Title Constitutional Law by Isagani Cruz.pdf ✅

r Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION CONSTITUTIONAL LAW is the study ofthe maintenance of the proper balance between authority as represented by the three inherent powers ofthe State and liberty as guar anteed by the Bill of Rights. It is error to suppose that this subject suggests the unjustified ascendancy of authority over liberty as this might result in tyranny or the unwar ranted primacy of liberty over authority as this would result in anarchy. The true role of Constitutional Law is to effect an equilibrium between authority and liberty so that rights are exercised within the framework of the law and the laws are enacted with due deference to rights. It is best that the student appreciate this at the threshold, before he enters the fascinating world of Constitutional Law. The fundamental powers of the State are the police power, the power of eminent domain, and the power of taxation. Among the safeguards in the Bill of Rights are the right to due process and equal protection, the prohibi tion against unreasonable searches and seizures, freedom of expression, the impairment clause, and the guarantees against injustice to the accused. These powers and rights countercheck but are not necessarily hostile to each other. They have a common objective: co-existence. Their ulti mate goal is the same: a well-ordered society based on the inviolability of rights which, although they may not be curtailed arbitrarily, may nevertheless be regulated for the common good.
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW This work will deal first with each of the three inher ent powers. This is fitting as the recognition ofauthorityis a condition sine qua non for the proper enjoyment; of lib erty, with the common weal as the criterion. Then it will proceed to the examination of the different provisions in Article III of the Constitution, more commonly known as the Bill ofRights. Once authority is established, it is nec essary to define and limit its reach, lestregulation become encroachment and the pristine purity ofrights is debased by naked power. Before everything else, however, a short background study on the basic principles governing constitutions in general, their nature, classification, amendment or revi sion, and interpretation shall be presented. The adoption of the present Constitution of the Philippines in 1987, together with the recent pertinent decisions of the Su preme Court, shall also be reviewed.
I Chapter 2 THE NATURE OF THE CONSTITUTION Definition A CONSTITUTION, according to Cooley, is "that body of rules and maxims in accordance with which the powers of sovereignty are habitually exercised."1 This definition is comprehensive enough to cover the written and the un written Constitutions. With particular reference to the Constitution of the Philippines, the more appropriate description is that given by Justice Malcolm, who speaks of it as "the written in strument enacted by direct action of the people by which the fundamental powers of the government are estab lished, limited and defined, and by which those powers are distributed among the several departments for their safe and useful exercise for the benefit of the body politic."2 Purposes "The purpose of the Constitution is to prescribe the permanent framework of a system of government, to as sign to the several departments their respective powers and duties, and to establish certain first fixed principles on which government is founded."3 Const. Limitations, 4. Phil. Constitutional Law, 6. 11 Am. Jur. 606.
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW It should be stressed that when it comes to certain basic individual rights, such as religious freedom, it is not the Constitution that creates or confers them. The correct view is that the Constitution merely recognizes and pro tects these rights and does not bring them into existence. The Constitution is not "the originofprivate rights; it is not the fountain of law nor the incipient state of gov ernment; it is not the cause but the consequence of per sonal and political freedom."4 Supremacy ofthe Constitution The Constitution is the basic and paramount law to which all other laws must conform and to which all per sons, including the highest officialsofthe land, must defer. No act shall be valid, however noble its intentions, if it conflicts with the Constitution. The Constitution must ever remain supreme. All must bow to the mandate ofthis law. Expediency must not be allowed to sap its strength nor greed for power debase its rectitude. Right or wrong, the Constitutionmust be upheld as longas it has not been changed by the sovereign people lest its disregard result in the usurpation of the majesty of law by the pretenders to illegitimate power.5 Classification Constitutions are classified into written or unwritten, evolved or enacted, and rigid or flexible. A written constitution is one whose precepts are em bodied in one document or set of documents. An unwritten constitution, on the other hand, consists of rules which have not been integrated into a single, concrete form but 4Watson, 108. 8Cruz, Phil. Pol. Law, 1987, p. 11.