G.R. No. 216920
January 13, 2016
CASE PRINCIPLE
Filing of an information by an unauthorized officer constitutes jurisdictional infirmity which can be a ground for quashal of the information.
FACTS
The Assistant City Prosecutor (ACP) issued a resolution finding probable cause against the petitioner for violation of RA 7610. The resolution was approved by the Senior Assistant City Prosecutor. Thereafter, the ACP filed an Information before the RTC charging petitioner with such crime.
Petitioner moved to quash the information on the ground of the lack of authority of the person who filed the same before the RTC. She contended that the Assistant City Prosecutor and Senior Assistant City Prosecutor has no prior authority or approval from the City Prosecutor to file or approve the filing of the Information against her. Hence, the Information must be quashed for being tainted with a jurisdictional defect that cannot be cured.
The RTC as well as the Court of Appeals denied the petitioner’s motion to quash. Hence, this petition.
ISSUE
Whether or not the a motion to quash the Information be granted on the ground that the Assistant City Prosecutor has no authority to file the Information in Court?
RULING
Yes.
Under Section 4, Rule 112, filing of a complaint or information requires a prior written authority or approval of the provincial or city prosecutor or chief state prosecutor or the Ombudsman or his deputy before a complaint or information may be filed before the courts. Hence, as a general rule, complaints or information filed before the courts without the prior written authority or approval of the authorized officers renders the same defective and, therefore, subject to quashal of information pursuant to Section 3 (d), Rule 117 of the same Rules.
Moreover, the Supreme Court held in People v. Garfin that filing of an Information by an officer without the requisite authority to file the same constitutes a jurisdictional infirmity which cannot be cured by silence, waiver, acquiescence, or even by express consent.
In this case, the Resolution was valid pursuant to Section 9 of RA 10071 which gave the City Prosecutor the power to “[investigate and/or cause to be investigated all charges of crimes, misdemeanors and violations of penal laws and ordinances within their… respective jurisdictions, and have the necessary information or complaint prepared or made and filed against the persons accused,” he may indeed delegate his power to his subordinates as he may deem necessary in the interest of the… prosecution service. Since the Resolution bore the approval of one of the designated review prosecutors for OCP-Makati, which in this case is the Senior Assistant City Prosecutor, such Resolution was valid.
However, the Information was not valid as there was no showing that it was approved by either the City Prosecutor of Makati or any of the OCP-Makati’s division chiefs or review prosecutors. It only contains a certification from the Assistant City Prosecutor himself which states that the “filing of Information is with the prior authority and approval of the City Prosecutor.”
In the cases of People v. Garfin, Turingan v. Garfin, and Tolentino v. Paqueo; the Court had already rejected similarly-worded certifications, uniformly holding that despite such… certifications, the Informations were defective as it was shown that the officers filing the same in court either lacked the authority to do so or failed to show that they obtained prior written authority from any of those authorized officers enumerated in Section 4, Rule 112 of… the 2000 Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Hence, the Information should be quashed because the Assistant City Prosecutor has no authority to file the Information in Court.