Executive clemency; pardoning power - gr 206666.pdf

See - 206666.pdf





"x x x.

The pardoning power of the President cannot be limited by legislative action.



The 1987 Constitution, specifically Section 19 of Article VII and Section 5 of Article IX-C, provides that the President of the Philippines possesses the power to grant pardons, along with other acts of executive clemency, to wit:



Section 19. Except in cases of impeachment, or as otherwise provided in this Constitution, the President may grant reprieves, commutations, and pardons, and remit fines and forfeitures, after

conviction by final judgment.



He shall also have the power to grant amnesty with the concurrence of a majority of all the Members of the Congress.

x x x x



Section 5. No pardon, amnesty, parole, or suspension of sentence for violation of election laws, rules, and regulations shall be granted by the President without the favorable recommendation of the

Commission.



It is apparent from the foregoing constitutional provisions that the only instances in which the President may not extend pardon remain to be in: 



(1) impeachment cases; (2) cases that have not yet resulted in a final conviction; and (3) cases involving violations of election laws, rules and regulations in which there was no favorable recommendation coming from the COMELEC. Therefore, it can be argued that any act of Congress by way of statute cannot operate to delimit the pardoning power of the President. 



In Cristobal v. Labrador27 and Pelobello v. Palatino,28 which were decided under the 1935 Constitution, wherein the provision granting pardoning power to the President shared similar phraseology with what is found in the present 1987 Constitution, the Court then unequivocally

declared that “subject to the limitations imposed by the Constitution, the pardoning power cannot be restricted or controlled by legislative action.”



The Court reiterated this pronouncement in Monsanto v. Factoran, Jr.29 thereby establishing that, under the present Constitution, “a pardon, being a presidential prerogative, should not be circumscribed by legislative action.”



Thus, it is unmistakably the long-standing position of this Court that the exercise of the pardoning power is discretionary in the President and may not be interfered with by Congress or the Court, except only when it exceeds the limits provided for by the Constitution.



This doctrine of non-diminution or non-impairment of the President’s power of pardon by acts of Congress, specifically through legislation, was strongly adhered to by an overwhelming majority of the framers of the 1987 Constitution when they flatly rejected a proposal to carve out an exception

from the pardoning power of the President in the form of “offenses involving graft and corruption” that would be enumerated and defined by Congress through the enactment of a law. The following is the pertinent portion lifted from the Record of the Commission (Vol. II): x x x.



x x x.: