CO KIM CHAM (alias CO KIM CHAM), petitioner, vs. EUSEBIO VALDEZ TAN KEH and ARSENIO P. DIZON, Judge of First Instance of Manila, respondents
Issue: Courts’ Jurisdiction
Law: Political Law
Legal Queries raised: de facto government, principle of postliminy
Cited Law/Order: General MacArthur of October 23, 1944
Famous statement from this jurisprudence:
A legal maxim, “Law once established continues until changed by the some competent legislative power. It is not change merely by change of sovereignty.”
FACTS:
Respondent judge refused to continue the proceedings in this case because of the proclamation by General MacArthur and no law granting such jurisdiction to proceed the case as it believed that the pronouncement of Gen. MacArthur has an effect of invalidating and nullifying all judicial proceedings and judgements of the court of the Philippines under the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines established during the Japanese military occupation.
ISSUES:
1) Whether the judicial acts and proceedings of the court in the country in this time were good, valid and remained so even after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the United States and Filipino forces;
2)Whether the proclamation by General Douglas MacArthur in his declaration has invalidated all judgements and judicial acts and proceedings of the said courts; and
3) If not, whether the present courts of the Commonwealth may continue the proceedings pending in said courts at the time the Philippines were reoccupied and liberated by the United States and Filipino forces, and the Commonwealth of the Philippines were reestablished in the Islands.
RULING:
1. Yes.
Since the philippines is considered as a de facto government, it follows that the judicial acts and proceedings of the courts of justice of those governments were good and valid. By virtue of principle of postliminy (postliminium), a territory occupied by an enemy comes again into the power of its legitimate government of sovereignty.
2. No.
The proclamation by General Douglas MacArthur in his declaration has not invalidated all judgements and judicial acts and proceedings of the said courts
In the International law, the belligerent occupant forbids to make any declaration preventing the inhabitants from using their courts to assert or enforce their civil rights.
If a belligerent occupant is required to establish courts of justice in the territory occupied, the military commander of the forces of liberation or the restored government is restrained from nullifying or setting aside the judgments rendered by said courts in their litigation during the period of occupation.
3. Yes, it may continue.
Belligerent or military occupation is essentially provisional and does not serve to transfer the sovereignty over the occupied territory to the occupant.
The laws and institution or courts so continued remain the laws and institutions or courts of the occupied territory.
Therefore, even assuming that Japan had legally acquired sovereignty over these Islands and the laws and the courts of these Islands had become the courts of Japan, as the said courts of the laws creating and conferring jurisdiction upon them have continued in force until now, it necessarily follows that the same courts may continue exercising the same jurisdiction over cases pending therein before the restoration of the Commonwealth Government, unless and until they are abolished or the laws creating and conferring jurisdiction upon them are repealed by the said government.
The present courts have jurisdiction to continue, to final judgment, the proceedings in cases, not of political complexion.
Lesson of this case:
Status quo continues to be functional. Courts are still functional even if new conqueror of the state reached, unless it is amended by any law made by the legislative body or from the people.
Full text of the case: https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri1945/sep1945/gr_l-5_1945.html
Cited Jurisprudence:
Thorington vs. Smith
U. S. vs. Rice
Porter vs. Fruedenburg
Commonwealth vs. Chapman
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