This case has been cited 1 times or more.
|
2007-06-26 |
GARCIA, J. |
||||
| The suggestion that decisions or orders of the Ombudsman and other quasi-judicial bodies cannot attain the force of res judicata is simply specious. For, as jurisprudence teaches, public policy demands that, even at the risk of occasional errors, judgments of courts as well as administrative decisions should become final at some definite time fixed by law and that parties should not be permitted to litigate the same issues over again.[45] This is the raison d'etre upon which the doctrine of res judicata rests.[46] The rule of non quieta movere prescribes that what was already terminated should not be disturbed or altered at every step. And as we articulated in Macailing v. Andrada,[47] citing a host of cases, the rule which forbids the reopening of a matter once judicially determined by competent authority "applies as well to the judicial and quasi-judicial acts of public, executive, or administrative officers and boards acting within their jurisdiction." | |||||