Repeal and Nullification of Laws – NCC, Art. 7

Function of Civil Code Article 7

Civil Code Article 7 fixes three connected rules on the life of legal norms: a law remains binding until repealed by a later law; non-observance, disuse, custom, or contrary practice cannot defeat a law; and any statute or subordinate issuance that conflicts with the Constitution or with a higher law must yield.

The article protects legal certainty by rejecting repeal through neglect and by requiring that legal change come from a competent source. It also protects constitutional supremacy by recognizing that a statute inconsistent with the Constitution is void, and that administrative and executive acts are valid only within the limits of law and the Constitution.

Article 7 provides that laws are repealed only by subsequent ones, and their violation or non-observance is not excused by disuse, custom, or practice to the contrary. It further provides that when courts declare a law inconsistent with the Constitution, the law is void and the Constitution governs, and that administrative or executive acts, orders, and regulations are valid only when not contrary to law or the Constitution.

The provision deals with both legislative supremacy within the statutory sphere and constitutional supremacy within the entire legal order. A later statute may repeal an earlier statute because both proceed from legislative power, but no statute can survive a constitutional conflict because legislative power is subordinate to the Constitution.

Repeal Only by Subsequent Law

Repeal is the abrogation, revocation, or setting aside of an existing law by a later law enacted by competent authority. The later law must be of equal or superior rank and must show an intent to withdraw the earlier rule, either expressly or by necessary implication.

A law is not repealed by executive inaction, administrative tolerance, private agreement, local usage, institutional habit, or widespread disregard. Article 7 requires a subsequent legal act, not a social practice or enforcement pattern, to terminate a law's binding force.

The phrase subsequent ones means later laws, not merely later opinions, circulars, policies, or office memoranda. An administrative issuance may implement, interpret, or fill in details of a statute, but it cannot repeal the statute it purports to implement.

Forms of Repeal

Express Repeal

An express repeal is the clearest form of legislative withdrawal because the later law identifies the rule being removed. When the repealing clause is specific, courts apply the legislative command according to its terms, subject to constitutional limits and rules on effectivity.

A clause repealing all laws inconsistent with the later statute is not the same as a specific repeal of named provisions. Such a general repealing clause confirms the intent to displace inconsistent laws, but the actual repeal still depends on identifying an inconsistency that cannot reasonably be reconciled.

When the later law expressly repeals only certain provisions, the omission of other provisions may indicate an intent to preserve them. Courts avoid enlarging an express repeal beyond what the legislature has stated unless the unrepealed portion cannot operate consistently with the new enactment.

Implied Repeal

Implied repeal is not favored because it rests on inference rather than explicit legislative command. The presumption is that the legislature acted with awareness of existing law and did not intend to destroy settled rules without saying so or without creating an unavoidable conflict.

For implied repeal by inconsistency, the conflict must be direct, clear, and irreconcilable. If the earlier and later laws can be harmonized by applying each to its proper field, by treating one as an exception, or by reading them as parts of a coherent system, both are preserved.

For implied repeal by substitution, the later law must appear to cover the entire subject matter and to establish a complete and comprehensive scheme meant to replace the prior law. Mere addition of new remedies, new procedures, or supplemental standards does not by itself repeal existing provisions.

The repeal is limited to the inconsistency. If only one provision of the earlier law conflicts with the later law, only that provision or application is displaced, and the rest remains effective if it can function independently.

General and Special Laws

When a general law and a special law relate to the same subject, the special law ordinarily remains an exception to the general law. A later general law does not repeal an earlier special law unless the intent to repeal is clear, or unless the two are so inconsistent that the special law can no longer operate.

When a later special law conflicts with an earlier general law, the special law usually governs the specific subject it addresses. This is not always a total repeal of the general law; more often, it is a particularized displacement within the special field.

The decisive inquiry is legislative intent as shown by text, subject matter, purpose, and the possibility of harmonious operation. Rules on general and special laws are aids to that inquiry, not mechanical substitutes for it.

Amendment, Repeal, and Expiration

Amendment changes an existing law while preserving it as modified; repeal withdraws the law or a portion of it; expiration ends a law because its own terms limit its duration. Article 7 directly addresses repeal, but the same concern for legally authorized change also explains why a temporary law ends by its own sunset clause and not by custom.

A later law may amend by substitution, deletion, insertion, or rewording. If the amendment is so comprehensive that the old text can no longer stand, the practical effect may be partial or total repeal, but the analysis still turns on the new law's text and intended operation.

When a law is repealed, rights and obligations that have not yet vested generally lose the statutory basis on which they depended. Vested rights, final judgments, completed transactions, and saving clauses may preserve legal consequences already fixed before the repeal took effect.

Procedural or remedial changes may apply to pending matters when no vested right is impaired, but substantive changes generally operate prospectively unless the law clearly provides otherwise and constitutional limitations are observed. Repeal therefore affects future legal relations more readily than completed legal consequences.

No Repeal by Disuse, Custom, or Contrary Practice

Article 7 rejects desuetude as a method of repealing Philippine law. A statute does not die because it has long been ignored, rarely enforced, administratively neglected, or socially inconvenient.

Disuse refers to non-observance or non-enforcement over time. It may help explain why parties acted as they did, and it may sometimes matter in equity, good faith, or administrative accountability, but it does not erase the legal command.

Custom may supplement law when the legal system allows it and when the custom is proved as a fact, but custom cannot prevail over a statute. A practice contrary to law is a violation of law, not an amendment to law.

Private arrangements cannot repeal public law. Parties may shape their contractual relations within legal limits, but they cannot agree that a mandatory statute, constitutional rule, or regulatory requirement has ceased to exist.

Official tolerance also does not repeal a statute. Administrative inaction, mistaken interpretation, or repeated non-enforcement may create reliance concerns in particular cases, but the continuing validity of the law depends on repeal by later law or nullification for constitutional invalidity.

The rule preserves separation of powers. Courts and administrative agencies apply and interpret law; the legislature repeals statutes; and the Constitution invalidates inconsistent laws through judicial review. Allowing custom or disuse to repeal statutes would transfer legislative power to uncontrolled practice.

Nullification of Laws for Unconstitutionality

The second paragraph of Article 7 deals with a different event from repeal. Repeal is a legislative act that withdraws a law; nullification for unconstitutionality is a judicial declaration that a law cannot operate because it conflicts with the Constitution.

A statute is presumed constitutional until a competent court declares otherwise in a proper case. This presumption allows government and private persons to organize conduct around enacted laws, but the presumption cannot save a statute once the constitutional conflict is judicially determined.

When the Constitution and a statute conflict, the Constitution governs because it is the fundamental law. The statute does not repeal the Constitution, modify it, or create an exception to it; the statute is void to the extent of the inconsistency.

Judicial review generally requires an actual controversy, a party with sufficient personal and substantial interest, a constitutional question raised at the proper opportunity, and a need to resolve the constitutional issue as controlling to the case. These limits keep courts within adjudication rather than abstract supervision of legislation.

The declaration of unconstitutionality may affect the whole law or only the invalid portion. If the valid and invalid portions are separable and the remaining provisions can operate consistently with legislative intent, the valid portions may remain enforceable.

Effects of Unconstitutionality

An unconstitutional law is ordinarily treated as void, not merely voidable. It confers no enforceable rights, imposes no valid duties, creates no valid office, authorizes no lawful act, and affords no legal protection for conduct that depends solely on the unconstitutional provision.

The voidness of an unconstitutional law is tied to constitutional supremacy, but the practical consequences of a judicial declaration require careful treatment. Governmental acts, private transactions, taxes collected, benefits paid, offices occupied, and judgments rendered may have occurred while the statute was presumed valid.

Final judgments are generally respected because litigation must end and judicial decisions cannot be endlessly reopened every time the legal landscape changes. Pending cases and future acts are more directly affected by the declaration of invalidity.

A declaration of unconstitutionality does not automatically answer all questions of restitution, liability, compensation, or administrative consequence. Those questions depend on the nature of the invalid law, the parties' good faith, the extent of reliance, the presence of vested rights, and the governing remedial rules.

Operative Fact as a Tempering Principle

The operative fact doctrine recognizes that an unconstitutional law may have produced factual and legal consequences before it was struck down. It tempers the harshness of treating the law as if it never existed for every purpose and in every relationship.

The doctrine does not validate the unconstitutional law. It merely acknowledges that acts done under color of that law may, in fairness, stability, or public order, be recognized for limited consequences arising before the declaration of invalidity.

The doctrine is applied with restraint. It is most persuasive when parties relied in good faith on a law presumed valid, when public services or governmental operations would be disrupted by total undoing, or when innocent third persons would suffer disproportionate prejudice.

The doctrine is weakest when the claimant participated in bad faith, directly invoked the unconstitutional act to defeat constitutional rights, or seeks to preserve benefits that are themselves the very object of the constitutional prohibition. It cannot be used to perpetuate an unconstitutional regime after the declaration of invalidity.

Administrative and Executive Acts

The third paragraph of Article 7 establishes the subordinate character of administrative and executive acts, orders, and regulations. They are valid only when they conform to both the Constitution and the statutes they implement.

Administrative regulations may fill in details, prescribe procedures, implement standards, and make statutory commands workable. They cannot enlarge, restrict, amend, repeal, or contradict the statute from which they derive authority.

An executive act must also remain within constitutional limits. Even when a statute grants discretion, the discretion must be exercised consistently with due process, equal protection, non-impairment of vested rights, separation of powers, and other constitutional restraints relevant to the action.

A regulation that is inconsistent with its enabling law is invalid because an implementing rule cannot defeat the policy, coverage, conditions, or limitations fixed by the legislature. The agency's power is delegated and instrumental, not original and legislative in the full constitutional sense.

A regulation that is consistent with the statute but inconsistent with the Constitution is likewise invalid. Statutory authorization cannot legalize an unconstitutional administrative act, because the legislature cannot delegate a power it does not constitutionally possess.

Interpretative rules deserve respect when they reflect expertise and long, consistent administrative construction, but they do not control courts when the statute is clear or when the interpretation conflicts with law. Administrative interpretation may persuade; it cannot repeal, amend, or nullify a statute.

Administrative practice contrary to law is not cured by repetition. A consistent but unlawful agency practice remains vulnerable to challenge, and persons dealing with the government are charged with notice that public officers must act within legal authority.

Distinctions Under Article 7

Coherent Application

Article 7 requires identifying the level of the legal norm involved. A statute is displaced by a later statute or by the Constitution; an administrative regulation is displaced by the statute it contradicts, by a valid superior regulation, or by the Constitution; a custom or practice yields to written law when the two conflict.

When two statutes appear inconsistent, the first task is harmonization. Repeal is found only when the inconsistency cannot be avoided or when the later law plainly replaces the earlier scheme.

When a statute and the Constitution conflict, harmonization cannot be achieved by lowering the Constitution to the level of ordinary legislation. The statute must yield, because constitutional supremacy is the premise of all statutory validity.

When an administrative issuance and a statute conflict, the issuance must yield even if it is later in time. Chronology does not overcome hierarchy, and delegated power cannot defeat the law that delegates it.

When law and custom conflict, law governs. Custom may explain conduct, supply usage, or assist interpretation where the law permits, but it cannot legalize what the law forbids or forbid what the law commands.

The controlling sequence under Article 7 is therefore hierarchy first, then chronology, then intent. The Constitution prevails over statutes and issuances; statutes prevail over subordinate acts and contrary customs; and among laws of the same level, the later valid enactment controls only when it clearly repeals, amends, or replaces the earlier rule.