Show me the money: a critical study on the constitutionality of House Bills no. 4690 and 4738

• Main Authors: Dominguez, David Jerome G., Sabban, Maria Aurora Nicole F.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2016
• Subjects: Judges > Salaries, etc. > Philippines; Courts > Philippines > Finance; Judges
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/14979
• Institution: De La Salle University

As provided for in Article VIII, Section III of the 1987 Constitution, the judiciary shall enjoy fiscal autonomy. To supplement the judiciary's budget, former president Ferdinand Marcos implemented Presidential Decree 1949 which established the Judicial Development Fund (JDF). The Fund, derived from fees collected by the various courts of law, augmented the judiciary's allocation for personal allowances and court maintenance. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and the Disbursement Acceleration Fund (DAP) were unconstitutional. Administration allies then started to target the JDF as well. Many questioned the transparency of the fund and the accountability of its administrations. To this extent, two house bills which sought to amend and repeal the PD 1949 were proposed. House Bill 4690 and House Bill 4738 seek to put JDF remittances in the hands of the national treasury. HB 4738 also seeks to include a no-report, no-release clause to the JDF. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether or not the two house bills are in consonance with separation of powers doctrine as well as the Constitution's mandate regarding the judiciary's fiscal autonomy.