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Case Digest Sws

Section 5.4 of the Fair Election Act prohibits the publication of election surveys affecting national candidates within 15 days of an election and affecting local candidates within 7 days. Social Weather Stations wished to conduct and publish election surveys throughout the election period. The Supreme Court found Section 5.4 to be unconstitutional for three reasons: 1) It imposed a prior restraint on freedom of expression. 2) It directly and totally suppressed a category of expression, even if just for a limited time. 3) The government's interests could be achieved through other means instead of suppressing freedom of expression, such as by punishing unlawful acts rather than speech.

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Venice Jamaila Dagcutan
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59 views2 pages

Case Digest Sws

Section 5.4 of the Fair Election Act prohibits the publication of election surveys affecting national candidates within 15 days of an election and affecting local candidates within 7 days. Social Weather Stations wished to conduct and publish election surveys throughout the election period. The Supreme Court found Section 5.4 to be unconstitutional for three reasons: 1) It imposed a prior restraint on freedom of expression. 2) It directly and totally suppressed a category of expression, even if just for a limited time. 3) The government's interests could be achieved through other means instead of suppressing freedom of expression, such as by punishing unlawful acts rather than speech.

Uploaded by

Venice Jamaila Dagcutan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as RTF, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CASE DIGEST : SWS vs Comelec

G.R. No. 147571 May 5, 2001 SOCIAL WEATHER STATIONS,


INCORPORATED and KAMAHALAN PUBLISHING CORPORATION, doing
business as MANILA STANDARD, petitioners, vs. COMMISSION ON
ELECTIONS, respondent.

Facts : Petitioner, Social Weather Stations, Inc. (SWS), is a private non-


stock, non-profit social research institution conducting surveys in
various fields, including economics, politics, demography, and social
development, and thereafter processing, analyzing, and publicly
reporting the results thereof. On the other hand, petitioner Kamahalan
Publishing Corporation publishes the Manila Standard, a newspaper of
general circulation, which features news- worthy items of information
including election surveys Petitioners brought this 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 be- fore an election. Petitioner SWS states that it wishes to
conduct an election survey throughout the period of the elections both
at the national and local levels and release to the media the results of
such survey as well as publish them directly. Petitioner Kamahalan
Publishing Corporation, on the other hand, states that it intends to
publish election survey results up to the last day of the elections on
May 14,2001

Issue : WON 5.4 of R.A. No. 9006 constitutes an unconstitutional


abridgment of freedom of speech, expression, and the press.

HELD : What test should then be employed to determine the


constitutional validity of 5.4? The United States Supreme Court,
through Chief Justice Warren, held in United States v. 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. This is so far the most influential test for distinguishing
content-based from content neutral regulations and is said to have
"become canonical in the review of such laws." is noteworthy that the
O 'Brien test has been applied by this Court in at least two cases 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 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 speechbecause 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.

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