ZACARIAS VILLAVICENCIO, ET AL v. JUSTO LUKBAN, ET AL

ZACARIAS VILLAVICENCIO, ET AL v. JUSTO LUKBAN, ET AL

ENBANC

G.R. No. L-14639            March 25, 1919

PONENTE: J. MALCOLM

FACTS:

• Justo Lukban as Manila City's Mayor together with Anton Hohmann, the city's Chief of Police, took custody of about 170 women at the night of October 25, 1918 beyond the women’s consent and knowledge.
•  Said women are inmates of the houses of prostitution situated in Gardenia Street, in the district of Sampaloc, Manila.
•  Thereafter the women were shipped to Mindanao specifically in Davao where they were signed as laborers.
• The purpose of sending this women to davao is to exterminate vice, ordered the segregated district for women of ill repute, which had been permitted for a number of years.
• That when the women, its relative and lawyers filed for habeas corpus, the City of Manila Mayor and police moved to dismiss the case saying that those women were already out of their jurisdiction and that , it should be filed in the city of Davao instead.

ISSUE RELEVANT TO SECTION 1 ARTICLE II of the Constitution

1. WHETHER OR NOT MAYOR LUKBAN WHO IS AN OFFICER OF THE STATE, TO ERADICATE VICES IN ITS CITY HAVE THE RIGHT TO DEPORT SAID WOMEN OF ILL-REPUTE?

OTHER ISSUE

2. WHETHER OR NOT THE CITY OF MANILA DOES NOT HAVE A JURISDICTION TO ISSUE A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS TO DAVAO CITY TO PRODUCE THE BODY OF THE WOMEN SINCE IT IS OUT OF THEIR JURISDICTION AND THUS, DISOBEYING THE WRIT ISSUED BY THE COURT TO PRODUCE THE BODY OF THE WOMEN?

HELD:

·         The petition was granted. Respondent Lukban is found in contempt of court for not following the order of the court to produce the body of the women and shall pay into the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court within five days the sum of one hundred pesos (P100)

RATIO:

1.     On the first issue, the court’s decision is based on the principle of Republicanism wherein “Ours is a government of laws and not of men”

Law defines power. Centuries ago Magna Charta decreed that”No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will we pass upon him nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. No official, no matter how high, is above the law. The courts are the forum which functionate to safeguard individual liberty and to punish official transgressors

2.     On the second issue, the court believed that the true principle should be that, if the respondent (Mayor Lukban) is within the jurisdiction of the court and has it in his power to obey the order of the court and thus to undo the wrong that he has inflicted, he should be compelled to do so. The writ of habeas corpus was devised and exists as a speedy and effectual remedy to relieve persons from unlawful restraint, and as the best and only sufficient defense of personal freedom. Any further rights of the parties are left untouched by decision on the writ, whose principal purpose is to set the individual at liberty.

3.     In other words, If the mayor and the chief of police, acting under no authority of law, could deport these women from the city of Manila to Davao, the same officials must necessarily have the same means to return them from Davao to Manila. The respondents, within the reach of process, may not be permitted to restrain a fellow citizen of her liberty by forcing her to change her domicile and to avow the act with impunity in the courts, while the person who has lost her birthright of liberty has no effective recourse. The great writ of liberty may not thus be easily evaded.

NOTE:

HABEAS CORPUS as defined by the Black Law Dictionary

Literally means- “That you have the body”

-       It is a writ employed to bring a person before a court, most frequently to ensure that the party’s imprisonment or detention is not illegal.

-       In addition to being used to test the legality of the arrest or commitment, the writ maybe used to obtain review of (1) the regularity of the extradition process (2) the right to or amount of bail or (3) the jurisdiction of a court that has imposed a criminal sentence.

-       In other words, it is a writ which compel someone to produce the body of the person under the name of the law.