Lagman: SC decisions rendered final and executory can't be reopened based on justices' whim

Supreme Court decisions rendered final and executory should not be reopened anytime a sitting justice wishes to, Albay Representative Edcel Lagman said Thursday.

Lagman issued the statement in response to Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo saying that certain circumstances may permit the review of court decisions that have been accorded finality.

"If final and executory decisions of the Supreme Court can be reopened in perpetuity, then litigations would be interminable or endless and the hallowed doctrine of res judicata is abandoned with impunity," Lagman, a lawyer, said.

The veteran lawmaker said res judicata refers to "conclusiveness of judgment or a matter that has been adjudicated (with finality) by a competent court may not be pursued further by the same parties."

"If the finality of a decision depends on the changing composition of the Supreme Court, then cases could not be put to rest and differing temperaments and outlooks of justices could rule the day," Lagman added.

Gesmundo made such position when asked about President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s recent statement that he wants to reopen the P203-billion estate tax case involving his family.

The SC's ruling in the estate tax liability of the Marcoses, which has ballooned from P23 billion to P203 billion due to interests and surcharges, became final and executory on March 9, 1999.

Lagman said the Marcos family had been given around three decades to contest the case in court, starting from when they were allowed to return to the Philippines from exile in 1991.

"The lapse of time has made the final decision immutable," Lagman said.

"Jurisprudential doctrines can be reversed in a subsequent similar case, but not in the same prior case where the verdict has already become final and executory," Lagman added.

Marcos earlier said they still have a lot of things to argue about regarding the estate tax case. 

“Open the case and let us argue [about] it. So [we can say all] of the things that we should have been able to say in 1987, ’88, ’89 that we were not able to say,” Marcos had said in a television interview in September. —Llanesca T. Panti/KBK, GMA News