G.R. No. 230642 – 862 Phil. 120 – 913 Phil. 828 – Political Law – Constitutional Law – Powers of the State – Police Power – Power to Regulate Professions
In 1993, RA 7662 or the Legal Education Reform Act was enacted. It created the Legal Education Board which purpose was to make reforms in the legal education system.
In 2011, the LEB issued LEDMO No. 1-2011 which required that law students must undergo legal internship as a requirement for taking the bar.
In 2016, the LEB issued LEBMO No. 7-2016 which created the PhilSAT or the Philippine Law School Admission Test. The memo likewise prohibited law schools from accepting enrollees who failed the PhilSAT.
In 2017, Oscar Pimentel together with other lawyers, law students, and prospective law students filed a petition questioning the constitutionality of the LEB and the PhilSAT. They argued that the creation of the LEB is an encroachment on the Supreme Court’s power to regulate the practice of law which includes power to regulate legal education; that the PhilSAT violates the right of all citizens to quality and accessible education, it violates academic freedom, and is an unfair academic requirement; that the PhiLSAT violates due process as it interferes with the right of every person to select a profession or course of study; that it violates the academic freedom of schools.
ISSUES:
1. Whether or not the LEB is constitutional.
2. Whether or not LEBMO 1-2011 insofar as it requires legal internship as a requisite for taking the bar is valid.
3. Whether or not the PhilSAT is valid.
HELD:
1. Yes. The LEB is constitutional. Congress was within its right to establish the LEB through RA 7662. The SC has no jurisdiction over legal education – hence, the creation of the LEB is not an encroachment on the SC’s power. The SC’s rule-making power covers the practice of law NOT the study of law.
But Rule 138, which requires law students to finish core bar subjects and other academic requirements, and Rule 138-A, which requires law students to be certified as law student practitioners, tend to regulate legal education; are they not indications of the SC’s regulatory power over legal education?
No. The provisions of Rule 138 and Rule 138-A are directed to those who wish to be admitted to the practice of law and not as regulations over law schools. In allowing the law student and in governing the conduct of the law student practitioner, what the Court regulates and supervises is not legal education, but the appearance and conduct of a law student before any trial court, tribunal, board, or officer, to represent indigent clients of the legal clinic – an activity rightfully falling under the definition of practice of law.
2. No. Requiring law students to undergo legal internship before they may be admitted to take the bar exams is unconstitutional. This requirement unduly interferes with the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court to promulgate rules concerning the practice of law and admissions thereto.
3. No. But not on the ground that it encroaches upon the rule-making power of the SC. The LEB may fix minimum standards for law school admission. The LEB can implement an admission exam and this should not be taken as a regulation of who may be admitted to the practice of law. It simply pertains to who may be admitted to law schools. In fact, the framers of RA 7662 intended to authorize the LEB to administer an aptitude test for prospective law students.
Further, an aptitude test for prospective law students is a valid exercise of police power.
However, the PhilSAT as formulated is not a valid exercise of police power. The PhiLSAT, as crafted, employs a totalitarian scheme in terms of student admissions. This leaves the consequent actions of the applicant-student and the school solely dependent upon the results of the PhiLSAT. It also violates the law school’s academic freedom as law schools have no participation in the PhilSAT.
The PhilSAT must be reformulated to balance the State’s interest and that of law schools’ academic freedom. An aptitude test is reasonably related to the State’s unimpeachable interest in improving the quality of legal education. This aptitude test should not be exclusionary, restrictive, or qualifying as to encroach upon institutional academic freedom. Law schools should be left with the discretion to determine for themselves how much weight should the results of the PhiLSAT carry in relation to their individual admission policies.
In the case of Tablarin and San Diego, the constitutionality of the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) was upheld, how is the NMAT different from the PhilSAT?
The NMAT is actually not the only basis for a prospective student to be admitted to medical school. A medical school has the freedom to admit a prospective student despite a low NMAT score. The NMAT still recognizes the med school’s academic freedom on who to admit into its school.
Read full text: 2019 Decision; 2021 Resolution
