Moot and academic; CESO - G.R. No. 192926

G.R. No. 192926

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Before the Court is a petition for certiorari and prohibition assailing Executive Order No. 883, series of 2010 (EO 883),¹ which granted Career Executive Service Officer (CESO) rank to eligible lawyers in the executive branch, and a related administrative issuance, Career Executive Service Board (CESB) Resolution No. 870,² for violating Section 15, Article VII of the Constitution.

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The Court’s Ruling

We dismiss the petition on the threshold ground of mootness.

The petition seeks a review of the constitutionality of EO 883 and CESB Resolution No. 870 for being repugnant to Section 15, Article VII of the Constitution. At the time this petition was filed, however, President Aquino had already issued EO 3 revoking EO 883 expressly (under Section 1) and CESB Resolution No. 870 impliedly (under Section 2). EO 883 and CESB Resolution No. 870 having ceased to have any force and effect, the Court finds no reason to reach the merits of the petition and pass upon these issuances’ validity. To do so would transgress the requirement of case and controversy as precondition for the Court’s exercise of judicial review.

True, this Court had relaxed the case and controversy requirement to resolve moot issues. In those instances, however, the issues presented were grounded on peculiar set of facts giving rise to important constitutional questions capable of repetition yet evading review¹⁷ or indicating intent on the part of potential or actual parties to place a constitutional question beyond the ambit of judicial review by performing acts rendering moot an incipient or pending justiciablecontroversy.¹⁸

These factors do not obtain here. The question whether an appointment to a CESO rank of an executive official amounts to an “appointment” for purposes of the constitutional ban on midnight appointment, while potentially recurring, holds no certainty of evading judicial review as the question can be decided even beyond the appointments-ban period under Section 15, Article VII of the Constitution.

Indeed, petitioner does not allege to have suffered any violation of a right vested in him under EO 883. He was not among the 13 officials granted CESO ranking by President Arroyo. The CESB itself stated that “no conferment of CESO rank was ever made by President [Arroyo] in relation to EO 883.”¹⁹Hence, for the Court to nevertheless reach the merits of this petition and determine the constitutionality of EO 883 and CESB Resolution No. 870 despite their unquestioned repeal and the absence of any resulting prejudice to petitioner’s rights is to depart from its constitutional role of settling “actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable.”²⁰

WHEREFORE, we DISMISS the petition.

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