[G.R. No. 57883. March 12, 1982.

DE LA LLANAvs. ALBA

FERNANDO, C .J : p

Facts: Petitioners assailed the constitutionality of Batas Pambansa Blg. 129

entitled "An Act Reorganizing the Judiciary, Appropriating Funds Therefore and
for other Purposes," the same being contrary to the security of tenure provision
of the Constitution as it separates from the judiciary Justices and judges of
inferior courts from the Court of Appeals to municipal circuit courts except the
occupants of the Sandiganbayan and the Court of Tax Appeals, unless appointed
to the inferior courts established by such Act. They likewise impute lack of good
faith in its enactment and characterize as undue delegation of legislative power
to the President his authority to fix the compensation and allowances of the
Justices and judges thereafter appointed and the determination of the date when
the reorganization shall be deemed completed. The Solicitor General maintains
that there is no valid justification for the attack on the constitutionality of the
statute, it being a legitimate exercise of the power vested in the Batasang
Pambansa to reorganize the judiciary, the allegations of absence of good faith as
well as the attack on the independence of the judiciary being unwarranted and
devoid of any support in law.

Issue: W/O Batas Pambansa Blg. 129 should be declared unconstitutional for
colliding with the security of tenure enjoyed by justices and judges.

Held: The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, the unconstitutionality of Batas
Pambansa Blg. 129 not having been shown. It held that the enactment thereof
was in answer to a pressing and urgent need for a major reorganization of the
judiciary.

It is a fundamental proposition that the legislative power to create courts

ordinarily includes the power to organize and to reorganize them, and that the
power to abolish courts is generally co-extensive with the power to create them.
The power to abolish was not intended to be qualified by the permanence of
tenure. The right of Judges to hold office during good behavior until they reach
the age of 70 years, or become incapacitated to discharge the duties of their
office, does not deprive Congress of its power to abolish, organize or reorganize
inferior courts.
A legislature is not bound to give security of tenure to courts. Courts can be
abolished. In fact, the entire judicial system can be changed. To hold that tenure
of judges is superior to the legislative power to reorganize is to render impotent
the exercise of that power. Under Section 7, Article X, Judges are entailed to
their count, from which they cannot be separated before retirement age except
as a disciplinary action for bad behavior. Under Section 1, Courts are not entailed
to their judges, because the power of the legislative to establish inferior court
presupposes the power to abolish those courts. If an inferior court is abolished,
the judge presiding that court will necessarily have to lose his position because
the abolished court is not entailed to him.

Section 1, Article X refers to the "Judiciary" as a fundamental department of

Government, Section 7 of the same Article refers to the tenure of office of
"individual" Judges (inclusive of Justices of inferior Courts); that is to say, tenure
of office is a matter concerning the individual Judge. This "individuality"
character of Section 7 is supported by the clause that the Supreme Court has the
power to discipline individual judges of inferior courts.