Endencia vs David Case Digest
Facts
This is a joint appeal from the decision of the Court of First Instance in manila declaring section 13 of RA 590 unconstitutional and ordering the appellant Saturnino David as Collector of Internal Revenue to refund Justice Pastor Endencia and to Justice Fernand Jugo the income tax collected on their salary.
When the SC held in the Perfecto case that Judicial Officers were exempt from salary tax because the collection thereof was a decrease of their salary which is prohibited by the Constitution, the Congress thereafter promulgated RA 590, authorizing and legalizing the collection of income tax on the salaries of Judicial Officers.
Issue:
Whether Section 13 of RA 590 is not unconstitutional.
Ruling
No.
The Supreme Court believes that Section 10 of Article VIII of the Constitution which refers to salaries of Judicial Officers was interpreted by Section13 of RA 590.
This act interpreting the provision of the Constitution is an invasion of the Jurisdiction of the Judiciary..
The decision appealed is affirmed.
The exemption was not primarily intended to benefit judicial officers but was grounded on public policy. As said by Justice Van Devanter of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Evans vs. Gore (253 U. S., 245):
Endencia vs David Case Digest
The primary purpose of the prohibition against diminution was not to benefit the judges, but, like the clause in respect of tenure, to attract good and competent men to the bench and to promote that independence of action and judgment which is essential to the maintenance of the guaranties, limitations and pervading principles of the Constitution and to the administration of justice without respect to person and with equal concern for the poor and the rich. Such being its purpose, it is to be construed, not as a private grant, but as a limitation imposed in the public interest; in other words, not restrictively, but in accord with its spirit and the principle on which it proceeds.
