SECRETARY OF JUSTICE V.

LANTION GR 139465, 17 October 2000

Facts:
Petitioner has signed in Manila the “extradition Treaty between the Government of the
Philippines and the Government of the U.S.A. The Philippine Senate ratified the said
Treaty.
Thereafter, the Department of Justice received from the Department of Foreign Affairs
U.S a Verbale Note containing a request for the extradition of Jimenez to the United
States.
On the same day, petitioner designate and authorizing a panel of attorneys to take charge
of and to handle the case. Pending evaluation of the extradition documents, Mark Jimenez
through counsel, wrote a letter to Justice Secretary requesting copies of the official
extradition request from the U.S Government and that he be given ample time to
comment on the request after he shall have received copies of the requested papers but
the petitioner denied the request for the consistency of Article 7 of the RP-US Extradition
Treaty, the Philippine Government must present the interests of the United States in any
proceedings arising out of a request for extradition.

ISSUE:
WON to uphold a citizen’s basic due process rights or the government’s ironclad duties
under a treaty

RULING:
The human rights of person, whether citizen or alien, and the rights of the accused
guaranteed in our Constitution should take precedence over treaty rights claimed by a
contracting state.
The duties of the government to the individual deserve preferential consideration when
they collide with its treaty obligations to the government of another state. This is so
although we recognize treaties as a source of binding obligations under generally
accepted principles of international law incorporated in our Constitution as part of the law
of the land.

The doctrine of incorporation is applied whenever municipal tribunals are confronted

with situation in which there appears to be a conflict between a rule of international law
and the provision of the constitution or statute of the local state. Under this doctrine, rules
of international law form part of the law of the land and no further legislative action are
needed to make such rules applicable in the domestic sphere. It is also applied whenever
municipal tribunals are confronted with situations in which there appears to be a conflict
between a rule of international law and the provisions of the constitution or statute of the
local state.
In a situation, however, where the conflict is irreconcilable and a choice has to be made
between a rule of international law and a municipal law, jurisprudence dictates that
municipal law should be upheld by the municipal courts, for the reason that such courts
are organs of municipal law and are accordingly bound by it in all circumstances.