HARVARD Law ProfessorLaurence H. Tribe once defined the Constitution as “an endlessly intriguingobject of study and represents that best effort of its kind in the history ofthe world.”
Our ownSupreme Court refers to the Constitution as the basic law to which all otherlaws, whether domestic or international, must conform to. (Araullo vs. AquinoIII, 749 SCRA 283 [2015]; Poe-Llamanzares vs. Commission on Elections, 786 SCRA1 [2016]) Consequently, laws that do not conform to the Constitution shall bestruck down for being unconstitutional.
In its most general sense, the Constitution is “that body of rules andmaxims in accordance with which the powers of sovereignty are habituallyexercised.” (Cooley, Constitutional Limitations)
The purpose of the Constitution is “toprescribe the permanent framework of a system of government, to assign to theseveral departments of their respective powers and duties, and to establishcertain first fixed principles on which government is founded.” (11 Am. Jur.606) As the fundamental law of the land, the Constitution it sets up a form ofgovernment and defines and delimits the powers thereof and its officers. (See Legaspivs. Minister of Finance, G.R. No. L-58289, July 24, 1982)
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
According to Justice Isagani Cruz, “Constitutional law is the study ofthe maintenance of the proper balance between authority as represented by thethree inherent powers of the State and liberty as guaranteed by the Bill ofRights.” In other words, the true role of Constitutional Law is to effect anequilibrium between authority and liberty so that rights are exercised withinthe framework of the law and the laws are enacted with due deference to rights.
Moreover, it must be noted that constitutional law is not simply the literalapplication of the words of the Charter. The ancient and familiar rule ofconstitutional construction is that the meaning and understanding conveyed bythe language, albeit plain, of any of its provisions do not only portray theinfluence of current events and developments but likewise the inescapableimperative considerations rooted in the historical background and environmentat the time of its adoption and thereby caused their being written as part andparcel thereof. (Legaspi vs. Minister of Finance)
