EN BANC

 
 
IN THE MATTER OF THE CHARGES A.M. No. 10-7-17-SC
OF PLAGIARISM, ETC., AGAINST
ASSOCIATE JUSTICE MARIANO C.
DEL CASTILLO. Present:
CORONA, C.J.,
CARPIO,
CARPIO MORALES,
VELASCO, JR.,
NACHURA,
LEONARDO-DE CASTRO,
BRION,
PERALTA,
BERSAMIN,
DEL CASTILLO,
ABAD,
VILLARAMA, JR.,
PEREZ,
MENDOZA, and
SERENO, JJ.
Promulgated:
 
February 8, 2011
x --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- x
 
RESOLUTION
 
PER CURIAM:
 
 
Petitioners Isabelita C. Vinuya, et al., all members of the Malaya Lolas Organization, seek reconsideration of
the decision of the Court dated October 12, 2010 that dismissed their charges of plagiarism, twisting of cited
materials, and gross neglect against Justice Mariano Del Castillo in connection with the decision he wrote for the
Court in G.R. No. 162230, entitled Vinuya v. Romulo.[1]
 
Mainly, petitioners claim that the Court has by its decision legalized or approved of the commission of
plagiarism in the Philippines. This claim is absurd. The Court, like everyone else, condemns plagiarism as the world
in general understands and uses the term.
 
Plagiarism, a term not defined by statute, has a popular or common definition. To plagiarize, says Webster,
is to steal and pass off as ones own the ideas or words of another. Stealing implies malicious taking. Blacks Law
Dictionary, the worlds leading English law dictionary quoted by the Court in its decision, defines plagiarism as the
deliberate and knowing presentation of another person's original ideas or creative expressions as ones own.[2] The
presentation of another persons ideas as ones own must be deliberate or premeditateda taking with ill intent.
 
There is no commonly-used dictionary in the world that embraces in the meaning of plagiarism errors in
attribution by mere accident or in good faith.
 
Certain educational institutions of course assume different norms in its application. For instance, the Loyola
Schools Code of Academic Integrity ordains that plagiarism is identified not through intent but through the act
itself. The objective act of falsely attributing to ones self what is not ones work, whether intentional or out of neglect,
is sufficient to conclude that plagiarism has occurred. Students who plead ignorance or appeal to lack of malice are
not excused.[3]
 
But the Courts decision in the present case does not set aside such norm. The decision makes this clear,
thus:
 
 To paraphrase Bast and Samuels, while the academic publishing model is based on
the originality of the writers thesis, the judicial system is based on the doctrine of stare
decisis, which encourages courts to cite historical legal data, precedents, and related studies
in their decisions. The judge is not expected to produce original scholarship in every
respect. The strength of a decision lies in the soundness and general acceptance of the
precedents and long held legal opinions it draws from.[4]
 
Original scholarship is highly valued in the academe and rightly so. A college thesis, for instance, should
contain dissertations embodying results of original research, substantiating a specific view.[5] This must be so since
the writing is intended to earn for the student an academic degree, honor, or distinction. He earns no credit nor
deserves it who takes the research of others, copies their dissertations, and proclaims these as his own. There
should be no question that a cheat deserves neither reward nor sympathy.
 
But the policy adopted by schools of disregarding the element of malicious intent found in dictionaries is
evidently more in the nature of establishing what evidence is sufficient to prove the commission of such dishonest
conduct than in rewriting the meaning of plagiarism. Since it would be easy enough for a student to plead ignorance
or lack of malice even as he has copied the work of others, certain schools have adopted the policy of treating the
mere presence of such copied work in his paper sufficient objective evidence of plagiarism. Surely, however, if on its
face the students work shows as a whole that he has but committed an obvious mistake or a clerical error in one of
hundreds of citations in his thesis, the school will not be so unreasonable as to cancel his diploma.
 
In contrast, decisions of courts are not written to earn merit, accolade, or prize as an original piece of work
or art. Deciding disputes is a service rendered by the government for the public good. Judges issue decisions to
resolve everyday conflicts involving people of flesh and blood who ache for speedy justice or juridical beings which
have rights and obligations in law that need to be protected. The interest of society in written decisions is not that
they are originally crafted but that they are fair and correct in the context of the particular disputes involved. Justice,
not originality, form, and style, is the object of every decision of a court of law.
 
There is a basic reason for individual judges of whatever level of courts, including the Supreme Court, not to
use original or unique language when reinstating the laws involved in the cases they decide. Their duty is to apply
the laws as these are written. But laws include, under the doctrine of stare decisis, judicial interpretations of such
laws as are applied to specific situations. Under this doctrine, Courts are to stand by precedent and not to disturb
settled point. Once the Court has laid down a principle of law as applicable to a certain state of facts, it will adhere to
that principle, and apply it to all future cases, where facts are substantially the same; regardless of whether the
parties or property are the same.[6]
 
And because judicial precedents are not always clearly delineated, they are quite often entangled in
apparent inconsistencies or even in contradictions, prompting experts in the law to build up regarding such matters
a large body of commentaries or annotations that, in themselves, often become part of legal writings upon which
lawyers and judges draw materials for their theories or solutions in particular cases. And, because of the need to be
precise and correct, judges and practitioners alike, by practice and tradition, usually lift passages from such
precedents and writings, at times omitting, without malicious intent, attributions to the originators.
 
Is this dishonest? No. Duncan Webb, writing for the International Bar Association puts it succinctly. When
practicing lawyers (which include judges) write about the law, they effectively place their ideas, their language, and
their work in the public domain, to be affirmed, adopted, criticized, or rejected. Being in the public domain, other
lawyers can thus freely use these without fear of committing some wrong or incurring some liability. Thus:
 
The tendency to copy in law is readily explicable. In law accuracy of words is
everything. Legal disputes often centre round the way in which obligations have been
expressed in legal documents and how the facts of the real world fit the meaning of the
words in which the obligation is contained. This, in conjunction with the risk-aversion of
lawyers means that refuge will often be sought in articulations that have been tried and
tested. In a sense therefore the community of lawyers have together contributed to this body
of knowledge, language, and expression which is common property and may be utilized,
developed and bettered by anyone.[7]
 
 The implicit right of judges to use legal materials regarded as belonging to the public domain is not unique to
the Philippines.As Joyce C. George, whom Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno cites in her dissenting opinion, observed
in her Judicial Opinion Writing Handbook:
 
A judge writing to resolve a dispute, whether trial or appellate, is exempted from a
charge of plagiarism even if ideas, words or phrases from a law review article, novel thoughts
published in a legal periodical or language from a partys brief are used without giving
attribution. Thus judges are free to use whatever sources they deem appropriate to resolve
the matter before them, without fear of reprisal. This exemption applies to judicial writings
intended to decide cases for two reasons: the judge is not writing a literary work and, more
importantly, the purpose of the writing is to resolve a dispute. As a result, judges
adjudicating cases are not subject to a claim of legal plagiarism.[8]
 
If the Court were to inquire into the issue of plagiarism respecting its past decisions from the time of Chief
Justice Cayetano S. Arellano to the present, it is likely to discover that it has not on occasion acknowledged the
originators of passages and views found in its decisions. These omissions are true for many of the decisions that
have been penned and are being penned daily by magistrates from the Court of Appeals, the Sandiganbayan, the
Court of Tax Appeals, the Regional Trial Courts nationwide and with them, the municipal trial courts and other first
level courts. Never in the judiciarys more than 100 years of history has the lack of attribution been regarded and
demeaned as plagiarism.
 
This is not to say that the magistrates of our courts are mere copycats. They are not. Their decisions
analyze the often conflicting facts of each case and sort out the relevant from the irrelevant. They identify and
formulate the issue or issues that need to be resolved and evaluate each of the laws, rulings, principles, or
authorities that the parties to the case invoke. The decisions then draw their apt conclusions regarding whether or
not such laws, rulings, principles, or authorities apply to the particular cases before the Court. These efforts,
reduced in writing, are the product of the judges creativity. It is hereactually the substance of their decisionsthat their
genius, originality, and honest labor can be found, of which they should be proud.
 
In Vinuya, Justice Del Castillo examined and summarized the facts as seen by the opposing sides in a way
that no one has ever done. He identified and formulated the core of the issues that the parties raised. And when he
had done this, he discussed the state of the law relevant to their resolution. It was here that he drew materials from
various sources, including the three foreign authors cited in the charges against him. He compared the divergent
views these present as they developed in history. He then explained why the Court must reject some views in light
of the peculiar facts of the case and applied those that suit such facts. Finally, he drew from his discussions of the
facts and the law the right solution to the dispute in the case. On the whole, his work was original. He had but done
an honest work.
The Court will not, therefore, consistent with established practice in the Philippines and elsewhere, dare
permit the filing of actions to annul the decisions promulgated by its judges or expose them to charges of plagiarism
for honest work done.
 
This rule should apply to practicing lawyers as well. Counsels for the petitioners, like all lawyers handling cases
before courts and administrative tribunals, cannot object to this. Although as a rule they receive compensation for
every pleading or paper they file in court or for every opinion they render to clients, lawyers also need to strive for
technical accuracy in their writings. They should not be exposed to charges of plagiarism in what they write so long
as they do not depart, as officers of the court, from the objective of assisting the Court in the administration of
justice.
 
As Duncan Webb said:
 
In presenting legal argument most lawyers will have recourse to either previous
decisions of the courts, frequently lifting whole sections of a judges words to lend weight to
a particular point either with or without attribution. The words of scholars are also sometimes
given weight, depending on reputation. Some encyclopaedic works are given particular
authority. In England this place is given to Halsburys Laws of England which is widely
considered authoritative. A lawyer can do little better than to frame an argument or claim to
fit with the articulation of the law in Halsburys. While in many cases the very purpose of the
citation is to claim the authority of the author, this is not always the case. Frequently
 commentary or dicta of lesser standing will be adopted by legal authors, largely without
attribution.
 
xxxx
 
The converse point is that originality in the law is viewed with skepticism. It is only the
arrogant fool or the truly gifted who will depart entirely from the established template and
reformulate an existing idea in the belief that in doing so they will improve it. While over time
incremental changes occur, the wholesale abandonment of established expression is
generally considered foolhardy.[9]
 
 
The Court probably should not have entertained at all the charges of plagiarism against Justice Del Castillo,
coming from the losing party. But it is a case of first impression and petitioners, joined by some faculty members of
the University of the Philippines school of law, have unfairly maligned him with the charges of plagiarism, twisting of
cited materials, and gross neglect for failing to attribute lifted passages from three foreign authors. These charges
as already stated are false, applying the meaning of plagiarism as the world in general knows it.
 
True, Justice Del Castillo failed to attribute to the foreign authors materials that he lifted from their works and
used in writing the decision for the Court in the Vinuya case. But, as the Court said, the evidence as found by its
Ethics Committee shows that the attribution to these authors appeared in the beginning drafts of the
decision. Unfortunately, as testified to by a highly qualified and experienced court-employed researcher, she
accidentally deleted the same at the time she was cleaning up the final draft. The Court believed her since, among
other reasons, she had no motive for omitting the attribution. The foreign authors concerned, like the dozens of
other sources she cited in her research, had high reputations in international law.
 
Notably, those foreign authors expressly attributed the controversial passages found in their works to earlier
writings by others.The authors concerned were not themselves the originators. As it happened, although
the ponencia of Justice Del Castillo accidentally deleted the attribution to them, there remained in the final draft of
the decision attributions of the same passages to the earlier writings from which those authors borrowed their ideas
in the first place. In short, with the remaining attributions after the erroneous clean-up, the passages as it finally
appeared in the Vinuya decision still showed on their face that the lifted ideas did not belong to Justice Del Castillo
but to others. He did not pass them off as his own.
 
With our ruling, the Court need not dwell long on petitioners allegations that Justice Del Castillo had also
committed plagiarism in writing for the Court his decision in another case, Ang Ladlad v. Commission on Elections.
[10]
 Petitioners are nit-picking. Upon close examination and as Justice Del Castillo amply demonstrated in his
comment to the motion for reconsideration, he in fact made attributions to passages in such decision that he
borrowed from his sources although they at times suffered in formatting lapses.
 
Considering its above ruling, the Court sees no point in further passing upon the motion of the Integrated
Bar of the Philippines for leave to file and admit motion for reconsideration-in-intervention dated January 5, 2011
and Dr. Peter Payoyos claim of other instances of alleged plagiarism in the Vinuya decision.
 
ACCORDINGLY, the Court DENIES petitioners motion for reconsideration for lack of merit.
 
SO ORDERED.
 
 
 
RENATO C. CORONA
Chief Justice
 
 
 
See dissenting opinion Please see dissenting opinion
ANTONIO T. CARPIO CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES
Associate Justice Associate Justice
 
 
 
 
PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR. ANTONIO EDUARDO B. NACHURA
Associate Justice Associate Justice
 
 
 
I concur and also join the separate opinions of 
Justice Brion and Justice Abad See: separate concurring opinion
TERESITA J. LEONARDO-DE CASTRO ARTURO D. BRION
Associate Justice Associate Justice
 
 
 
I join the opinion of Justice A. Brion I also the join the separate concurring opinion of Justice Brion
DIOSDADO M. PERALTA LUCAS P. BERSAMIN
Associate Justice Associate Justice
 
(No part) with a separate concurring opinion
MARIANO C. DEL CASTILLO ROBERTO A. ABAD
Associate Justice Associate Justice
 
I concur and join the separate opinions of Justice Brion and Justice Abad
MARTIN S. VILLARAMA, JR. JOSE PORTUGAL PEREZ
Associate Justice Associate Justice
 
 
I also join the separate concurring
opinion of Justice Brion Please see dissenting opinion
JOSE CATRAL MENDOZA MARIA LOURDES P. A. SERENO
Associate Justice Associate Justice