FACTS:
Some 800 school teachers undertook a mass concerted action to protest the alleged failure of public authorities to act upon their grievance. The Secretary of Education served them an order to return to work within 24 hours or face dismissal. For failure to heed to the return-to-work order, eight teachers were administratively charged and preventively suspended for 90 days.
ISSUE(S):
Whether or not CHR has jurisdiction to try and hear the issues involved.
HELD:
NO. The Constitution clearly and categorically grants to the CHR the power to investigate all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights. It can exercise that power on its own initiative or on complalint of any person. But it cannot try and decide cases as courts of justice or even quasi-judicial bodies do.
