Tanada v Tuvera

G.R. No. L-63915 April 24, 1985

Resolution: December 29, 1986
Topic: Substantive Due Process

The petitioners had filed this petition for mandamus to compel the respondents to publish or cause the
publication of presidential decrees, LOI, proclamations, executive orders, letters of implementation and
administrative orders. The respondent questioned the legal personality of the petitioners, but the
petitioners maintained that a public right was at stake in this case. Also, the respondent maintained that
publication was only required if the law did not provide for its effectivity date.

The issue is whether or not the publication of the abovementioned laws is required.

The Court ruled that it was. The publication of presidential issuances "of a public nature" or "of general
applicability" is a
requirement of due process. It is a rule of law that before a person may be bound by law, he must first
be officially and specifically informed of its contents. In Peralta v Comelec, the requirement of due
process and the Rule of Law demand that the Official Gazette as the official government repository
promulgate and publish the texts of all such decrees, orders and instructions so that the people may
know where to obtain their official and specific contents.

For presidential decrees promulgated prior to this case, the Court applied the doctrine of operative fact.
The implementation/enforcement of presidential decrees prior to their publication in the Official
Gazette is "an operative fact which may have consequences which cannot be justly ignored. The past
cannot always be erased by a new judicial declaration ... that an all-inclusive statement of a principle of
absolute retroactive invalidity cannot be justified."

In the Court’s resolution, it reiterated that publication of laws is in keeping with the due process of the
law. According to the Court, the reason is that such omission would offend due process insofar as it
would deny the public knowledge of the laws that are supposed to govern it. Surely, if the legislature
could validly provide that a law shall become effective immediately upon its approval notwithstanding
the lack of publication (or after an unreasonably short period after publication), it is likely that persons
not aware of it would be prejudiced as a result; and they would be so not because of a failure to comply
with it but simply because they did not know of its existence.

All laws, general or specific (e.g. laws granting citizenship to a particular person), should be
published. The subject of such law is a matter of public interest which any member of the body politic
may question in the political forums or, if he is a proper party, even in the courts of justice.