Myline Cordial

Jeffrey Liang (Huefeng) vs. People of the Philippines
G.R. No. 125865. March 26, 2001
355 SCRA 125

Motion for Reconsideration of a decision of the Supreme Court.

FACTS: An economist working with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) allegedly uttered defamatory words against fellow ADB worker on two occasions. He was charged before the MeTC of Mandaluyong City with two counts of grave oral defamation. He was arrested but released on bail to the custody of Security Officer of ADB. The MeTC receive an office protocol from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) stating that petitioner is covered by immunity from legal processes under Section 45 of the Agreement between ADB and the Philippine Government. Based on this protocol, the MeTC judge dismissed the two criminal cases without notice to the prosecution. On a petition for certiorari and mandamus filed by the People, RTC Pasig annulled and set aside the order of the MeTC dismissing the criminal cases.

ISSUES: Whether or not the immunity of International Organization is absolute.

RULING: The determination whether the statements made by petitioner were uttered while in the performance of his official functions is necessary so that the immunity may be granted to the petitioner. The Agreement Between the Asian Development Bank and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines Regarding the Headquarters of the Asian Development Bank under Section 45 (a) provides that officers and staff of the Bank, including experts and consultants performing missions for the Bank, shall enjoy immunity from legal process with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity except when the Bank waives the immunity.

The immunity granted to officers and staff of the ADB is not absolute; it is limited to acts performed in an official capacity. Immunity cannot cover the commission of a crime such as slander or oral defamation in the name of official duty.  Slander, in general, cannot be considered as falling within the scope of the immunity granted to ADB officers and personnel.

NOTES:

Inernational Law; Diplomatic Immunity; International Organizations: The slander of a person, by any stretch, cannot be considered as falling within the purview of the immunity granted to ADB officers and personnel – slander cannot be considered as an act performed in an official capacity – After a careful deliberation of the arguments raised in petitioners and intervenors Motions for Reconsideration, we find no cogent reason to disturb our Decision of January 28, 2000. As we have stated therein, the slander of a person, by any stretch, cannot be considered as falling within the purview of the immunity granted to ADB officers and personnel. Petitioner argues that the Decision had the effect of prejudging the criminal case for oral defamation against him. We wish to stress that it did not. What we merely stated therein is that slander, in general, cannot be considered as an act performed in an official capacity. The issue of whether or not petitioners utterances constituted oral defamation is still for the trial court to determine.

Concurring opinion of J. Puno

International Organizations, defined – The term “international organizations” is generally used to describe an organization set up by agreement between two or more states. Under contemporary international law, such organizations are endowed with some degree of international legal personality such that they are capable of exercising specific rights, duties and powers. They are organized mainly as a means for conducting general international business in which the member states have an interest.

International public officials, defined – International public officials are persons who, on the basis of an international treaty constituting a particular international community, are appointed by this international community, or by an organ of it, and are under its control to exercise, in a continuous way, functions in the interest of this particular international community, and who are subject to a particular personal status.

Specialized agencies, defined – Specialized agencies are international organizations having functions in particular fields, such as posts, telecommunications, railways, canals, rivers, sea transport, civil aviation, meteorology, atomic energy, finance, trade, education and culture, health and refugees.

There are three major differences between diplomatic and international immunities. Firstly, one of the recognized limitations of diplomatic immunity is that members of the diplomatic staff of a mission may be appointed from among the nationals of the receiving State only with the express consent of that State; apart from inviolability and immunity from jurisdiction in respect of official acts performed in the exercise of their functions, nationals enjoy only such privileges and immunities as may be granted by the receiving State. International immunities may be specially important in relation to the State of which the official is a national. Secondly, the immunity of a diplomatic agent from the jurisdiction of the receiving State does not exempt him from the jurisdiction of the sending State; in the case of international immunities there is no sending State and an equivalent for the jurisdiction of the Sending State therefore has to be found either in waiver of immunity or in some international disciplinary or judicial procedure. Thirdly, the effective sanctions which secure respect for diplomatic immunity are the principle of reciprocity and the danger of retaliation by the aggrieved State; international immunities enjoy no similar protection.

The generally accepted principles which are now regarded as the foundation of international immunities are contained in the ILO Memorandum, which reduced them in three basic propositions, namely: (1) that international institutions should have a status which protects them against control or interference by any one government in the performance of functions for the effective discharge of which they are responsible to democratically constituted international bodies in which all the nations concerned are represented; (2) that no country should derive any financial advantage by levying fiscal charges on common international funds; and (3) that the international organization should, as a collectivity of States Members, be accorded the facilities for the conduct of its official business customarily extended to each other by its individual member States. The thinking underlying these propositions is essentially institutional in character. It is not concerned with the status, dignity or privileges of individuals, but with the elements of functional independence necessary to free international institutions from national control and to enable them to discharge their responsibilities impartially on behalf of all their members.

Positive international law has devised three methods of granting privileges and immunities to the personnel of international organizations. The first is by simple conventional stipulation, as was the case in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. The second is by internal legislation whereby the government of a state, upon whose territory the international organization is to carry out its functions, recognizes the international character of the organization and grants, by unilateral measures, certain privileges and immunities to better assure the successful functioning of the organization and its personnel. In this situation, treaty obligation for the state in question to grant concessions is lacking. Such was the case with the Central Commission of the Rhine at Strasbourg and the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome. The third is a combination of the first two. In this third method, one finds a conventional obligation to recognize a certain status of an international organization and its personnel, but the status is described in broad and general terms. The specific definition and application of those general terms are determined by an accord between the organization itself and the state wherein it is located. This is the case with the League of Nations, the Permanent Court of Justice, and the United Nations.

The privileges and immunities of diplomats and those of international officials rest upon different legal foundations. Whereas those immunities awarded to diplomatic agents are a right of the sending state based on customary international law, those granted to international officials are based on treaty or conventional law. Customary international law places no obligation on a state to recognize a special status of an international official or to grant him jurisdictional immunities. Such an obligation can only result from specific treaty provisions.

The staff personnel of an international organization — the international officials — assume a different position as regards their special status. They are appointed or elected to their position by the organization itself, or by a competent organ of it; they are responsible to the organization and their official acts are imputed to it. The juridical basis of their special position is found in conventional law, since there is no established basis of usage or custom in the case of the international official. Moreover, the relationship between an international organization and a member-state does not admit of the principle of reciprocity, for it is contradictory to the basic principle of equality of states. An international organization carries out functions in the interest of every member state equally. The international official does not carry out his functions in the interest of any state, but in serving the organization he serves, indirectly, each state equally. He cannot be, legally, the object of the operation of the principle of reciprocity between states under such circumstances. It is contrary to the principle of equality of states for one state member of an international organization to assert a capacity to extract special privileges for its nationals from other member states on the basis of a status awarded by it to an international organization. It is upon this principle of sovereign equality that international organizations are built.

The functions of the diplomat and those of the international official are quite different. Those of the diplomat are functions in the national interest. The task of the ambassador is to represent his state, and its specific interest, at the capital of another state. The functions of the international official are carried out in the international interest. He does not represent a state or the interest of any specific state. He does not usually “represent” the organization in the true sense of that term. His functions normally are administrative, although they may be judicial or executive, but they are rarely political or functions of representation, such as those of the diplomat. There is a difference of degree as well as of kind. The interruption of the activities of a diplomatic agent is likely to produce serious harm to the purposes for which his immunities were granted. But the interruption of the activities of the international official does not, usually, cause serious dislocation of the functions of an international secretariat.On the other hand, they are similar in the sense that acts performed in an official capacity by either a diplomatic envoy or an international official are not attributable to him as an individual but are imputed to the entity he represents, the state in the case of the diplomat, and the organization in the case of the international official.