G.R. No. L-65848 May 24, 1985
HERNANDO C. LAYNO, SR., petitioner, vs. THE HONORABLE SANDIGANBAYAN, THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, and THE HONORABLE TANODBAYAN, respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Hernando Layno, Sr., the duly elected Municipal Mayor of Lianga, Surigao del Sur, was charged before the Sandiganbayan with a violation of Section 3(e) of Republic Act No. 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act). The information alleged that he acted with grave abuse of authority and evident bad faith by suspending and preventing the Vice-Mayor and several Sangguniang Bayan members from performing their official functions, thereby causing them undue injury. After his arraignment where he pleaded not guilty, the Sandiganbayan, pursuant to the mandatory suspension provision under Section 13 of R.A. No. 3019 , issued an order on October 26, 1983, suspending him from office pendente lite.
Petitioner assailed the suspension order through a petition for certiorari and prohibition before the Supreme Court. He argued that the mandatory suspension under R.A. No. 3019 violated his constitutional right to be presumed innocent, as it imposed a penalty before conviction. The respondents, through the Solicitor General, countered that the suspension was not a penalty but a mere preventive measure to ensure a fair trial and was a valid exercise of statutory authority.

ISSUE

Whether the continued preventive suspension of petitioner, an elective official, for an unreasonable length of time constitutes an unconstitutional application of the mandatory suspension provision of R.A. No. 3019 .

RULING

Yes. The Supreme Court, without ruling on the general validity of the mandatory suspension provision, held that its application in this specific case had become unconstitutional. The Court invoked the doctrine of unconstitutional application, recognizing that a law may be facially valid yet unconstitutionally applied under particular circumstances.
The legal logic centers on the violation of due process and equal protection. Petitioner, an elective official with a term lasting until 1986, had been suspended since October 1983—a period the Court deemed protracted and unreasonable. This indefinite suspension effectively nullified the electoral mandate and deprived the constituency of the services of their chosen official without a final determination of guilt. Such a lengthy suspension transformed a supposedly preventive measure into a punitive one, constituting a denial of procedural due process. Furthermore, the Court found an equal protection violation. Under the then applicable Local Government Code (Batas Pambansa Blg. 337), the preventive suspension of a local elective official in administrative cases could not exceed sixty days. The indefinite suspension under the graft law for a criminal charge, which involves a higher burden of proof, created an absurd situation where an official faced a harsher preventive measure for a more serious accusation. This disparity was unreasonable. Consequently, the Court ordered the lifting of the suspension order against petitioner.