ADMINISTRATIVE LAW | LOVINA VS. MORENO, 9 SCRA 557, 1963

LOVINA VS. MORENO,

9 SCRA 557, 1963

 

TOPIC/DOCTRINE

Findings of fact of Secretary of Public Works supported by substantial evidence respected.

 

FACTS

This is an appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance of Manila in its Civil Case No. 41639, enjoining the Secretary of Public Works and Communications from causing the removal of certain dams and dikes in a fishpond owned by Primitivo and Nelly Lovina in the Municipality of Macabebe Province of Pampanga, covered by T.C.T. No. 15905.

After notice and hearing to the parties, the said Secretary found the constructions to be a public nuisance in navigable waters, and ordered the land owners, spouses Lovina, to remove five (5) closures of Sapang Bulati; otherwise, the Secretary would order their removal at the expense of the respondent.

The position of the plaintiffs-appellees in the court below was that Republic Act No. 2056 is unconstitutional because it invests the Secretary of Public Works and Communications with sweeping, unrestrained, final and unappealable authority to pass upon the issues of whether a river or stream is public and navigable, whether a dam encroaches upon such waters and is constitutive as a public nuisance, and whether the law applies to the state of facts, thereby constituting an alleged unlawful delegation of judicial power to the Secretary of Public Works and Communications.

 

ISSUE

Whether Republic Act No. 2056 gives undue delegation of judicial power to the Secretary of Public Works and also for being unreasonable and arbitrary

 

RULING

No.

The court ruled that the findings of fact of the Secretary of Public Works under Republic Act No. 2056 should be respected in the absence of illegality, error of law, fraud, or imposition, so long as said findings are supported by substantial evidence submitted to him. Republic Act No. 2056 does not constitute an unlawful delegation of judicial powers to the Secretary of Public Works. Although the exercise of the Secretary’s power under the Act necessarily involves the determination of some questions of fact, yet these functions, whether judicial or quasi-judicial, are merely incidental to the exercise of the power granted by law and are validly conferable upon executive officials provided the party affected is given opportunity to be heard, as is expressly required by Republic Act No. 2056, section 2.







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