether or not a political party
or political committee, to engage in an election campaign or partisan
political activity except during the period of one hundred twenty days
immediately preceding an election involving a public office voted for at
large and ninety days immediately preceding an election for any other
elective public office. The term 'candidate' refers to any person aspiring
for or seeking an elective public office regardless of whether or not said
person has already filed his certificate of candidacy or has been
nominated by any political party as its candidate. The term 'election
campaign' of 'partisan political activity' refers to acts designed to have a
candidate elected or not or promote the candidacy of a person or persons
to a public office . . ."
"If that is all there is to that provision, it suffers from the fatal
constitutional infirmity of vagueness and may be stricken down. x x x x x
x x x x x x x.
Our Supreme Court in the case of U.S. v. NAG TANG HO, 43 Phil. 1, held
that one cannot be convicted of a violation of a law that fails to set up an
ascertainable standard of guilt. Said ruling cites the landmark case of U.S.
v. L. COHEN GROCERY CO., 255 U.S. 81, where the United States
Supreme Court in striking down Section 4 of the Federal Food Control Act
of August 10, 1917, as amended, as unconstitutional, stated that:
"The sole remaining inquiry, therefore, is the certainty or uncertainty of
the text in question, that is, whether the words 'that it is hereby made
unlawful for any person willfully ... to make any unjust or unreasonable
rate or charge in handling or dealing in or with any necessaries,'
constituted a fixing by Congress of an ascertainable standard of guilt and
are adequate to inform persons accused of violation thereof of the nature
and cause of the accusation against them. That they are not, we are of
opinion, so clearly results from their mere statement as to render
elaboration on the subject wholly unnecessary. Observe that the section
forbids no specific or definite act. It confines the subject matter of the
investigation which it authorizes to no element essentially inhering in the
transaction as to which it provides. It leaves open, therefore, the widest
conceivable inquiry, the scope of which no one can foresee and the result
of which no one can foreshadow or adequately guard against. In fact, we
see no reason to doubt the soundness of the observation of the court
below in its opinion to the effect that, to attempt to enforce the section
would be the exact equivalent of an effort to carry out a statute which in
terms merely penalized and punished all acts detrimental to the public
interest when unjust and unreasonable in the estimation of the court x x x
(emphasis and underscoring ours).
Recently, in COATES v. CITY OF CINCINNATI, 402 U.S. 611, the United
States Supreme Court passed upon the issue of constitutionality of a
Cincinnati, Ohio, ordinance that provides that:
It shall be unlawful for three or more persons to assemble, except at a
public meeting of citizens, on any of the sidewalks, street corners, vacant
lots, or mouths of alleys, and there conduct themselves in a manner
annoying to persons passing by, or occupants of adjacent buildings.
Whoever violates any of the provisions of this section shall be fined not
exceeding fifty dollars ($50.00), or be imprisoned not less than one (1)
nor more than thirty (30) days or both. Section 901-L6, Code of
Ordinances of the City of Cincinnati. (emphasis and underscoring ours).
In hammering down the constitutionality of the above-cited Cincinnati,
Ohio ordinance in its landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court
held that:
Conduct that annoys some people does not annoy others. Thus, the
ordinance is vague, not in the sense that it requires a person to conform
his conduct to an imprecise but comprehensible normative standard, but
rather in the sense that no standard of conduct is specified at all. As a
result, men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its
meaning. Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391.
It is said that the ordinance is broad enough to encompass many types of
conduct clearly within the city's constitutional power to prohibit. And so,
indeed, it is. The city is free to prevent people from blocking sidewalks,
obstructing traffic, littering streets, committing assaults, or engaging in
countless other forms of antisocial conduct. It can do so through the
enactment and enforcement of ordinances directed with reasonable
specificity toward the conduct to be prohibited. It cannot constitutionally
do so through the enactment and enforcement of an ordinance whose
violation may entirely depend upon whether or not a policeman is
annoyed.(emphasis and underscoring ours).
Same things can be said of Art. 287, par. 2 of the Revised Penal Code
that punishes unjust vexations. As previously shown, the term"unjust
vexations" is broad enough to encompass many types of acts or conduct.
But while these acts of types of conduct are within the State's police
power to prohibit and punish, it cannot however constitutionally do so
when its violation may entirely depend upon whether or not another is
vexed or annoyed by said act or conduct and whether or not said act or
conduct is unjust is the estimation of the court;
ARTICLE 287, PAR. 2 OF THE REVISED PENAL CODE IS AN INVALID
DELEGATION OF THE LEGISLATIVE POWER to DEFINE what acts should
be held to be criminal and punishable.
The failure of Art. 287, par. 2 of the Revised Penal Code to define or
specify the act or omission that it punishes likewise amounts to an invalid
delegation by Congress of legislative power to the courts to determine
what acts should be held to be criminal and punishable. Potestas delegata
non delegare potest. What has been delegated cannot be delegated. This
doctrine is based on the ethical principle that such as delegated power
constitutes not only a right but a duty to be performed by the delegate
through the instrumentality of his own judgment and not through the
intervening mind of another (United States v. Barrias, 11 Phil. 327, 330);
Congress alone has power to define crimes. This power as an attribute of
sovereignty may not be delegated to the courts. When a criminal
legislation leaves the halls of Congress, it must be complete in itself in
that it must clearly define and specify the acts or omissions deemed
punishable; and when it reaches the courts, there must be nothing left for
the latter to do, except to determine whether person or persons indicted
are guilty of committing the said acts or omissions defined and made
punishable by Congress. Otherwise, borrowing the immortal words of
Justice Isagani Cruz in Ynot v. Intermediate Appellate Court (148 SCRA
659), the law becomes a "roving commission," a wide and sweeping
authority that is not "canalized within banks that keep it from
overflowing," in short a clearly profligate and therefore invalid delegation
of legislative powers;
Art. 287, par. 2 of the Revised Penal Code fails to set an immutable and
ascertainable standard of guilt, but leaves such standard to the variant
and changing views and notions of different judges or courts which are
called upon to enforce it. Instead of defining the specific acts or omissions
punished, it leaves to the courts the power to determine what acts or
types of conduct constitute "unjust vexation". Moreover, liability under
the said provision is also made dependent upon the varying degrees of
sensibility and emotions of people. It depends upon whether or not
another is vexed or annoyed by said act or conduct. As previously
intimated, one cannot be convicted of a violation of a law that fails to set
up an immutable and an ascertainable standard of guilt.
Conclusion
In view of all the foregoing, Defendants submit that Art. 287, par. 2 of
the Revised Penal Code that punishes "unjust vexations" is
unconstitutional on its face for its fatal failure to forbid a specific or
definite act or conduct resulting to its congenital vagueness and
overbreadth which are anathema to constitutional due process and the
right to be informed of the nature of the offense charged;
Moreover, by leaving it to the judiciary to determine the "justness" or
"unjustness" of an act or conduct that is not clearly defined or specified
by law constitutes a fixing by Congress of an unascertainable standard of
guilt and therefore an invalid delegation, if not an abdication, of
legislative power;
Therefore, the conclusion is inevitable that Art. 287, par. 2 of the Revised
Penal Code, being facially unconstitutional, cannot be a basis of any
criminal prosecution. As such, there is no offense to speak of and
consequently, this Honorable Court cannot acquire any jurisdiction
whatsoever to try the defendants of the charge of "unjust vexation".
PRAYER
WHEREFORE, it view of all the foregoing, it is most respectfully prayed
that the information be quashed, and defendants discharged.
Other relief just and equitable are likewise prayed for.
_____________, Philippines, __Date__.
(COUNSEL)
(NOTICE OF HEARING)
(EXPLANATION)
COPY FURNISHED:
OPPOSING COUNSEL