DoJ Circular 15, otherwise known as the 2024 Department of Justice-National Prosecution Service Rules on Preliminary Investigation and Inquest Proceedings, promulgated in July 2024, changed the quantum of evidence necessary for an indictment.

Under the previous rules, only probable cause was required. Under the new aforecited rule, it became prima facie evidence with a reasonable certainty of conviction. This quantum exists if the prosecutor conducting the preliminary investigation is certain that the evidence presented by the parties is admissible, credible, and capable of establishing the elements of the crime, as well as the identity of the person charged.

A law practitioner, however, questioned the power of the Department of Justice (DoJ) to promulgate such rules. She argued that such is an encroachment on the Supreme Court’s (SC) sole right to promulgate rules and procedures in courts, as enshrined in no less than the 1987 Constitution.

The Supreme Court, when the issue was posed before it, had this to say:

“As early as Salta v CA, the Court held that the preliminary investigation proper is not a judicial function but part of the prosecution’s job within the Executive. Salta underscored the twin aims of shielding the accused from needless trials and conserving judicial resources while applying the now-familiar well-founded belief standard.

“The Court likewise reiterated, in People v Navarro, that a preliminary investigation is an executive, not a judicial function. It stressed the prosecutor’s duty to ascertain whether sufficient ground exists to engender a well-founded belief of an offense and the accused’s probable guilt.

“On this account, the Court has adopted a policy of non-interference in the public prosecutor’s conduct of a preliminary investigation. Furthermore, the Court recognized that, pursuant to the 2005 revisions to the Rules of Criminal Procedure, the authority to conduct a preliminary investigation has been vested in the exclusive domain of public prosecutors.

“The Court also reaffirmed, citing Estipona v Judge Lobrigo, that the power to promulgate rules of pleading, practice, and procedure is within the Court’s exclusive domain. Yet, to remove any impediment to the 2024 DoJ-NPS Rules and in recognition of the DoJ’s authority over prosecutorial processes, the Court itself decreed the repeal of inconsistent portions of Rule 112.

“This harmonizes the DoJ’s rule-making authority within the executive sphere and the Court’s constitutional rule-making power within the judicial sphere and forecloses Atty. Meking’s encroachment claim.

“Against this jurisprudential and historical backdrop, the controlling effect of A.M. 24-02-09-SC, therefore, is this Court’s recognition of the DoJ’s authority to promulgate Department Circular 015 and the declaration that, upon its promulgation, the pertinent inconsistent provisions of Rule 112 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure are deemed repealed, but without prejudice to the Court’s issuance of its own rules on preliminary investigation to account for other investigative bodies.

“Thus, Department Circular 015, or the 2024 DoJ-NPS Rules, regulates only the conduct of preliminary investigations and inquests by prosecutors, which are executive in nature. It does not dictate practice or procedure in court. This Court’s constitutional rule-making authority remains supreme over judicial proceedings, and its power to correct, on grave abuse of discretion, any prosecutorial rule or action that impairs constitutional rights, is retained.”

The quoted portion of the decision is from SC G.R. 280455 (11 November 2025).