Criminal procedure on prejudicial questions

he two (2) essential elements of a prejudicial question are: (a) the civil action involves an
issue similar or intimately related to the issue raised in the criminal action; and (b) the resolution
of such issue determines whether or not the criminal action may proceed.
More often that not, we hear the term prejudicial question being raised by a party in the course of
a criminal litigation proceeding. For defense lawyers, it is an effective tool for stalling the
preliminary investigation or prosecution of a case, most especially in cases where their client is
certain to be charged or convicted criminally. More than a delaying tactic, however, the existence
of prejudicial question is a serious and fundamental issue that needs to be resolved in order to
fully satisfy the requirements of due process and elementary fairness.
The term prejudicial question is found in Section 6, Rule 111 of the 2000 Revised Rules of
Criminal Procedure, which states that:
A petition for suspension of the criminal action based upon the pendency of a prejudicial
question in a civil action may be filed in the office of the prosecutor or the court conducting the
preliminary investigation. When the criminal action has been filed in court for trial, the petition
to suspend shall be filed in the same criminal action at any time before the prosecution rests.
As can be gleaned from above, a petition for suspension of the criminal action based on the
existence of prejudicial question may be raised either during the preliminary investigation stage
before the prosecutor conducting the same or during the pendency of a criminal trial where it is
filed before the court hearing the case.
Jurisprudence has also defined a prejudicial question as that which arises in a case the resolution
of which is a logical antecedent of the issue involved therein, and the cognizance of which
pertains to another tribunal. The prejudicial question must be determinative of the case before
the court but the jurisdiction to try and resolve the question must be lodged in another court or
tribunal. It is a question based on a fact distinct and separate from the crime but so intimately
connected with it that it determines the guilt or innocence of the accused. (See Rojas vs. People,
57 SCRA 246; People vs. Aragon, 94 Phil. 357; Zapanta vs. Montessa, 4 SCRA 510 and Benitez vs.
Concepcion, 2 SCRA 178)
The elements of a prejudicial questions are enumerated under Section 7, Rule 111 of the 2000
Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, these are: (a) the previously instituted civil action involves
an issue similar or intimately related to the issue raised in the subsequent criminal action, and (b)
the resolution of such issue determines whether or not the criminal action may proceed.
If both civil and criminal cases have similar issues or the issue in one is intimately related to the
issues raised in the other, then a prejudicial question would likely exist, provided the other

element or characteristic is satisfied. For example, in a criminal case for bigamy, the accused may
raise the pendency of a civil suit for the declaration of nullity of his first marriage to defer the
proceedings of the bigamy case.
Mere similarity of issues does not suffice to uphold the validity of a prejudical question. It must
appear not only that the civil case involves the same facts upon which the criminal prosecution
would be based, but also that the resolution of the issues raised in the civil action would be
necessarily determinative of the guilt or innocence of the accused. If the resolution of the issue in
the civil action will not determine the criminal responsibility of the accused in the criminal action
based on the same facts, or there is no necessity _that the civil case be determined first before
taking up the criminal case,_ therefore, the civil case does not involve a prejudicial question.
Neither is there a prejudicial question if the civil and the criminal action can, according to law,
proceed independently of each other.
It must be remebered however, that a prejudicial question does not conclusively resolve the guilt
or innocence of the accused but simply tests the sufficiency of the allegations in the information
in order to sustain the further prosecution of the criminal case. A party who raises a prejudicial
question is deemed to have hypothetically admitted that all the essential elements of a crime
have been adequately alleged in the information, considering that the prosecution has not yet
presented a single evidence on the indictment or may not yet have rested its case. A challenge of
the allegations in the information on the ground of prejudicial question is in effect a question on
the merits of the criminal charge through a non-