Pormento Vs Estrada Case digest

Judicial review;  justiciable controversy; moot case. 
Private respondent was not elected President in the May 10, 2010 election.  Since the issue on the proper interpretation of the phrase “any reelection” in Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution will be premised on a person’s second (whether immediate or not) election as President, there is no case or controversy to be resolved in this case. No live conflict of legal rights exists.  There is in this case no definite, concrete, real or substantial controversy that touches on the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests.  No specific relief may conclusively be decreed upon by the Court in this case that will benefit any of the parties.  As such, one of the essential requisites for the exercise of the power of judicial review, the existence of an actual case or controversy, is sorely lacking in this case. As a rule, the Court may only adjudicate actual, ongoing controversies. It is not empowered to decide moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in issue in the case before it. When a case is moot, it becomes non-justiciable. An action is considered “moot” when it no longer presents a justiciable controversy because the issues involved have become academic or dead or when the matter in dispute has already been resolved and hence, one is not entitled to judicial intervention unless the issue is likely to be raised again between the parties. There is nothing for the Court to resolve as the determination thereof has been overtaken by subsequent events. Assuming an actual case or controversy existed prior to the proclamation of a President who has been duly elected in the May 10, 2010 election, the same is no longer true today. Following the results of that election, private respondent was not elected President for the second time. Thus, any discussion of his “reelection” will simply be hypothetical and speculative. It will serve no useful or practical purpose. Atty. Evillo C. Pormento vs. Joseph “Erap” Ejercito Estrada and Commission on Elections. G.R. No. 191988. August 31, 2010.