MANILA, Philippines—For failing to sign the roll of attorneys after passing the bar in 1979, a corporate lawyer has been barred by the Supreme Court from practice of law for one year and fined P32,000.
The high court—voting 10-0, with five justices on leave—granted the petition of lawyer Michael Medado to be allowed to sign the roll of attorneys, the official registry of lawyers in the Philippines, but penalized him by allowing him to sign one year hence, in effect suspending him from the practice of law.
“As Medado is not yet a full-fledged lawyer, we cannot suspend him from the practice of law. However, we see it fit to impose upon him a penalty akin to suspension by allowing him to sign in the roll of attorneys one year after receiving this resolution,” said the court in a six-page ruling dated Oct. 1 and penned by Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno.
The court also fined Medado P32,000.
Court records showed Medado graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1979 and passed the bar the same year. On May 7, 1980, he took the attorney’s oath at the Philippine International Convention Center together with the other new lawyers.
He was scheduled to sign the roll of attorneys on May 13 but failed to do so because, according to him, he had misplaced his notice to sign given to him by the bar office.
Years later, while rummaging through his old college files, Medado said he found the notice and realized he had not signed the roll, and that what he had signed at the PICC entrance was the attendance record.
Mistaken belief
By then Medado was working, doing mainly corporate and taxation work and not litigation. He said he was “under the mistaken belief [that] since he ha[d] taken the oath, the signing of the roll was not as urgent, nor as crucial to his status as a lawyer” and that “the matter of signing the roll lost its urgency and compulsion, and was subsequently forgotten.”
In 2005, Medado could not be credited for the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education seminars he attended because he had no roll number. But it took seven years, on Feb. 6, 2012, before he would file a petition in the Supreme Court asking to be allowed to sign the roll belatedly.
The Supreme Court’s Office of the Bar Confidant, which investigated the matter, recommended denial of Medado’s petition for lack of merit as he could not offer a valid justification for his negligence in not signing the roll.
Lenient stand
The justices, however, took a lenient stand, saying that not allowing Medado to sign the roll would be akin to imposing upon him the penalty of disbarment, which is reserved for the most serious ethical breaches by lawyers.
The court noted that Medado “demonstrated good faith and good moral character” in finally filing a petition to sign the roll; that it was not a third party that called the court’s attention to his omission; and that he had not been subjected to any action for disqualification from the practice of law.
The justices said Medado was also able to demonstrate that he “strove to adhere to the strict requirements of the ethics of the profession, and that he has prima facie shown that he possesses the character required to be a member of the Philippine Bar. ”
They noted that Medado “appears to have been a competent and able legal practitioner,” having held positions in the Laurel Law Office, Petron, Petrophil Corp., Philippine National Oil Co. and Energy Development Corp.
The justices, however, said they could not fully exculpate Medado from all liability for his years of inaction. They rejected his excuse that his failure to sign was “neither willful nor intentional but based on a mistaken belief and an honest error of judgment.”
“While an honest mistake of fact could be used to excuse a person from the legal consequences of his acts, as it negates malice or evil motive, a mistake of law cannot be utilized as a lawful justification, because everyone is presumed to know the law and its consequences. Ignorantia facti excusat; ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Ignorance of facts excuses; ignorance of law excuses no one),” the justice said. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño