EN
BANC
JOSE
TORRENTE,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
G.
R.
No. 2340
December
21, 1905
-versus-
CAPTAIN
W.C. GROVE
AND LIEUT. A.M. TRUE,
Defendants-Appellants.
D
E C I S I
O N
CARSON,
J:
This is an appeal from
an Order of the Court of First Instance of Manila in habeas corpus
proceedings, discharging the petitioner from detention at the hands of
respondents.
Petitioner was arrested
and detained in Manila pursuance of an order of arrest which on its
face
appears to have been issued by the justice of the peace of Cebu and
directed
to the sheriff of the City of Manila.
It is alleged that
said order is illegal on its face in that the said justice of the peace
had no jurisdiction to issue an order directing the making of an arrest
outside the Province of Cebu, and it is contended that all proceedings
had upon said order, including the arrest and detention of petitioner,
were illegal and void.
Many authorities are
quoted from the American jurisprudence in support of this contention,
but
We think that, whatever may be the rule in the United States, the
justices
of the peace in these Islands are vested with authority under the
provisions
of existing law to cause the arrest of accused persons wherever found
throughout
the Archipelago.
Section 66 of Act No.
136 provides that:
"1. The existing
courts
of justices of the peace, established by military orders since the
thirteenth
day of August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, are hereby recognized
and continued and the justices of such courts shall continue to hold
office
during the pleasure of the Commission.
"2. In every province
in which there now is, or shall hereafter be, established a Court of
First
Instance, courts of justices of the peace shall be established in every
municipality thereof which shall be organized under the Municipal Code,
or which has been organized and is being conducted as a municipality
when
this Act shall tale effect, under and by virtue of the Municipal Code."
Hence, to determine the
jurisdiction of the justices of the peace in the Philippine Islands to
issue warrants for the arrest of accused persons, we must examine the
authority
conferred upon courts of justices of the peace established under
military
orders since the 13th day of August 1898.
Section 1 of General
Orders No. 58, dated Manila, P.I., April 23, 1900, provides that:
"The following
provisions
shall have the force and effect of law in criminal matters in the
Philippine
Islands from and after the fifteenth day of May, nineteen hundred, but
existing laws on the same subjects shall remain valid except in so far
as hereinafter modified or repealed expressly or by necessary
implication."
Section 13 of said Order
provides that -
"When a complaint or
information alleging the commission of a crime is laid before a
magistrate,
he must examine, on oath, the information or prosecutor and the
witnesses
produced, and take their depositions in writing, causing them to be
subscribed
by the parties making them. If the magistrate be satisfied from the
investigation
that the crime complained of has been committed, and that there is
reasonable
ground to believe that the party charged has committed it, he must
issue
an order for his arrest. If the offense be bailable, and the defendant
offer a sufficient security, he shall be admitted to bail; otherwise he
shall be committed to prison."
The latter section [undertaking,
as it does, to dispose of the whole subject-matter of the procedure
whereby
magistrates, whether they be justices of the peace, judges of the
Courts
of First Instance, or justices of the Supreme Court, may cause the
arrest
or detention of accused persons], modifies and repeals so much of the
Spanish
law as is at variance therewith. The procedure whereby magistrates
caused
the arrest of persons charged with crime under the provisions of the
Spanish
law, was first, by the issuance of a proper warrant or order of arrest,
if the accused person was found within their respective territorial
jurisdictions,
and, second, by the issuance of a letter "praying," "requesting," or
"directing"
the arrest of the accuysed person, addressed to the proper judicial
officer
within those territorial jurisdiction the accused person was alleged to
be, if he was found to be beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the
magistrate
causing the arrest. The first method, of course, remains uncharged, but
the second was by necessary implication repealed, because the above
quoted
Section 13 of General Orders No. 58, provided that in all cases the
magistrate
shall issue an order of arrest.
It will be observed
that the communications employed in the second method of causing arrest
were to all intents and purposes warrants or orders of arrest for
accused
persons, because when issued in proper form as provided in such cases,
the judicial officer to whom they were directed had no discretion
whatever
as to compliance therewith, but was required by law to execute them by
issuing in his turn the proper warrants or orders of arrest for the
person
or persons mentioned therein. The only difference was in form of
procedure,
the magistrate causing the arrest addressing himself directly to the
law
officers charged with making arrests when such arrest was to be made
within
his own territorial jurisdiction, and when such arrests were to be made
beyond his territorial jurisdiction addressing himself to such officer
through the proper judicial officer of the district wherein the accused
was alleged to be. [Compilation of Code of Criminal Procedure of 1879,
Chapter IV, Title II].
But while Section 13
of General Orders, No. 58, modified and changed the procedure whereby
magistrates
may cause the arrest of accused persons, it in no wise affected their
jurisdiction
or authority so to do, and our attention has not been directed to any
provision
of law which limits or restricts the jurisdiction or authority of the
justices
of the peace to cause arrest of accused persons in these Islands within
narrower territorial limits than those existing under Spanish law prior
to American occupation. Under the provisions of Spanish law the
justices
of the peace had precisely the same authority to cause the arrest of an
accused person beyond the territorial limits of their respective
districts
as in the case of persons found within such limits, the only difference
being found in the procedure by which the arrest was made, and it is
worthy
of note that precisely the same rule applied to judges of the Courts of
First Instance, who were likewise vested with authority to cause the
arrest
of accused persons anywhere throughout the Islands, but were required
to
conform to the procedure by "letter" directed to the proper judicial
officer
when they caused the arrest of persons beyond the territorial limits of
their respective districts.
Counsel for the
petitioner
lays great stress on the provisions of Section 1 of Act No. 590,
wherein
it is expressly proved that the processes of the courts of the justices
of the peace of the various provincial capitals "either for the arrest
of the accused persons or for the summoning of witnesses, shall run and
have effect throughout the provinces," and urges that the fact that the
Civil Commission deemed it necessary to make an express grant of such
authority
implies that its members were of opinion that prior to the publication
of that law the processes of the justices of the peace did not run
throughout
the province, much less the entire archipelago. It is sufficient answer
to this contention to point out that Act No. 590 confers in certain
specified
cases a new provincial jurisdiction, coextensive with their respective
provinces, on the justices of the peace of the provincial capitals, and
the lawmaker may have deemed it necessary to declare in express terms
the
authority of the justice of the peace to issue process in such cases;
furthermore,
the opinion of the law-making authority as to the meaning and effect of
existing law in no wise determines what the law actually is, and
however
much it may be entitled to respectful consideration, it will not be
pretended
that it is conclusive on the court whose duty it is to interpret and
declare
the law as they find it.
Section 9 of Act No.
175 provides that:
"The Insular
Constabulary
are hereby declared to be peace officers and are empowered and required
to execute any lawful warrant or order of arrest issued against any
person
or persons for any violation of the law by any judge of the First
Instance
or justice of the peace or any other officer authorized by law to issue
a warrant."
The
respondents are officers
of the Insular Constabulary; they arrest and held the petitioner by
virtue
of a lawful warrant or order of arrest issued by the justice of the
peace
of Cebu, and we are of opinion that the detention of the petitioner was
lawful, and that he is not entitled to his discharge in habeas corpus
proceedings.
The Order of the lower
court discharging the petitioner is annulled, and he will be remanded
to
the custody of respondents. The costs of both instances are declared de
oficio, and after twenty days judgment will be entered in accordance
herewith,
and the record remanded to the Court wherein these proceedings
originated
for proper procedure. So ordered.
Arellano, C.J.,
Torres, Mapa and Johnson, JJ., concur. |