Right Against Cruel and Inhuman Punishment

ARTICLE 3, SECTION 19 Philippine Constitution

----- Cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment; excessive fines -----

People v. Estoista

- illegal possession of firearms – Republic Act. No. 4 is constitutional. It does not go against the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment having due regard to the prevalent conditions which the law proposes to curb.

People v. Echegaray

– death penalty; constitutional – Courts are not the fora for a protracted debate on the morality or propriety of the death sentence where the law itself provides therefor specific and well defined criminal acts; Congress has the power to re-impose the death penalty for compelling reasons involving heinous
crimes; This entails: 1) define and describe what heinous crimes mean; 2) specify and penalize by death only crimes that qualify as heinous; 3) Congress be move by compelling reasons involving heinous crimes.

----- Effect of abolition on application of penal laws -----

1. People v. Muñoz

– 1987 Constitution does not expressly declare the abolition of the death penalty. It merely says that the death penalty shall not be imposed and if already imposed, shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua;

----- Death Penalty -----

1. People v. Bon

– repeal of RA 7659 by RA 9346 – There can be no harmony between RA 9346 and the RPC unless the latte statute is construed as having downgraded those penalties ATTACHED to death by reason of the graduated scale under Art. 71 of the RPC; RA 9346 unequivocally bars the application of the death penalty