Co Kim Cham vs. Valdez

Co Kim Cham vs. Valdez FACTS Co Kim Cham had a pending civil case initiated during the Japanese occupation with the CFI of Manila. After the liberation of the Manila and the American occupation, respondent Judge Dizon refused to continue hearings, saying that a proclamation issued by General Douglas MacArthur had invalidated and nullified all judicial proceedings and judgments of the courts of the defunct Republic of the Philippines. ISSUES I. Whether or not the judicial acts and proceedings made under Japanese occupation were valid and remained valid even after the American occupation. II. Whether or not it was the intention of the Commander in Chief of the American Forces to annul and void thereby all judgments and judicial proceedings of the courts established in the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation. III. Whether or not the courts of the Commonwealth have jurisdiction to continue now the proceedings in actions pending in the courts at the time the Philippine Islands were reoccupied or liberated by the American and Filipino forces HELD AFFIRMATIVE. [A]ll acts and proceedings of the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of a de facto government are good and valid. If the governments established in these Islands under the names of the Philippine Executive Commission and Republic of the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation or regime were de facto governments], the judicial acts and proceedings of those governments remain good and valid even after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the American and Filipino forces. The governments by the Philippine Executive Commission and the Republic of the Philippines during the Japanese military occupation being de facto governments, it necessarily follows that the judicial acts and proceedings of the courts of justice of those governments, which are not of a political complexion, were good and valid, and, by virtue of the well-known principle of postliminy in international law, remained good and valid after the liberation or reoccupation of the Philippines by the American and Filipino forces under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur. II NEGATIVE. The phrase “processes of any other government” is broad and may refer not only to the judicial processes, but also to administrative or legislative, as well as constitutional, processes of the Republic of the Philippines or other governmental agencies established in the Islands during the Japanese occupation. [I]t should be presumed that it was not, and could not have been, the intention of General Douglas MacArthur, in using the phrase “processes of any other government” in said proclamation, to refer to judicial processes, in violation of said principles of international law. [T]he legislative power of a commander in chief of military forces who liberates or reoccupies his own territory which has been occupied by an enemy, during the military and before the restoration of the civil regime, is as broad as that of the commander in chief of the military forces of invasion and occupation, it is to be presumed that General Douglas MacArthur, who was acting as an agent or a representative of the Government and the President of the United States, constitutional commander in chief of the United States Army, did not intend to act against the principles of the law of nations asserted by the Supreme Court of the United States from the early period of its existence, applied by the Presidents of the United States, and later embodied in the Hague Conventions of 1907. III AFFIRMATIVE. Although in theory the authority of the local civil and judicial administration is suspended as a matter of course as soon as military occupation takes place, in practice the invader does not usually take the administration of justice into his own hands, but continues the ordinary courts or tribunals to administer the laws of the country which he is enjoined, unless absolutely prevented, to respect. [I]n the Executive Order of President McKinley to the Secretary of War, “in practice, they (the municipal laws) are not usually abrogated but are allowed to remain in force and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals substantially as they were before the occupation. This enlightened practice is, so far as possible, to be adhered to on the present occasion.” From a theoretical point of view it may be said that the conqueror is armed with the right to substitute his arbitrary will for all preexisting forms of government, legislative, executive and judicial. From the stand-point of actual practice such arbitrary will is restrained by the provision of the law of nations which compels the conqueror to continue local laws and institution so far as military necessity will permit