FACTS
Petitioner Co Kim Cham had a pending Civil Case with the Court of First Instance of Manila initiated during the time of the Japanese occupation.The respondent judge, Judge Arsenio Dizon, refused to continue hearings on the case which were initiated during the Japanese military occupation on the ground that the proclamation issued by General MacArthur that “all laws, regulations and processes of any other government in the Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are null and void and without legal effect in areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and control” had the effect of invalidating and nullifying all judicial proceedings and judgments of the court of the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation, and that the lower courts have no jurisdiction to take cognizance of and continue judicial proceedings pending in the courts of the defunct Republic of the Philippines in the absence of an enabling law granting such authority. Respondent additionally contends that the government established during the Japanese occupation were no de facto government.
ISSUES:
1. Whether or not judicial acts and proceedings of the court made during the Japanese occupation were valid and remained valid even after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the United States and Filipino forces.
2. Whether or not the October 23, 1944 proclamation issued by General MacArthur declaring that “all laws, regulations and processes of any other government in the Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are null and void and without legal effect in areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and control” has invalidated all judgments and judicial acts and proceedings of the courts.
3. Whether or not those courts could continue hearing the cases pending before them, if the said judicial acts and proceedings were not invalidated by MacArthur’s proclamation.
Rulings:
1. The judicial acts and proceedings of the court were good and valid. The governments by the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation being de facto governments, it necessarily follows that the judicial acts and proceedings of the court of justice of those governments, which are not of a political complexion, were good and valid. Those not only judicial but also legislative acts of de facto government, which are not of a political complexion, remained good and valid after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the American and Filipino forces under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur.
2. The phrase “processes of any other government” is broad and may refer not only to the judicial processes, but also to administrative or legislative, as well as constitutional, processes of the Republic of the Philippines or other governmental agencies established in the Islands during the Japanese occupation. Taking into consideration the fact that, as above indicated, according to the well-known principles of international law all judgements and judicial proceedings, which are not of a political complexion, of the de facto governments during the Japanese military occupation were good and valid before and remained so after the occupied territory had come again into the power of the titular sovereign, it should be presumed that it was not, and could not have been, the intention of General Douglas MacArthur, in using the phrase “processes of any other government” in said proclamation, to refer to judicial processes, in violation of said principles of international law.
3. Although in theory the authority of the local civil and judicial administration is suspended as a matter of course as soon as military occupation takes place, in practice the invader does not usually take the administration of justice into his own hands, but continues the ordinary courts or tribunals to administer the laws of the country which he is enjoined, unless absolutely prevented, to respect. An Executive Order of President McKinley to the Secretary of War states that “in practice, they (the municipal laws) are not usually abrogated but are allowed to remain in force and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals substantially as they were before the occupation. This enlightened practice is, so far as possible, to be adhered to on the present occasion.” And Taylor in this connection says: “From a theoretical point of view it may be said that the conqueror is armed with the right to substitute his arbitrary will for all pre-existing forms of government, legislative, executive and judicial. From the stand-point of actual practice such arbitrary will is restrained by the provision of the law of nations which compels the conqueror to continue local laws and institution so far as military necessity will permit.” Undoubtedly, this practice has been adopted in order that the ordinary pursuits and business of society may not be unnecessarily deranged, inasmuch as belligerent occupation is essentially provisional, and the government established by the occupant of transient character.
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