A prejudicial question is a separate action from the original crime which determines the guilt or

innocence of a person under trial. This is the usual issue in the cases of bigamy and annulment of
marriage or nullification of marriage.

There are two elements to determine that there exists a pre-judicial question. First, the civil
action that is previously instituted has similar or closely related issue/s involved in the criminal action.
Second, the decision or resolution of the issue/s will determine whether the subsequently filed criminal
action may or may not proceed.

The rationale behind this prejudicial question is the avoidance of two conflicting decisions. In
other words, the civil action must be resolved first before the criminal action proceeds in a trial in order
not to create a conflict with the court decisions in both civil and criminal actions.

The civil action may not constitute a prejudicial question when there is no need to determine
first the resolution of the civil case before taking up the criminal case. If the determination of the
criminal responsibility of the accused in the criminal case does not vary on the resolution of the issue in
the civil case, then there shall be no prejudicial question to deal with.