SWS vs COMELEC [G.R. No. 147571] Case Digest

 

SWS vs COMELEC

[G.R. No. 147571]

 

Facts:

            SWS filed an action for prohibition to enjoin the Commission on Elections from enforcing §5.4 of RA. No.9006 (Fair Election Act), which provides: "Surveys affecting national candidates shall not be published fifteen (15) days before an election and surveys affecting local candidates shall not be published seven (7) days before an election."

Petitioners argue that the restriction on the publication of election survey results constitutes a prior restraint on the exercise of freedom of speech without any clear and present danger to justify such restraint. They claim that SWS and other pollsters conducted and published the results of surveys prior to the 1992, 1995, and 1998 elections up to as close as two days before the election day without causing confusion among the voters and that there is neither empirical nor historical evidence to support the conclusion that there is an immediate and inevitable danger to tile voting process posed by election surveys.

            Comelec justifies the restrictions in §5.4 of R.A. No. 9006 as necessary to prevent the manipulation and corruption of the electoral process by unscrupulous and erroneous surveys just before the election. It contends that the prohibition on the publication of election survey results during the period proscribed by law bears a rational connection to the objective of the law, i.e., the prevention of the debasement of the electoral process resulting from manipulated surveys, bandwagon effect, and absence of reply.

 

Issue:

            Whether or not Section 5.4 of R.A. No. 9006 constitutes an unconstitutional abridgment of freedom of speech, expression, and the press.

 

Held:

            Yes.

 

Ratio:

            Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy Presumption against its constitutional validity. The Government thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for in enforcement of such restraint.

 

            In testing the constitutionality of Sec. 5.4 of R.A. No. 9006; SC used the O 'Brien Test [US vs O 'Brien]:

A Government regulation is sufficiently justified

[1] if it is within the constitutional power of the Government;

[2] if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest;

[3] if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and

[4] if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms [of speech, expression and press] is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.

Under O 'Brien test; even if a law furthers an important or substantial governmental interest, it should be invalidated if such governmental interest is "not unrelated to the Expression of free expression." Moreover, even if the purpose is unrelated to the suppression of free speech, the law should nevertheless be invalidated if the restriction on freedom of expression is greater than is necessary to achieve the governmental purpose in question.

 

First. Sec. 5.4 fails to meet criterion [3] of the O 'Brien test because the causal connection of expression to the asserted governmental interest makes such interest "not related to the suppression of free expression." By prohibiting the publication of election survey results because of the possibility that such publication might undermine the integrity of the election, §5.4 actually suppresses a whole class of expression, while allowing the expression of opinion concerning the same subject matter by newspaper columnists, radio and TV commentators, armchair theorists, and other opinion takers. In effect, §5.4 shows a bias for a particular subject matter, if not viewpoint, by referring personal opinion to statistical results.

Second. Even if the governmental interest sought to be promoted is unrelated to the suppression of speech and the resulting restriction of free expression is only incidental, §5.4 nonetheless fails to meet criterion [4] of the O 'Brien test, namely, that the restriction be not greater than is necessary to further the governmental interest. As already stated, §5.4 aims at the prevention of last-minute pressure on voters, the creation of bandwagon effect, "junking" of weak or "losing" candidates, and resort to the form of election cheating called "dagdag-bawas." Praiseworthy as these aims of the regulation might be, they cannot be attained at the sacrifice of the fundamental right of expression, when such aim can be more narrowly pursued by punishing unlawful acts, rather than speech because of apprehension that such speech creates the danger of such evils.

 

To summarize then, we hold that §5.4 is invalid because (1) it imposes a prior restraint on the freedom of expression, (2) it is a direct and total suppression of a category of expression even though such suppression is only for a limited period, and (3) the governmental interest sought to be promoted can be achieved by means other than suppression of freedom of expression.