Secretary of Justice vs.

Judge Ralph Lantion 343 SCRA 377

FACTS:
On January 13, 1977, President Ferdinand E. Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 1069 Prescribing
the Procedure for the Extradition of Persons Who Have
Committed Crimes in a Foreign Country. The Decree is founded on: the Doctrine of Incorporation under the Constitution;
the mutual concern for the suppression of crime both in the state where it was committed and the state where the criminal
may have escaped. On November 13, 1994, Secretary of Justice Franklin Drilon, representing the Government of the
Republic of the Philippines, signed in Manila the Extradition Treaty between the Government of the Philippines and the
Government of the U.S.A.

The Philippine Senate ratified the said Treaty. On June 18, 1999, the Department of Justice received from the Department
of Foreign Affairs U.S Note Verbale No. 0522 containing a request for the extradition of private respondent Mark Jimenez
to the United States. Mark Jimenez was charged of multiple crimes ranging from tax evasion to wire tapping to conspiracy
to defraud the USA. Jimenez was then wanted in the US. The US government, pursuant to the RP-US extradition treaty
requested to have Jimenez be extradited there. Jimenez requested for a copy of the complaint against him as well as the
extradition request by the USA. The DOJ secretary:
1. refused to provide him copy thereof advising that it is still premature to give him so and that it is not apreliminary
investigation hence he is not entitled to receive such copies;
2. denied the request for the consistency of Article 7 of the RP-US Extradition Treaty stated in Article 7that the
Philippine Government must present the interests of the United States in any proceedingsarising out of a request
for extradition. Jimenez sued the DOJ Secretary (Franklin Drilon). The lower court ruled in favor of Jimenez.
ISSUE: Whether or not Jimenez is deprived of due process.
HELD:
The Petition was dismissed. The human rights of person, whether citizen or alien, and the rights of the accused
guaranteed in our Constitution should take precedence over treaty rights claimed by a contracting state. The duties of the
government to the individual deserve preferential consideration when they collide with its treaty obligations to the
government of another state. This is so although we recognize treaties as a source of binding obligations under generally
accepted principles of international law incorporated in our Constitution as part of the law of the land. The doctrine of
incorporation is applied whenever municipal tribunals are confronted with situation in which there appears to be a conflict
between a rule of international law and the provision of the constitution or statute of the local state. Petitioner (Secretary of
Justice) is ordered to furnish Mark Jimenez copies of the extradition request and its supporting papers, and to grant
him (Mark Jimenez) a reasonable period within which to file his comment with supporting evidence.
*Under the Doctrine of Incorporation, rules of international law form part of the law of the land and no further legislative
action is needed to make such rules applicable in the domestic sphere.*The doctrine of incorporation is applied whenever
municipal tribunals are confronted with situations in which there appears to be a conflict between a rule of international
law and the provisions of the constitution or statute of the local