Retroactive and prospective application of procedural laws

Should procedural laws be given retroactive effect? Should they apply to pending actions? 

Let me respond with an illustration. 

On June 23, 2003, Republic Act No. 9211 was approved which prohibited smoking in hospital buildings, among others. Fines shall be imposed for violations.

A person who smoked before the law was passed will not be penalized because the law should apply only to future violations. This is what we mean when we say that substantive laws take effect prospectively.

However, this rule does not apply to procedural laws which may, as a rule, apply to cases that remain unresolved as of the time said laws take effect.

Note though that procedural laws will not be applied retroactively when this would result in a great injustice.

The Supreme Court clearly explained the general rule and exception in the case of Jaime Tan Jr. vs. Court of Appeals, GR No. 136368, January 16, 2002. Here are excerpts from the ruling:

"It is evident that if we apply the old rule on finality of judgment, petitioner redeemed the subject property within the 120-day period of redemption reckoned from the appellate court's entry of judgment. The appellate court, however, did not apply the old rule but the 1997 Revised Rules of Civil Procedure. In fine, it applied the new rule retroactively and we hold that given the facts of the case at bar this is an error.

There is no dispute that rules of procedure can be given retroactive effect. This general rule, however, has well-delineated exceptions. We quote author Agpalo:

'9.17. Procedural laws.

Procedural laws are adjective laws which prescribe rules and forms of procedure of enforcing rights or obtaining redress for their invasion; they refer to rules of procedure by which courts applying laws of all kinds can properly administer justice. They include rules of pleadings, practice and evidence. As applied to criminal law, they provide or regulate the steps by which one who commits a crime is to be punished.

The general rule that statutes are prospective and not retroactive does not ordinarily apply to procedural laws. It has been held that 'a retroactive law, in a legal sense, is one which takes away or impairs vested rights acquired under laws, or creates a new obligation and imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability, in respect of transactions or considerations already past. Hence, remedial statutes or statutes relating to remedies or modes of procedure, which do not create new or take away vested rights, but only operate in furtherance of the remedy or confirmation of rights already existing, do not come within the legal conception of a retroactive law, or the general rule against the retroactive operation of statutes.' The general rule against giving statutes retroactive operation whose effect is to impair the obligations of contract or to disturb vested rights does not prevent the application of statutes to proceedings pending at the time of their enactment where they neither create new nor take away vested rights. A new statute which deals with procedure only is presumptively applicable to all actions - those which have accrued or are pending.

Statutes regulating the procedure of the courts will be construed as applicable to actions pending and undetermined at the time of their passage. Procedural laws are retroactive in that sense and to that extent. The fact that procedural statutes may somehow affect the litigants' rights may not preclude their retroactive application to pending actions. The retroactive application of procedural laws is not violative of any right of a person who may feel that he is adversely affected. Nor is the retroactive application of procedural statutes constitutionally objectionable. The reason is that as a general rule no vested right may attach to, nor arise from, procedural laws. It has been held that 'a person has no vested right in any particular remedy, and a litigant cannot insist on the application to the trial of his case, whether civil or criminal, of any other than the existing rules of procedure.'

Thus, the provision of Batas Bilang 129 in Section 39 thereof prescribing that 'no record on appeal shall be required to take an appeal' is procedural in nature and should therefore be applied retroactively to pending actions. Hence, the question as to whether an appeal from an adverse judgment should be dismissed for failure of appellant to file a record on appeal within thirty days as required under the old rules, which question is pending resolution at the time Batas Bilang 129 took effect, became academic upon the effectivity of said law because the law no longer requires the filing of a record on appeal and its retroactive application removed the legal obstacle to giving due course to the appeal. A statute which transfers the jurisdiction to try certain cases from a court to a quasi-judicial tribunal is a remedial statute that is applicable to claims that accrued before its enactment but formulated and filed after it took effect, for it does not create new nor take away vested rights. The court that has jurisdiction over a claim at the time it accrued cannot validly try the claim where at the time the claim is formulated and filed the jurisdiction to try it has been transferred by law to a quasi-judicial tribunal, for even actions pending in one court may be validly taken away and transferred to another and no litigant can acquire a vested right to be heard by one particular court.

9.18. Exceptions to the rule.

The rule that procedural laws are applicable to pending actions or proceedings admits certain exceptions. The rule does not apply where the statute itself expressly or by necessary implication provides that pending actions are excepted from its operation, or where to apply it to pending proceedings would impair vested rights. Under appropriate circumstances, courts may deny the retroactive application of procedural laws in the event that to do so would not be feasible or would work injustice. 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."

We hold that section 1, Rule 39 of the 1997 Revised Rules of Procedure should not be given retroactive effect in this case as it would result in great injustice to the petitioner. Undoubtedly, petitioner has the right to redeem the subject lot and this right is a substantive right. Petitioner followed the procedural rule then existing as well as the decisions of this Court governing the reckoning date of the period of redemption when he redeemed the subject lot. Unfortunately for petitioner, the rule was changed by the 1997 Revised Rules of Procedure which if applied retroactively would result in his losing the right to redeem the subject lot. It is difficult to reconcile the retroactive application of this procedural rule with the rule of fairness. Petitioner cannot be penalized with the loss of the subject lot when he faithfully followed the laws and the rule on the period of redemption when he made the redemption. The subject lot may only be 34,829 square meters but as petitioner claims, "it is the only property left behind by their father, a private law practitioner who was felled by an assassin's bullet."

Petitioner fought to recover this lot from 1988. To lose it because of a change of procedure on the date of reckoning of the period of redemption is inequitous. The manner of exercising the right cannot be changed and the change applied retroactively if to do so will defeat the right of redemption of the petitioner which is already vested."