PROSPECTIVE AND RETROACTIVE STATUTES

A. IN GENERAL
Prospective statute - one which operates upon facts or transactions that occur after the statute
takes effect, one that looks and applies to the future.
Retroactive statute a law which creates a new obligation, imposes a new duty or attaches a
new disability in respect to a transaction already past.
B. PROSPECTIVE STATUTES
Laws operate prospectively, generally
Well settled rule of statutory construction: Statutes are to be construed as having only prospective
operation, unless the intendment of the legislature is to give them a retroactive effect, expressly declare or
necessarily implied from the language used.
--No court will hold a sttaute to be retroactive when the the legislature has not said so.
The rule on prospectivity and not retroactivity is embodied in: Art. 4 of the Civil Code which provides
that Laws shall have no retroactive effect, unless the contrary is provided.
Lex prospicit, non respicit the law looks forward, not backward.
Lex de future, judex de praeterito the law provides for the future, the judge for the
past.
Reason for the general rule, as embodied in Art.4 of the Civil Code: A law is rule established to
guide actions with no binding effect until it is enacted; hence, it has no application to past but
only to future times.

Nova constitution futurisformamimponeredebet non praeteretis A new statute should

affect the future, not the past.

Prospectivity applies to:

a. Statutes
b. Administrative rulings and circulars
c. Judicial decisions-interprets the laws or the constitution shall form part of the legal
system.
Presumption against retroactivity

The presumption is that all laws operate prospectively unless the contrary clearly
appears or is clearly plainly and unequivocally expressed or necessarily implied.
In every case of doubt, doubt must be resolved against retroactive operation of laws.

Words or phrases indicating prospectivity

-Aside from the presumption that laws operate prospectively, the legislature sometimes indicates
its intent not to give a stature a retroactive effect on past.
a. hereafter or thereafter
b. from and after the passing of this Act
c. shall have been made
d. from and after a designated date

 Shall implies that the law makes intend the enactment to be effective only in future.
Statutes have no retroactive but prospective effect when a statute provides:
a. It shall take effect upon its approval; or
b. Shall take effect on the date the President shall have issued a proclamation or E.O., as provided
in the statute.
STATUTES GIVEN PROSPECTIVE EFFECT
1. Penal statutes
Penal laws operate prospectively.
Art. 21 of the RPC provides that no felony shall be punishable by any penalty not prescribed
by law prior to its commission.
Basis of Art 21: Nullumcrimen sine poena, nullapoena sine legis there is no crime without a
penalty, there is no penalty without a law.
No penal law can have a retroactive effect, no act or omission shall be held to be a crime, nor its
author punished, except by virtue of a law in force at the time the act was committed.
Ex post facto law
No ex post facto law shall be enacted. It also prohibits the retroactive application of
penal laws which are in the nature of ex post facto laws.
Applies only to criminal or penal matters and not to civil laws.
Ex post facto laws are any of the following:
a. Law makes criminal an act done before the passage of the law and which was
innocent when done, and punishes such act
b. Law which aggravates a crime, makes it greater than it was, when committed
c. Law which changes the punishment & inflicts a greater punishment than that
annexed to the crime when committed
d. Law which alters the legal rules of evidence, authorizes conviction upon less
or different testimony than the law required at the time of the commission of the
offense
e. Law which assumes to regulate civil rights and remedies only, but in effect
imposes penalty or deprivation of a right for something which when done was
lawful
f. Law which deprives a person accused of a crime of some lawful protection to
which he has become entitled, such as protection of a former conviction or
acquittal, or proclamation of amnesty.

Bill of attainder

Rule: No bill of attainder shall be enacted.

Bill of attainder legislative act which inflicts punishment without judicial trial.
If a law is bill of attainder, it is an ex post facto law. If it is not an ex post facto law, it is not a bill
of attainder.
When penal laws applied retroactively
Penal laws cannot be given retroactive effect, except when they are favorable to the accused (Art
22, RPC). Favorabiliasuntamplianda, adiosarestringenda(laws that are favorable to the accused
are given retroactive effect.)

EXCEPTION:
a) When the accused is a habitual delinquent.
b) Where the later statute expressly provide that it shall not apply to
existing actions or pending cases.
c) Accused disregards the later law and invokes the prior statute under
which he was prosecuted.
d) Amendatory statute which renders an illegal act prior to enactment
legal is generally given retroactive effect unless it is expressly provide
that such statute will not apply retroactively.

2. Substantive Statutes - creates, defines or regulates rights concerning life, liberty or property, or the
powers of agencies or instrumentalities for administration of public affairs.
Cannot be construed retroactively as it might affect previous or past rights or obligations.
Effects on pending actions:
Statutes affecting substantive rights may not be given retroactive operation so as
to govern pending proceedings.
Qualification of rule:
A substantive law will be construed as applicable to pending actions if such is the
clear intent of the law.
A case must be decided in the light of the law as it exists at the time of the
decision of the appellate court, where the statute changing the law is intended to
be retroactive and to apply to pending litigations or is retroactive in effect.
3. Statutes affecting vested rights
A statute may not be construed and applied retroactively under the following circumstances:
a. if it impairs substantive right that has become vested;
b. as disturbing or destroying existing right embodied in a judgment;
c. creating new substantive right to fundamental cause of action where none existed
before and making such right retroactive;
d. by arbitrarily creating a new right or liability already extinguished by operation of law.

4. Statutes affecting obligations of contract

Laws existing at the time of the execution of contracts are the ones applicable to such
transactions and not later statutes, unless the latter provide that they shall have retroactive effect.

 Later statutes will not, however, be given retroactive effect if to do so will impair the obligation
of contracts, for the Constitution prohibits the enactment of a law impairing the obligations of
contracts.
5. Repealing and amendatory acts
Statutes which repeal earlier or prior laws operate prospectively, unless the legislative intent to
give them retroactive effect clearly appears.
Although a repealing state is intended to be retroactive, it will not be so construed if it will
impair vested rights or the obligations of contracts, or unsettle matters that had been legally done
under the old law.
Repealing statutes which are penal in nature are generally applied retroactively if favorable to
the accused, unless the contrary appears or the accused is otherwise not entitled to the benefits of
the repealing act.
C. RETROACTIVE STATUTES
Retroactive statutes, generally
The Constitution does not prohibit the enactment of retroactive statutes which do not impair the
obligation of contract, deprive persons of property without due process of law, or divest rights
which have become vested, or which are not in the nature of ex post facto laws.
Statutes by nature which are retroactive:
a. Remedial or curative statutes
b. Statutes which create new rights
c. Statute expressly provides that it shall apply retroactively
d. Where it uses words which clearly indicate its intent
STATUTES GIVEN RETROACTIVE EFFECT
1. Procedural laws - adjective laws which prescribe rules and forms of procedure of
enforcing rights or obtaining redress for their invasion.
The general rule that statutes are prospective and not retroactive does not ordinarily apply to
procedural laws.
Exceptions to the rule:
a. The statute itself expressly or by necessary implication provides that pending actions
are excepted from it operation, or where to apply it to pending proceedings would impair
vested rights
b. Courts may deny the retroactive application of procedural laws in the event that to do
so would not be feasible or would work injustice.
c. Nor may procedural laws be applied retroactively to pending actions if to do so would
involve intricate problems of due process or impair the independence of the courts.

2. Curative statutes - healing acts; remedial by curing defects and adding to the means of enforcing
existing obligations.
RULE: If the thing omitted or failed to be done, and which constitutes the defect sought to be
removed or made harmless, is something which the legislature might have dispensed
with by a previous statute, it may do so by a subsequent one
3. Police power legislations
As a rule, statutes which are enacted in the exercise of police power to regulate certain activities,
are applicable not only to those activities or transactions coming into being after their passage,
but also to those already in existence.
4. Statutes relating to prescription
General rule: A statute relating to prescription of action, being procedural in nature, applies to
all actions filed after its effectivity. In other words, such a statute is both:
a. prospective in the sense that it applies to causes that accrued and will accrue after it
took effect, and
b. retroactive in the sense that it applies to causes that accrued before its passage.
However, a statute of limitations will not be given retroactive operation to causes of action that
accrued prior to its enactment if to do so will remove a bar of limitation which has become
complete or disturb existing claims without allowing a reasonable time to bring actions thereon.
Prescription in criminal and civil cases
General rule: Laws on prescription of actions apply as well to crimes committed before
the enactment as afterwards.
CIVIL SUIT
Statute is enacted by the legislature as an
impartial arbiter, between two contending
parties.
In the construction of such statute, there is no
intendment to be made in favor of either
party. Neither grants right to the other; there
is therefore no grantor against whom no
ordinary presumptions of construction are to
be made.

5. Statutes relating to appeals

CRIMINAL CASES
The state is the grantor, surrendering by act
of grace its right to prosecute or declare
that the offense is no longer subject of
prosecution after the prescriptive period.
Such statutes are not only liberally
construed but are applied retroactively if
favorable to the accused.

 General Rule: The right to appeal from an adverse judgment, other than that which the
Constitution grants, is statutory and may be restricted or taken away.
A statute relating to appeals is remedial or procedural in nature and applies to pending actions in
which no judgment has yet been promulgated at the time the statute took effect.