Ruling that since nothing has happened yet after the passage of House Resolution No. 1109 that calls to convene Congress into a Constituent-Assembly (Con-Ass) like actual convention or adoption of the rules of procedure for purposes of amending the Constitution, the Supreme Court (SC) dismissed Tuesday for being premature two petitions challenging the constitutionality of the resolution.

In a full court resolution written by Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, the SC SC junks Con-ass petitions also ruled that lawyer Oliver Lozano and his lawyer-daughter Evangelina, and Louis Biraogo – who filed the two petitions – have no legal standing to challenge HR 1109.

According to the SC, its power of review “is limited to actual cases and controversies dealing with parties having adversely legal claims, to be exercised after full opportunity of argument by the parties.”

“The case-or-controversy requirement bans this court from deciding ‘abstract, hypothetical or contingent questions,’” it said.

The SC pointed out that the two petitions were premature or “unripe” for review because there was no showing of “adverse injury or hardship from the act complained of.”

“No actual convention has yet transpired and no rules of procedure have yet been adopted. No proposal has yet been made, and hence, no usurpation of power or gross abuse of discretion has yet taken place. The House (of Representatives) has not yet performed a positive act that would warrant an intervention from this Court,” it stressed.

On the legal standing of the Lozanos and Biraogo to file the petitions, the SC said that “the fitness of petitioners’ case for the exercise of judicial review is grossly lacking.”

The Lozanos and Biraogo were found to have no standing to sue because they have no personal stake in the case.

The SC said that the claim by the petitioners that they are all concerned citizens and taxpayers do not warrant them a personal stake, as “a taxpayer’s suit requires that the act complained of directly involves the illegal disbursement of public funds derived from taxation.”

There has been no allocation or disbursement of public funds yet after the passage of HR 1109, it said.

At the same time, the SC said that the petitioners could not claim their legal standing on a mere statement that the issues involved in HR 1109 have transcendental importance with paramount public interest “since the possible consequence of HR 1109 is yet unrealized.”

It explained that legal standing on a case is a constitutional requirement that compels the courts of justice to settle only “actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable.”

“While the Court has taken an increasingly liberal approach to the rule of Locus Standi (legal standing), it is not an open invitation for the ignorant and the ignoble to file petitions that prove nothing but their cerebial deficit,” it added.

Senior Justice Leonardo A. Quisumbing and Justices Consuelo Ynares Santiago, Antonio T. Carpio, Renato C. Corona, Presbitero J. Velasco Jr., Antonio Eduardo B. Nachura, Teresita J. Leonardo de Castro, Arturo D. Brion, Diosdado M. Peralta, and Lucas P. Bersamin concurred in the resolution. Justice Minita V. Chico Nazario inhibited herself, while Justice Conchita Carpio Morales was on official leave of absence.