Statutes and rules regulating the procedure of courts are considered applicable to actions pending and unresolved at the time of their passage. Procedural laws and rules are retroactive in that sense and to that extent. The effect of procedural statutes and rules on the rights of a litigant may not preclude their retroactive application to pending actions. This retroactive application does not violate any right of a person adversely affected. Neither is it constitutionally objectionable. The reason is that, as a general rule, no vested right may attach to or arise from procedural laws and rules. It has been held that “a person has no vested right in any particular remedy, and a litigant cannot insist on the application to the trial of his case, whether civil or criminal, of any other than the existing rules of procedure.”[16] More so when, as in this case, petitioner admits that it was not able to pay the docket fees on time. Clearly, there were no substantive rights to speak of when the RTC dismissed the Notice of Appeal.
The argument that the CA had the exclusive jurisdiction to dismiss the appeal has no merit. When this Court accordingly amended Sec. 13 of Rule 41 through A.M. No. 00-2-10-SC, the RTC’s dismissal of the action may be considered to have had the imprimatur of the Court. Thus, the CA committed no reversible error when it sustained the dismissal of the appeal, taking note of its directive on the matter prior to the promulgation of its Decision.
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