See - A petition for certiorari may be invoked only against a tribunal, board, or officer exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions. - The Lawyer's Post.
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Second, although the instant petition is styled as a petition for certiorari, in essence, it seeks the declaration by this Court of the unconstitutionality or illegality of the questioned ordinance and executive order. It, thus, partakes of the nature of a petition for declaratory relief over which this Court has only appellate, not original, jurisdiction. Section 5, Article VIII of the Constitution provides:
Sec. 5. The Supreme Court shall have the following powers:
(1) Exercise original jurisdiction over cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and over petitions for certiorari, prohibition, mandamus, quo warranto, and habeas corpus.
(2) Review, revise, reverse, modify, or affirm on appeal or certiorari as the law or the Rules of Court may provide, final judgments and orders of lower courts in:
(a) All cases in which the constitutionality or validity of any treaty, international or executive agreement, law, presidential decree, proclamation, order, instruction, ordinance, or regulation is in question. (Italics supplied).
As such, this petition must necessar[ily] fail, as this Court does not have original jurisdiction over a petition for declaratory relief even if only questions of law are involved.
Likewise, in Southern Hemisphere Engagement Network, Inc. v. Anti Terrorism Council, we similarly dismissed the petitions for certiorari and prohibition challenging the constitutionality of R.A. No. 9372, otherwise known as the “Human Security Act of 2007,” since the respondents therein (members of the Anti-Terrorism Council) did not exercise judicial or quasi-judicial functions.
While we have recognized in the past that we can exercise the discretion and rulemaking authority we are granted under the Constitution, and set aside procedural considerations to permit parties to bring a suit before us at the first instance through certiorari and/or prohibition, this liberal policy remains to be an exception to the general rule, and thus, has its limits. In Concepcion v. Commission on Elections (COMELEC), we emphasized the importance of availing of the proper remedies and cautioned against the wrongful use of certiorari in order to assail the quasi-legislative acts of the COMELEC, especially by the wrong party. In ruling that liberality and the transcendental doctrine cannot trump blatant disregard of procedural rules, and considering that the petitioner had other available remedies (such as a petition for declaratory relief with the appropriate RTC under the terms of Rule 63 of the Rules of Court), as in this case, we categorically ruled:
The petitioner’s unusual approaches and use of Rule 65 of the Rules of Court do not appear to us to be the result of any error in reading Rule 65, given the way the petition was crafted. Rather, it was a backdoor approach to achieve what the petitioner could not directly do in his individual capacity under Rule 65. It was, at the very least, an attempted bypass of other available, albeit lengthier, modes of review that the Rules of Court provide. While we stop short of concluding that the petitioner’s approaches constitute an abuse of process through a manipulative reading and application of the Rules of Court, we nevertheless resolve that the petition should be dismissed for its blatant violation of the Rules. The transgressions alleged in a petition, however weighty they may sound, cannot be justifications for blatantly disregarding the rules of procedure, particularly when remedial measures were available under these same rules to achieve the petitioner’s objectives. For our part, we cannot and should not – in the name of liberality and the “transcendental importance” doctrine – entertain these types of petitions. As we held in the very recent case of Lozano, et al. vs. Nograles, albeit from a different perspective, our liberal approach has its limits and should not be abused.23 [emphasis supplied”
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