2. Exclusionary Rule

Exclusionary Rule

Any evidence obtained in violation of Sections 2 or 3, Article III shall be inadmissible for any purpose in any proceeding [Section 3(2), Article III, 1987 Constitution].

This applies not only to testimonial evidence but also to documentary and object evidence.

The Anti-Wire Tapping Act (R.A. No. 4200), clearly and unequivocally makes it illegal for any person, not authorized by all the parties to any private communication, to secretly record such communications by means of a tape recorder. The law does not make any distinction [Ramirez v. CA, G.R. No. 93833 (1995)].

Effect of violation: The communication shall not be admissible in evidence in any judicial, quasi- judicial, legislative, or administrative hearing or investigation [Section 4, R.A. No. 4200].

Generally, the provisions in the Bill of Rights are protections against the government. However, in the case of Zulueta v. CA the Court has recognized an instance where it may also be applied as against a private individual.

Note: Zulueta v. CA applied the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches to private papers taken by a spouse without the other spouse’s consent; the Bill of Rights generally protects against government action.

In that case, the wife took her husband‘s private documents and papers to be used as evidence in the case, without the husband’s knowledge and consent, the Court held that the intimacies between husband and wife do not justify any one of them in breaking the drawers and cabinets of the other and in ransacking them for any telltale evidence of marital infidelity. A person, by contracting marriage, does not shed his/her integrity or his right to privacy as an individual and the constitutional protection is ever available to him or her.

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