IN RE: ALMACEN (31 SCRA 562 2/18/70) - Lawyers' Duty

FACTS:

A civil case entitled Yaptichay v. Calero, in which Atty. Almacen was counsel for the defendant. The trial court rendered judgment against his client. icente Raul Almacens Petition to Surrender Lawyers Certificate of Title, filed on Sept. 26, 1967, in protest against what he therein asserts is a great injustice committed against his client by Supreme Court. He indicts SC, in his own phrase, as a tribual peopled by men who are calloused to our pleas for justice, who ignore without reasons their own applicable decisions and commit culpable violations of the Constitution with impunity. His clients he continues, who was deeply aggrieved by this Courts unjust judgment, has become one of the sacrificial victims before the altar of hypocrisy. He ridicules the members of the Court, saying that justice as administered by the present members of the Supreme Court is not only bline, but also deaf and dumb. He then vows to argue the cause of his client in the peoples forum, so that people may know of the silent injustices committed by this court and that whatever mistakes, wrongs and injustices that were committed must never be repeated. ISSUE: Whether or not Atty. Almacen should be given disciplinary actions for his acts. HELD: Well-recognized is the right of a lawyer, both as an officer of the court and as citizen, to criticize in properly respectful terms and through legitimate channels the acts of courts and judges. As a citizen and as officer of the court, a lawyer is expected not only to exercise the right, but also to consider it his duty to avail of such right. No law may abridge this right. Nor is he professionally answerable for a scrutiny into the official conduct of the judges, which would not expose him to legal animadversion as a citizen. Atty. Almacen is suspended from the practice of law until further orders.

IN RE: VICTORIO LANUEVO(former Bar confidant)

FACTS: Administrative proceeding against Victorio Lanuevo for disbarment. Admitted having brought the five examination notebooks of Ramon E. Galang back to the respective examiners for re-evalution or re-checking. The five examiners admitted having reevaluated or re-checked the notebook to him by the Bar Confidant, stating that he has the authority to do the same and that the examinee concerned failed only in his particular subject and

was on the borderline of passing. Ramon galang was able to pass the 1971 bar exam because of Lanuevos move but the exam results bears that he failed in 5 subjects namely in (Political, Civil, Mercantile, Criminal & Remedial). Galang on the otherhand, denied of having charged of Slight Physical Injuries on Eufrosino de Vera, a law student of MLQU. ISSUE: Whether or not Lanuevo was guilty of defrauding the examiners such that Galang passed the Bar
RULING:

The court disbarred Lanuevo has no authority to request the examiners to re-evaluate grades of examinees w/o prior authority from Supreme Court. He does not possess any discretion with respect to the matter of admission of examinees to the bar. He does not a have any business evaluating the answers of the examinees.

Consequently, Galang was also disbarred Sec. 2 of Rule 138 of the Revised Rules of Curt of 1964, candidates for admission to the bar must be of good moral character. Galang has a pending criminal cases of Physical Injuries, he committed perjury when he declared under oath that he had no pending criminal case this resulted him to revoked his license.