Fr. Joanquin Bernas, S.J., Ateneo law professors oppose U.P. Law professors call for SC justice to resign

Editor's note: The Diliman Diary has been inspired to conduct its own in-depth inquiry into recent court cases involving the Diliman community and in particular, several lawyers who are at the forefront of condemning Supreme Court Justice Mariano del Castillo for having allegedly plagiarized an earlier decision and demanding his resignation even before the Supreme Court as a body has formed its own conclusions on the matter.

While we actually support the inquiry into the matter, we do not wish to just stop there, as we are also made aware that a can of worms has correspondingly been opened and we are openly wondering whether it may be established that those who are condemning the officials of the court for "judicial plagiarism" may not themselves be direct beneficiaries of such court decisions by themselves providing pre-written or "soft copies" to officials of the court which substantially reflect their own pleadings, and thereby making a mockery of the ideal that Justice should be blind.

We are therefore narrowing in on a convenience sample of recent cases of public interest involving the University of the Philippines to prove (or even disprove) our point. If we come across significant findings, our public duty is to complain before the judicial authorities first, and inform our readers of the results only if official action has been taken, assuming that anything amiss has been found in the first place.

Like Academic plagiarism, Judicial plagiarism may be easily established by comparing, say, a plaintiff's or defendant's pleadings versus a court decision in a line by line comparison of all sets of documents. We hope, for the sake of a good night's sleep, as well as the inetgrity of the entire judicial system, that we are able to prove ourselves wrong. In the meantime, here is an article from philstar.com about the Ateneo Law professors opposition to the U.P. Law Professors manifesto (just click on the link):

Fr. Bernas, law professors oppose call for SC justice to resign | Home Other Sections Breaking News