YNOT v Intermediate Appellate Court

G.R. No. 74457 March 20, 1987

Digested by: J. Mosquera
DUE PROCESS CRUZ, J.

Facts: Petitioner, Restituto Ynot, transported 6 carabaos in a pump boat from Masbate to Iloilo.
The police accosted him and confiscated his carabaos for violation of the Executive Order 626-A of
former President Marcos, where it prohibited inter provincial transfer of carabaos and carabeef and the
same shall be confiscated to be distributed by Chairman of National Meat Inspection Commission or the
Director of Animal Husbandry to charities and deserving farmers, as they deem fit. Petitioner sued for
recovery and upon filing a superseadas bond of 12,000 pesos, was issued a writ of replevin. Court
sustained the confiscation and IAC affirmed. Now, the petitioner assails the constitutionality of the E.O
for violation of due process for denying him the right to be heard.

Issue: WON E.O. 626-A is violative of the due process clause. (YES).

Ruling: The Court held that E.O. 626-A was violative of the due process clause, thus, is invalid.
The due process clause was kept intentionally vague so that it would be resilient-to make it flexible and
adapt easily to every situation, enlarging or constricting its protection as the changing times and
circumstances may require. The minimum requirements of due process are notice and hearing. In US v.
Toribio, where a law regulating the branding and slaughter of large cattle, defendant was convicted after
trial. Such law as a valid exercise of police power, when the interest of the public, as distinguished from
a particular class, requires such interference of the state and that the means are reasonably necessary for
the accomplishment of the purpose and not unduly oppressive upon individuals. The E.O. Is violation of
the due process clause as it defined the prohibition, convicted the petitioner and immediately imposed
the punishment without giving him the chance to be heard. Also, the E.O., being penal in nature, the
violation thereof should be adjudged by court of justice, which alone had the authority to impose the
prescribed penalty only after trial and conviction, and not the police or the other authorities mentioned
above. The confiscation of his carabaos without hearing his explanation or defense violates fair play.
Thus, the Court declared E.O. 626-A unconstitutional for invalid exercise of police power, encroachment
of judicial function, undue delegation of legislative powers and violation of the due process clause.

Some quotes on due process:

Thus, Justice Felix Frankfurter of the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, would go no farther than to define due
process — and in so doing sums it all up — as nothing more and nothing less than "the embodiment of the sporting Idea of
fair play."

Daniel Webster described almost two hundred years ago in the famous Dartmouth College Case,as "the law which hears
before it condemns, which proceeds upon inquiry and renders judgment only after trial." It has to be so if the rights of every
person are to be secured beyond the reach of officials who, out of mistaken zeal or plain arrogance, would degrade the due
process clause into a worn and empty catchword.

John of England promised: "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed
or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so,
except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."