Petitioner Joseph Ejercito Estrada, the highest-ranking official to be prosecuted

under RA 7080 (An Act Defining and Penalizing the Crime of Plunder),[1] as amended
by RA 7659,[2] wishes to impress upon us that the assailed law is so defectively
fashioned that it crosses that thin but distinct line which divides the valid from
the constitutionally infirm. He therefore makes a stringent call for this Court to
subject the Plunder Law to the crucible of constitutionality mainly because,
according to him, (a) it suffers from the vice of vagueness; (b) it dispenses with
the "reasonable doubt" standard in criminal prosecutions; and, (c) it abolishes
the element of mens rea in crimes already punishable under The Revised Penal Code,
all of which are purportedly clear violations of the fundamental rights of the
accused to due process and to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation against him.

Specifically, the provisions of the Plunder Law claimed by petitioner to have

transgressed constitutional boundaries are Secs. 1, par. (d), 2 and 4 which are
reproduced hereunder: