Special civil actions

• Interpleader


  A special civil action designed to protect a person against double vexation in respect of a single liability
• The remedy of interpleader, when proper, merely provides an avenue for the conflicting claims on the same subject matter to be threshed out in an action
• A successful litigant who has secured a final judgment in its favor cannot later be impleaded by its defeated adversary in an interpleader suit and compelled to prove its claim anew against other adverse claimants as that would in effect be a collateral attack upon the judgment
• An action for interpleader may not be utilized to circumvent the immutability of a final and executory judgment
• Declaratory relief


  A viable remedy to challenge the constitutionality of a law, but does not guarantee that relief can or will be granted
• Declaratory relief as a remedy for constitutional challenge will succeed only when: (1) there is a clear and convincing contrariety of legal rights or (2) facial review is allowed
• For the exercise of judicial review, actual facts resulting from the assailed law, as applied, may not be absolutely necessary in all cases
• A petition for declaratory relief is no longer proper when the law, ordinance, or issuance has already been enforced and the penalty for its violation imposed against the petitioner
• Petition for declaratory relief


  Gives a practical remedy for ending controversies that have not reached the state where another relief is immediately available
• Conditions to allow the conversion of a petition for declaratory relief into an ordinary action: 1) The interested party files a petition for declaratory relief before breach of the statute, contract, deed or subject written instrument; 2) There is a breach or violation of the statute, contract, deed or subject written instrument which occurred before the final termination of the case; and 3) The interested party should indicate the ordinary action he or she has chosen
• The remedies of appeal and certiorari are mutually exclusive and not alternative or successive
• When the remedy of appeal is available to a litigant, a petition for certiorari shall not be entertained and should be dismissed for being an improper remedy
• Rule 65 petitions are not per se remedies to address constitutional issues, and in certain instances, declaratory relief is proper should there be a question of the constitutionality of a statute, executive order or regulation, ordinance, or any other governmental regulation
• As a rule, Rule 65 petitions are not per se remedies to address constitutional issues
• Declaratory relief


  Proper when there is a question of the constitutionality of a statute, executive order or regulation, ordinance, or any other governmental regulation
• Petitioner's choice of remedy further emphasizes his ignorance of basic legal procedure
• Rule 65 petitions are not per se remedies to address constitutional issues
• Petitions for certiorari


  Filed to address the jurisdictional excesses of officers or bodies exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions
• Petitions for prohibition


  Filed to address the jurisdictional excesses of officers or bodies exercising judicial, quasi-judicial, or ministerial functions
• In certain instances, declaratory relief is proper should there be a question of the constitutionality of a statute, executive order or regulation, ordinance, or any other governmental regulation
• Declaratory relief


  Acknowledges that there are instances when questions of validity or constitutionality cannot be resolved in a factual vacuum devoid of substantial evidence on record for which trial courts are better equipped to gather and determine
• Considering the abysmal dearth of facts to sustain a finding of an actual case or controversy and the existence of a direct injury to petitioner, a petition for declaratory relief resolved after full-blown trial in a trial court would have been the more appropriate remedy
• The rules relating to pleadings and practices do not provide for a procedural rule through which the expanded power of judicial review of the Supreme Court to decide questions involving legislative and executive acts can be invoked
• For now, this expanded power may be invoked through either a special civil action for certiorari or prohibition
• Article VIII, Section 1 of the Constitution


  Refers to the Supreme Court's expanded power of judicial review
• The paragraph narrowed the scope of the political question doctrine and enlarged that of judicial inquiry to include the court's power "to determine if any government branch or instrumentality has acted beyond the scope of its powers, such that there is grave abuse of discretion"
• Remedies to correct grave abuse of discretion


  • Special civil action for certiorari
  • Special civil action for prohibition
• While certiorari and prohibition, as contemplated within the Rules of Court, were traditionally used to question only judicial and quasi-judicial functions, the Supreme Court has decided on such petitions despite them involving legislative and executive acts
• The use of Rule 65 petitions to invoke the Supreme Court's expanded power may have been caused by the similarity of the grounds for review
• The expanded judicial power's overarching scope and jurisdiction are yet to be delineated
• For now, the available remedies of certiorari and prohibition, coursed through Rule 65, remain the proper avenues
• Petition for mandamus


  An extraordinary remedy to compel the performance of duties that are purely ministerial in nature, not those that are discretionary
• A petition for mandamus will issue only when it is proven that petitioner has a clear legal right to the performance of the act sought to be compelled and the respondent has an imperative duty to perform the same
• The CA was correct in ruling that the issuance of Ferolino's [Certificate of Live Birth] is compellable by mandamus
• PSA has the ministerial duty of issuing certified transcripts or copies of any certificate or document registered upon payment of proper fees as mandated by Section 12 of Act No. 3753 or the Law on Registry of Civil Status
• Requisites for the issuance of a writ of mandamus


  • Petitioner must show a clear legal right to the act demanded
  • Respondent must have the duty to perform the act because the same is mandated by law
  • Respondent unlawfully neglects the performance of the duty enjoined by law
  • The act to be performed is ministerial, not discretionary
  • There is no other plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law
• Ministerial duty


  The discharge of the same requires neither the exercise of official discretion or judgment
• Discretion (when applied to public functionaries)


  A power or right conferred upon them by law or acting officially, under certain circumstances, uncontrolled by the judgment or conscience of others
• If the law imposes a duty upon a public officer and gives him the right to decide how or when the duty shall be performed, such duty is discretionary and not ministerial
• If the remedy of appeal was previously available to the party, his/her Rule 65 petition will not prosper even if the ground therefor is grave abuse of discretion