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considerations of public policy and sound practice that at the risk of
occasional errors, the judgment of adjudicating bodies must become final
and executory on some definite date fixed by law. [...], the Supreme Court
reiterated that the doctrine of immutability of final judgment is adhered to
by necessity notwithstanding occasional errors that may result thereby,
since litigations must somehow come to an end for otherwise, it would
'even be more intolerable than the wrong and injustice it is designed to
correct.'[9]
In Mocorro, Jr. v. Ramirez,[10] we held that:
A definitive final judgment, however erroneous, is no longer subject to
change or revision.
A decision that has acquired finality becomes immutable and unalterable.
This quality of immutability precludes the modification of a final judgment,
even if the modification is meant to correct erroneous conclusions of fact
and law. And this postulate holds true whether the modification is made by
the court that rendered it or by the highest court in the land. The orderly
administration of justice requires that, at the risk of occasional errors, the
judgments/resolutions of a court must reach a point of finality set by the
law. The noble purpose is to write finis to dispute once and for all. This is a
fundamental principle in our justice system, without which there would be
no end to litigations. Utmost respect and adherence to this principle must
always be maintained by those who exercise the power of adjudication. Any
act, which violates such principle, must immediately be struck down.
Indeed, the principle of conclusiveness of prior adjudications is not confined
in its operation to the judgments of what are ordinarily known as courts, but
extends to all bodies upon which judicial powers had been conferred.
The only exceptions to the rule on the immutability of final judgments are
(1) the correction of clerical errors, (2) the so-called nunc pro tunc entries
which cause no prejudice to any party, and (3) void judgments. Nunc pro
tunc judgments have been defined and characterized by the Court in the
following manner:
The object of a judgment nunc pro tunc is not the rendering of a new
judgment and the ascertainment and determination of new rights, but is one
placing in proper form on the record, the judgment that had been previously
rendered, to make it speak the truth, so as to make it show what the judicial
action really was, not to correct judicial errors, such as to render a judgment
which the court ought to have rendered, in place of the one it did
erroneously render, nor to supply nonaction by the court, however erroneous
the judgment may have been. (Wilmerding vs. Corbin Banking Co., 28
South., 640, 641; 126 Ala., 268.)
A nunc pro tunc entry in practice is an entry made now of something which
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