Short answer. It becomes void. Civil Code Article 7 provides that when the courts declare a law inconsistent with the Constitution, the law is void and the Constitution governs instead. A law found unconstitutional is treated as though it never validly existed, not as a valid law with a court's disapproval attached.
What the law says
When the courts declared a law to be inconsistent with the Constitution, the former shall be void and the latter shall govern.
Civil Code, Article 7 — How Laws Are Repealed; Supremacy of the Constitution. Read the full provision →
What Article 7 says about unconstitutional laws
Article 7 of the Civil Code fixes the hierarchy between an ordinary statute and the Constitution in plain terms. Laws are ordinarily changed only by later laws, and nobody gets to ignore a law simply because it has fallen out of use or because custom runs the other way. But that stability rule has a limit: when the courts declared a law to be inconsistent with the Constitution, the former shall be void and the latter shall govern. The Constitution is the higher authority, and a statute that conflicts with it does not get to stand on the strength of having been duly enacted by the legislature.
What 'void' means here
A law declared unconstitutional is not merely suspended or repealed going forward, the way an ordinary statute is displaced by a later one. It is treated as void, which in this context means it did not have valid legal effect to begin with. Practically, that is why an unconstitutional law cannot be revived by simply reenacting the same policy in a new statute that has the same constitutional defect, and why rights or obligations that depend entirely on the void provision generally cannot be built on it going forward. The Constitution itself is what governs the situation once the conflicting law is out of the picture.
The same rule reaches administrative rules and orders
Article 7 does not stop at statutes passed by Congress. It extends the same test to administrative or executive acts, orders and regulations, which it says shall be valid only when they are not contrary to the laws or the Constitution. An implementing rule issued by an agency, an executive order, or a local regulation is held to the identical standard: it has no force where it conflicts with either an existing law or the Constitution itself. The core point for anyone relying on a law or a rule is the same either way, a provision that a court has found unconstitutional is not a valid rule with a cloud over it; it is treated as though it carried no legal force at all.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Bayan Muna, as represented by Rep. Satur Ocampo, et al. vs. Alberto Romulo, in his capacity as Executive Secretary, et al, G.R. No. 159618, February 1, 2011 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Justo Q. Sinag, et al. vs. the Honorable Sangguniang Panlalawigan Ng Batangas, G.R. No. 234228, February 25, 2025 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- People of the Philippines vs. Mark Paul Ildefonso, G.R. No. 249858, February 19, 2025 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Patrick Alex M. Hagedorn, et al. vs. Commission on Audit, G.R. No. 260458, June 4, 2024 — read the decision on LawPhil →