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    Vinuya V Romulo

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    Andrea Quiogue Carigma
    This case involved a petition by Filipino women seeking an official apology and compensation from Japan for their imprisonment and rape by Japanese soldiers during WWII. The Supreme Court ruled that the Executive Department's decision not to pursue the claim against Japan was a political question outside the Court's jurisdiction. While courts can interpret treaties, matters of diplomatic relations between countries are committed to the political branches. The Executive Department had previously waived all claims against Japan in a 1951 peace treaty, and determining whether to pursue this claim involved assessing foreign policy interests, which courts cannot override. Therefore, the Court could not order the Executive to take up the petitioners' case.

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    Vinuya V Romulo

    Uploaded by

    Andrea Quiogue Carigma
    27 views2 pages
    This case involved a petition by Filipino women seeking an official apology and compensation from Japan for their imprisonment and rape by Japanese soldiers during WWII. The Supreme Court ruled that the Executive Department's decision not to pursue the claim against Japan was a political question outside the Court's jurisdiction. While courts can interpret treaties, matters of diplomatic relations between countries are committed to the political branches. The Executive Department had previously waived all claims against Japan in a 1951 peace treaty, and determining whether to pursue this claim involved assessing foreign policy interests, which courts cannot override. Therefore, the Court could not order the Executive to take up the petitioners' case.

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    Vinuya v Romulo

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    This case involved a petition by Filipino women seeking an official apology and compensation from Japan for their imprisonment and rape by Japanese soldiers during WWII. The Supreme Court ruled that the Executive Department's decision not to pursue the claim against Japan was a political question outside the Court's jurisdiction. While courts can interpret treaties, matters of diplomatic relations between countries are committed to the political branches. The Executive Department had previously waived all claims against Japan in a 1951 peace treaty, and determining whether to pursue this claim involved assessing foreign policy interests, which courts cannot override. Therefore, the Court could not order the Executive to take up the petitioners' case.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    27 views2 pages

    Vinuya V Romulo

    Uploaded by

    Andrea Quiogue Carigma
    This case involved a petition by Filipino women seeking an official apology and compensation from Japan for their imprisonment and rape by Japanese soldiers during WWII. The Supreme Court ruled that the Executive Department's decision not to pursue the claim against Japan was a political question outside the Court's jurisdiction. While courts can interpret treaties, matters of diplomatic relations between countries are committed to the political branches. The Executive Department had previously waived all claims against Japan in a 1951 peace treaty, and determining whether to pursue this claim involved assessing foreign policy interests, which courts cannot override. Therefore, the Court could not order the Executive to take up the petitioners' case.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Vinuya v Romulo

    GR No 162230 ; Apr 28, 2010

    FACTS: Petitioners are all members of the MALAYA LOLAS, a non-stock, non-profit
    organization registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, established for
    the purpose of providing aid to the victims of rape by Japanese military forces in the
    Philippines during the second world war. Petitioners narrate that during the second
    world war, the Japanese army attacked villages and systematically raped the women as
    part of the destruction of the village. Their communities were bombed, houses were
    looted and burned, and civilians were publicly tortured, mutilated, and slaughtered.
    Japanese soldiers forcibly seized the women and held them in houses or cells, where
    they were repeatedly raped, beaten and abused by Japanese soldiers. As a result of the
    actions of their tormentors, the petitioners have spent their lives in misery, having
    endured physical injuries, pain and disability, and mental and emotional suffering.
    Petitioners claim that since 1998, they have approached the Executive Department
    through the DOJ, DFA, and OSG, requesting assistance in filing a claim against the
    Japanese officials and military officers who ordered the establishment of the “comfort
    women” stations in the Philippines. However, officials of the Executive Department
    declined to assist the petitioners and took the position that the individual claims of the
    comfort women for compensation had already been fully satisfied by Japan’s
    compliance with the Peace Treaty between the Philippines and Japan.

    ISSUE: Did the Executive Department commit grave abuse of discretion in not
    espousing petitioners’ claim for official apology and other forms of repatriation against
    Japan?

    RULING: NO. This is a political question. In Tañada v Cuenco, the Court held that
    political questions refer “to those questions which, under the Constitution, are to be
    decided by the people in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full discretionary
    authority has been delegated to the legislative or executive branch of the government. It
    is concerned with issues dependent upon the wisdom not legality of a particular
    measure.”

    It is well-established that “the conduct of the foregin relations of our government is


    committed by the Constitution to the executive and legislative - the political -
    departments of the government, and the propriety of what may be done in the exercise
    of this political power is not subject to judicial inquiry or decision.” To be sure, not all
    cases implicating foregin relations present political questions, and courts certainly
    possess the authority to construe or invalidate treaties and executive agreements.
    However, the question whether the Philippine government should espouse claims of its
    nationals against a foreign government is a foreign relations matter, the authority for
    which is demonstrably committed by our Constitution not to the courts but to the political
    branches.
    In the present case, the Executive Department has already decided that it is to the best
    interest of the country to waive all claims of its nationals for repatriation against Japan in
    the Treaty of Peace of 1951. The wisdom of such decision is not for the courts to
    question. Neither could petitioners herein assail the said determination by the Executive
    Department via the instant petition for certiorari. The Executive Department has
    determined that taking up petitioners’ cause would be inimical to our country’s foreign
    policy interests, and could disrupt our relations with Japan, thereby creating serious
    implications for stability in this region.

    From a municipal law perspective, that certiorari will not lie. As a general principle - and
    particularly here, where such an extraordinary length of time has lapsed between the
    treaty’s conclusion and our consideration - the Executive must be given ample
    discretion to assess the foreign policy considerations of espousing a claim against
    Japan, from the standpoint of both the interests of the petitioners and those of the
    Republic, and decide on that basis if apologies are sufficient, and whether further steps
    are appropriate or necessary. In the international sphere, traditionally, the only means
    available for individuals to bring a claim within the international legal system has been
    when the individual is able to persuade a government to bring a claim on the individual’s
    behalf. By taking up the case of one of its subjects and by resorting to diplomatic action
    or international judicial proceedings on his behalf, a State is in reality asserting its own
    right to ensure, in the person of its subjects, respect for the rules of international law.
    Furthermore, it has been argued that, as petitioners argue now, that the State has a
    duty to protect its nationals and act on his/her behalf when rights are injured. However,
    at present, there is no sufficient evidence to establish a general international obligation
    for States to exercise diplomatic protection of their own nationals abroad. Though,
    perhaps desirable, neither state practice nor opinion juris has evolved in such a
    discretion. If it is a duty internationally, it is only a moral and not a legal duty, and there
    is no means of enforcing its fulfillment.

    Thus, for us to overturn the Executive Department’s determination would mean an


    assessment of the foreign policy judgments by a coordinated political branch to which
    authority to make that judgment has been constitutionally committed. Hence, it is not
    within the power of this Court to order the Executive Department to take up the
    petitioners’ cause. The Court only has the power to urge and exhort the Executive
    Department to take up petitioners’ cause.

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