In re Plagiarism --- against Assoc Justice del Castillo

Legal Ethics Duty of Counsel To Cite Law/Jurisprudence Without Alteration

The Malaya Lolas received an adverse decision in the case Vinuya vs Romulo decided by
the Supreme Court on April 28, 2010. The Malaya Lolas sought the annulment of said
decision due to the alleged irregularity in the writing of the text of the decision. Allegedly, the
ponente of said case, Justice Mariano del Castillo copied verbatim portions of the decision
laid down in said case from three works by three foreign authors without acknowledging said
authors hence an overt act of plagiarism which is highly reprehensible.
Plagiarism as defined by Blacks Law Dictionary is the deliberate and knowing presentation
of another persons original ideas or creative expressions as ones own.
ISSUE: Whether or not plagiarism is applicable to decisions promulgated by the Supreme
Court.
HELD: No. It has been a long standing practice in this jurisdiction not to cite or acknowledge
the originators of passages and views found in the Supreme Courts 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.
As put by one author (this time acknowledged by the Court), Joyce C. George from 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.
Further, as found by the Supreme Court, the omission of the acknowledgment by Justice del
Castillo of the three foreign authors arose from a clerical error. It was shown before the
Supreme Court that the researcher who finalized the draft written by Justice del Castillo

accidentally deleted the citations/acknowledgements; that in all, there is still an intent to

acknowledge and not take such passages as that of Justice del Castillos own.