G.R. No.

L-10292 March 31, 1915

EUSTAQUIO CONCHADA, Petitioner, vs. THE DIRECTOR OF PRISONS, Respondent.

FACTS: In 1914, Conchada was charged by the provincial prosecutor of murder which was in the Court
of First Instance of the Province of Tayabas, Seventh Judicial District by then Judge George R. Harvey.
He was tried on July 23, 1914, before the same Court of First Instance of Tayabas, presided over by the
Honorable Isidro Paredes and on that date included in the Fourteenth Judicial District by virtue of Act
No. 2347 of the Philippine Legislature which went into effect on the 1st day of the same month of July
and which provided for the reorganization of the Courts of First Instance and of the Court of Land
Registration.
During the course of the trial, defendant filed a motion praying that said court refrain from
proceeding further in the case and from sentencing him, and that it disqualify itself in favor of the
competent court, on the ground that it was not legally constituted, because said Act No. 2347, which had
created it, was contrary to the Organic act of the Philippines and therefore void, and said court and the
judge presiding therein lacked jurisdiction to try and decide the case and sentence him, because such
jurisdiction belonged to the Court of First Instance of Tayabas, Seventh Judicial District, in which the
complaint had been filed and which still existed in the province.However, the said motion was denied by
the court and the trial was carried forward in the same court who, has already rendered the said
judgment of conviction.
The attorneys representing Conchada, prayed to the Supreme Court to issue a writ of habeas
corpus to the Director of Prisons to compel him to produce said defendant and, after due hearing, to
order his release or grant him a trial in a competent court. They virtually alleged that the judgment
rendered by the Court of First Instance of Tayabas, fourteenth Judicial District, on September 23, 1914,
against the defendant was illegal, null and void, because: (1) The Philippine Legislature had no authority
to abolish or deprive of jurisdiction the Court of First of Tayabas, Seventh Judicial District, created by
the constitution, nor to substitute therefor another court of its own creation; (2) the Philippine
Legislature had no authority to dismiss or remove the judge of said Court of First Instance, which had
exclusive jurisdiction, as established by the constitution, of the crime specified in the complaint; and (3)
the judge of first instance of Tayabas, Seventh Judicial District, established by the Organic Act, having
first acquired jurisdiction over the cause of action and the person of the defendant, no territorial law
could validly compel the defendant-petitioner to submit to the jurisdiction of another court created by
the Legislature and presided over by a judge who held office subject to the will of that Legislature.

ISSUE: Whether or not the courts "organized" by Act No. 2347 are not legally constituted and that
Judge Paredes, appointed under said Act, lacked jurisdiction to try and sentence Eustaquio Conchada.

Ruling: NO. Act No. 2347 of the Legislature, whereby the reorganization of the Courts of First
Instance of these Islands was provided for, is not illegal and null and void, and the said courts are legally
constituted by virtue of said reorganization, the Honorable Judge Isidro Paredes had jurisdiction to try
and sentence the petitioner.
Section 9 of the Philippine Bill of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the Courts of First
Instance of these Islands, the Congress of the United States referred to the power of First Instance of
these Islands are invested by Act No. 136, which organized the courts of justice of these Islands, and to
such as they might in the future be invested with or as might be granted to them by the Government of
the Islands, subject to the power of said Government to change the practice and method of procedure;
but in no way did it refer to the districts or provinces wherein the Courts of First Instance or the judges
appointed to exercise such jurisdiction were then exercising it by virtue of Act No. 140, which was
passed by the same United States Commission in these Islands on June 12, 1901, prior to the Philippine
bill itself; or, rather, this Act did not refer to the place where said jurisdiction was to be exercised, or the
particular extent of territory in which it was then being exercised, or to the place or the particular extent
of territory in which it might be exercised, by virtue of the laws which might in the future be enacted for
such purpose by the Government of these Islands through the medium of the Philippine Commission or
Philippine Legislature.
Jurisdiction is the power with which judges are invested to try civil and criminal cases and to decide
them or render judgment in accordance with the law, the increase in the number of districts in the
judicial division of the territory of the Philippine Islands and the formation of each of these new districts
by a larger or smaller number of provinces than those assigned to each district by Act No. 140 and the
other Acts mentioned above, as well as changes in the designation of some of those districts and of some
of the provinces comprised in the former district for others finally designated in Act No. 2347, and the
reduction in some of the new districts, according to the same Act, of the number of provinces comprised,
to the extent that the Fourteenth Judicial District should include only the Province of Tayabas, which,
with the Province of Batangas had formed the Seventh Judicial District under Act No. 501 and prior
thereto under Act No. 140 the Sixth District, along with the Provinces of Laguna, Cavite, Principe and
Infanta, and Polillo Island, do not constitute limitation or increase of the jurisdiction of those courts,
because the power and authority to hear, try, and decide civil and criminal cases pertaining to each court
are always the same, and what was increased or diminished by said Act No. 2347 was the places
wherein said jurisdiction is exercised or the exercise of the jurisdiction itself with reference to the place
in which it is publicly manifested.
Moreover,it is true that section 7 of Act No. 2347 of the Philippine Legislature provided that the
judges of the Courts of First Instance, judges-at-large, and judges of the Court of Land Registration
should vacate their positions on the date when said Act went into effect, but the same section went on to
say further that the Governor-General, with the advice and consent of the Philippine Commission,
should make new appointments of judges of the Courts of First Instance and auxiliary judges in
accordance with the provisions of that Act. So that the ceasing to hold their respective positions in the
cases of the judges to whom said section referred is not and cannot be considered really as a removal or
dismissal of said judicial officers, as petitioner's counsel characterize it, but a measure related to the new
division of the judicial territory into a greater number of districts and the assignment to each district of
different provinces - in some of them, of the provinces that composed the districts theretofore existing -
which made necessary the new appointment of the respective judge for each district, an appointment
which the Governor-General of the Islands, with the advice and consent of the Philippine Commission,
was empowered to make, according to section 9 of the Act of Congress, the Philippine bill, nor can it be
in any way maintained, as petitioner's counsel contend, that the ceasing of said judges to hold their
positions, call it removal or not, has necessarily implied the destruction, abolition, or suppression of the
courts in which they discharge their duties, for the court as an entity is one thing and the person of the
officer who exercises his jurisdiction therein is another.
Furthermore, by reason of this organization, it could provide that the judges should cease to hold
their respective offices in accordance with the previous organization and that new judges should be
appointed to hold them in the districts newly created by virtue of such reorganization, for neither the law
organizing the judiciary nor the Philippine Bill contains any provisions fixing the number of districts of
which the division of the judicial territory of the Philippines must necessarily consist, nor the provinces
or the number thereof which must be included in each district, nor has it limited or restricted the power
of the Legislature or of the Government of the Philippines in connection with the organization of the
judiciary with respect to the Courts of First Instance, nor has it laid down any rules to which their
actions must conform in the exercise of such power, the Governor-General having been expressly
empowered, as we have already seen, by section 9 of the Philippine Bill, to appoint the judges of the
Courts of First Instance with the advice and consent of the Philippine Commission. All this clearly
demonstrates that said Courts of First Instance are not constitutional courts, and the hypothesis from
which petitioner's counsel have started in their brief being incorrect, the whole argument advanced by
them to show that Act No. 2347, which provides for the organization of the Courts of First Instance of
these Islands, is illegal and null and void, falls through. Moreover, without going beyond that same law
organizing the courts of justice of these Islands and the Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, the Philippine
Bill, we have a plain demonstration of the difference between the constitutional courts and those which
are not such, a difference which exists between the Courts of First Instance of these Islands and the
Supreme Court thereof.
In conclusion, since Act No. 2347 of the Legislature, whereby the reorganization of the Courts of
First Instance of these Islands was provided for, is not illegal and null and void, and the said courts are
legally constituted by virtue of said reorganization, the Honorable Judge Isidro Paredes had jurisdiction
to try and sentence the petitioner. Eustaquio Conchada, for the crime of murder and to order, as he did,
the imprisonment of said defendant by virtue of the sentence imposed upon him.It is therefore held that
there is no ground for issuing to the Directors of Prisons the writ of habeas corpus applied for the
counsel for said petitioner.