SAUSI v QUERUBIN (1975)

FACTS: The municipal court of Talisay Occidental Negros, after conducting a preliminary investigation, recommended that the proper complaint against Margarito Sausi be one for serious physical injuries with permanent deformity rather than frustrated murder. It did not dismiss the case, but the case Sausi underwent trial for was frustrated murder, because of the information filed by respondent provincial fiscal did not conduct a new preliminary investigation.

Sausi filed a motion to dismiss based on the ground that the provincial fiscal had no authority to file the information since no new preliminary investigation was conducted. Provincial fiscal opposed since he deemed that no new preliminary investigation was needed since there was no actual dismissal of the complaint by the municipal court. Respondent Judge Querubin denied the motion, but worded that Sausi was immune to further prosecution for frustrated murder. 

ISSUE:WON the provincial fiscal could file an information for frustrated murder without conducting a new preliminary investigation on his part?

HELD/RATIO:

No. The holding of another preliminary investigation is more than warranted, for it could dispel any imputation of haste on the provincial fiscal, even on the assumption that thereafter the offense imputed to the petitioner as the accused would be that of frustrated murder. The provincial fiscal would be guided solely by the proof offered in the information that thereafter would be filed by him.

But the accused is not relieved of any apprehension that he may be indicted just because a municipal judge finds that the evidence offered at such proceeding does not justify his being held for trial. The only guarantee is that a fiscal must conduct a new preliminary investigation.

The prosecution for such offense is not thereby barred as long as the fiscal conducts another preliminary investigation before filing the corresponding information.  As Justice JBL Reyes in the case of People v Pervez (1960), "...the provincial fiscal is not precluded from conducting his own preliminary investigation of a case previously dismissed by the Justice of Peace, since such dismissal creates a bar for another prosecution."

Certiorari may be availed and the case must be sent back to the lower court so that it could require the fiscal to conduct the necessary preliminary investigation before an information for the crime other than that certified by the municipal court could be justified.