On July 22, 2002, the House of Representatives adopted a Resolutionwhich directed the Committee on

Justice "to conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, on the manner of disbursements and
expenditures by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Judiciary Development Fund.

Impeachment proceedings was initiated by joseph estrada, but was votes to dismiss the same for being
insufficient. Four months after the first impeachment. A second impeachment was filed. Thus arose
instant petition that it was violative of constitution which provides Section 5 of Article XI of the
Constitution that "[n]o impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than
once within a period of one year."

Several petitions were filed praying for TRO against the impeachment proceedings with the court and
alleged that House Resolution No. 260 (calling for a legislative inquiry into the administration by the
Chief Justice of the JDF) infringes on the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers and is a direct
violation of the constitutional principle of fiscal autonomy of the judiciary.

Also on October 28, 2003, when respondent House of Representatives through Speaker Jose C. De
Venecia, Jr. and/or its co-respondents, by way of special appearance, submitted a Manifestation
asserting that this Court has no jurisdiction to hear, much less prohibit or enjoin the House of
Representatives, which is an independent and co-equal branch of government under the Constitution,
from the performance of its constitutionally mandated duty to initiate impeachment cases.

Issue:

whether or not the power of judicial review extends to those arising from impeachment proceedings.

HELD:

When the courts declare a law to be inconsistent with the Constitution, the former shall be void and the
latter shall govern.

Administrative or executive acts, orders and regulations shall be valid only when they are not contrary to
the laws or the Constitution.

As indicated in Angara v. Electoral Commission, judicial review is indeed an integral component of the
delicate system of checks and balances which, together with the corollary principle of separation of
powers, forms the bedrock of our republican form of government and insures that its vast powers are
utilized only for the benefit of the people for which it serves.

The separation of powers is a fundamental principle in our system of government. It obtains not
through express provision but by actual division in our Constitution. Each department of the
government has exclusive cognizance of matters within its jurisdiction, and is supreme within its own
sphere. But it does not follow from the fact that the three powers are to be kept separate and distinct
that the Constitution intended them to be absolutely unrestrained and independent of each other. The
Constitution has provided for an elaborate system of checks and balances to secure coordination in the
workings of the various departments of the government. x x x And the judiciary in turn, with the
Supreme Court as the final arbiter, effectively checks the other departments in the exercise of its power
to determine the law, and hence to declare executive and legislative acts void if violative of the
Constitution.32 (Emphasis and underscoring supplied)

In the scholarly estimation of former Supreme Court Justice Florentino Feliciano, "x x x judicial review is
essential for the maintenance and enforcement of the separation of powers and the balancing of
powers among the three great departments of government through the definition and maintenance of
the boundaries of authority and control between them."33 To him, "[j]udicial review is the chief, indeed
the only, medium of participation – or instrument of intervention – of the judiciary in that balancing
operation."