EN BANC
Agenda of
Item No. 61
A.M. No. 10-7-17-SC – In
the Matter of the Charges of Plagiarism, etc. against Associate Justice Mariano
C. Del Castillo.
Promulgated:
February 8, 2011
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SEPARATE CONCURRING OPINION
BRION, J.:
Background
Facts
The present administrative disciplinary case against
Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano C. del Castillo stemmed from the
decision he penned for the Court in G.R. No. 162230, entitled Isabelita C. Vinuya, et al. v. Executive Secretary. The Vinuya
Decision was promulgated on
On
In reply to the accusation, Justice del Castillo wrote and
circulated a letter dated
The Court’s Decision on the
Plagiarism Charge against Justice del Castillo
In a Decision dated
The Court also adopts the Committee’s finding that the
omission of attributions to Criddle-Descent and Ellis did not bring about an
impression that Justice Del Castillo himself created the passages that he
lifted from their published articles. That he merely got those passages from
others remains self-evident, despite the accidental deletion. The fact is that
he still imputed the passages to the sources from which Criddle-Descent and
Ellis borrowed them in the first place.
As to the charge that Justice del Castillo twisted the meaning of the
works of the foreign authors, the Court ruled that it was impossible for him to
have done so because:
first, since the attributions to Criddle-Descent and Ellis
were accidentally deleted, it is impossible for any person reading the decision
to connect the same to the works of those authors as to conclude that in
writing the decision Justice Del Castillo “twisted” their intended messages.
And, second, the lifted passages provided mere background facts that
established the state of international law at various stages of its
development. These are neutral data that could support conflicting theories
regarding whether or not the judiciary has the power today to order the
Executive Department to sue another country or whether the duty to prosecute
violators of international crimes has attained the status of jus cogens.
The Court, thus, declared that “only errors [of judges] tainted with
fraud, corruption, or malice are subject of disciplinary action” and these were not present in Justice del Castillo’s
case; the failure was not attended by any malicious intent not to attribute the
lifted passages to the foreign authors.
Justice Maria
On
The Court’s Action on the
Motion for Reconsideration
The Court referred the motion for reconsideration to the
Ethics Committee and its Report recommended the dismissal of the motion for
reconsideration. The Report differentiated academic
writing from judicial writing, declaring that originality of ideas is not
required of a judge writing decisions and resolving conflicts because he is
bound by the doctrine of stare decisis
– the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to
precedents.
The Report likewise declared
that the foreign authors, whose works were claimed to have been plagiarized,
were not themselves the originators of the ideas cited in the Vinuya Decision. While the Vinuya Decision did not mention their names, it did attribute the
passages to the original authors from whom these foreign authors borrowed the
ideas. There was, thus, no intent on the
part of Justice del Castillo to appropriate the ideas or to claim that these
ideas originated from him; in short, he did not pass them off as his own.
Justice Antonio T. Carpio dissented
from the Report, based on two grounds:
a.
the Court has no jurisdiction over the administrative case as
it involves a sitting Supreme Court Justice, for alleged misconduct committed
in office; and
b.
the judge, when writing judicial decisions, must comply with
the law on copyright and respect the moral right of the author to have the work
copied attributed to him.
My Position
I fully support the
conclusions of the Ethics Committee. I
likewise take exception to Justice Carpio’s Dissenting Opinion, specifically on
his position that the Court has no jurisdiction to discipline its Members as the
only means to discipline them is through impeachment proceedings that the Congress
has the sole prerogative to undertake.
Impeachment, he declares, functions as the equivalent of administrative
disciplinary proceedings. Since the Congress
is given the exclusive power to initiate,[6] try, and decide[7] all cases of
impeachment, Justice Carpio posits that the Congress serves as the exclusive
disciplining authority over all impeachable officers. He warns that for the Supreme Court to hear
the present administrative disciplinary case would be to usurp this exclusive
power of Congress.
Jurisdiction of the Supreme
Court to Discipline its Members
A given in the discipline of Members of the Supreme Court
is that they can only be “removed from office” through impeachment, as provided
under Article XI of the Constitution, on the specified grounds of culpable violation of the Constitution,
treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of the
public trust. The purpose of impeachment and the constitutional interest
sought is to protect the people and the State from official delinquencies and
other malfeasances.[8] The Constitution, however, is not a
single-purpose document that focuses on one interest alone to the exclusion of related
interests; impeachment was never intended by the Constitution to be the
totality of the administrative actions or remedies that the public or the Court
may take against an erring Justice of the Court. Other related constitutional
interests exist touching on other facets of the Judiciary and public
accountability. They are, by themselves,
equally compelling and demanding of recognition.
Among the compelling interests
that the Constitution zealously guards is judicial independence because it is
basic to the meaning and purposes of the Judiciary. This interest permeates the provisions of
Article VIII of the Constitution.[9]
Another interest to
consider is the need for judicial integrity – a term not expressly mentioned in
the Article on the Judiciary (Article VIII), but is a basic concept found in
Article XI (on Accountability of Public Officers) of the Constitution. It is important as this constitutional
interest underlies the independent and responsible Judiciary that Article VIII
establishes and protects. To be exact,
it complements judicial independence as integrity and independence affect and
support one another; only a Judiciary with integrity can be a truly independent
Judiciary. Judicial integrity, too, directly relates to public trust and
accountability that the Constitution seeks in the strongest terms. The same Article XI contains the impeachment
provisions that provide for the removal of Justices of the Supreme Court. Notably, a common thread that runs through
all the grounds for impeachment is the lack of integrity of the official
impeached on these grounds.
Still another unavoidable
consideration on impeachment and its limited grounds is that it cannot, by itself,
suffice to protect the people and foster the public accountability that the
Constitution speaks of. While it is a
powerful weapon in the arsenal of public accountability and integrity, it is
not a complete weapon that can address and fully achieve its protective
purposes. As discussed more fully below,
not all complaints and grievances can be subsumed under the defined constitutional
grounds for impeachment. Members of the
Court can commit other offenses not covered by the impeachable offenses, for
which other offenses they should equally be held accountable. These other
offenses must of course be administratively addressed elsewhere if they cannot
be similarly addressed through impeachment; the people will not accept an
interpretation that these are offenses that fell through the constitutional
cracks and can no longer be administratively addressed.
These considerations, taken
together, dictate against the position of Justice Carpio that the Congress
alone, through impeachment and to the exclusion of this Court, can proceed
against the Members of the Court.
Protection of Judicial
Integrity
For the purpose of
preserving judicial integrity, the Supreme Court has as much (and in fact,
should have more) interest as the public or as any other branch of the government
in overseeing the conduct of members of the Judiciary, including its own Members.
This is precisely the reason for the Judiciary’s Code of Judicial Conduct and
the lawyers’ Code of Professional Responsibility. Judicial integrity is not only a necessary
element in the orderly and efficient administration of justice; it is almost
literally the lifeblood of the
Judiciary. A Judiciary, dissociated from
integrity and the public trust that integrity brings, loses its rightful place
in the constitutional democratic scheme that puts a premium on a reliable and
respected third branch of government that would balance the powers of the other
two branches.
To ensure the maintenance
and enhancement of judicial integrity, the Constitution has given the
Judiciary, mainly through the Supreme Court, a variety of powers. These powers necessarily begin with the power
to admit and to discipline members of the bar[10] who are officers
of the courts and who have the broadest frontline interaction with the courts
and with the public. Courts in general have the power to cite for contempt[11] that proceeds,
not only from the need to maintain orderly procedures, but also from the need
to protect judicial integrity in the course of the courts’ exercise of judicial
power. The Supreme Court has the power
to discipline and remove judges of lower courts.[12] In this role,
the Court hears administrative disciplinary cases against lower court judges
for purposes of redress against erring judges and, more importantly, to “[preserve] the integrity of the
judicial system and public confidence in the system and x x x [to safeguard]
the bench and the public from those who are unfit.”[13]
As concrete legal basis,
the Supreme Court is expressly granted the general power of administrative
supervision over all courts and the
personnel thereof.[14] By its plain terms, the power extends not
only to the authority to supervise and discipline lower court judges but to
exercise the same powers over the Members of the Court itself. This is the unavoidable meaning of this grant
of authority if its main rationale – i.e.,
to preserve judicial integrity – is to be given full effect. The Supreme Court must ensure that the
integrity of the whole Judiciary, its own
Members included, is maintained as any taint on any part of the Judiciary
necessarily taints the whole. To state
the obvious, a taint in or misconduct by any Member of the Supreme Court – even if only whispered about for lack of concrete evidence and patriotic
whistleblowers – carries greater adverse impact than a similar event
elsewhere in the Judiciary.
Independent of the grant of
supervisory authority and at a more basic level, the Supreme Court cannot be
expected to play its role in the constitutional democratic scheme solely on the
basis of the Constitution’s express grant of powers. Implied in these grants are the inherent
powers that every entity endowed with life (even artificial life) and burdened
with responsibilities can and must exercise if it is to survive. The Court cannot but have the right to defend itself to ensure that
its integrity and that of the Judiciary it oversees are kept intact. This is
particularly true when its integrity is attacked or placed at risk by its very
own Members – a situation that is not unknown in the history of the Court. To be sure, judicial integrity cannot be
achieved if the Court can police the ranks of the lower court judges but not
its own ranks. From this perspective
view, it is unthinkable that the Supreme Court can only watch helplessly – for
the reason that the power to act is granted only to Congress under the terms of
the Constitution – as its own Members prostitute its integrity as an
institution.
Impeachment
Grounds are Limited
That an impeachment
partakes of the nature of an administrative disciplinary proceeding confined to
the defined and limited grounds of “culpable violation of the Constitution,
treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, and betrayal of
public trust”[15]
cannot be disputed. However, it cannot
likewise be disputed that these grounds, as defined, refer only to those
serious “offenses that strike at the very heart of the life of the nation.”[16] Thus, for “betrayal of public trust” to be a
ground for impeachment, the “manner of commission must be of the same severity
as ‘treason’ and ‘bribery.’”[17] With respect
to members of the High Court, impeachment is considered “as a response to serious misuse of judicial power”[18] no less
equivalent to treason or bribery.
Directly implied from these
established impeachment principles is that “removal from office (the imposable
penalty upon impeachment and conviction) is not the price exacted for every
incident of judicial misconduct.”[19] Otherwise stated, that impeachment administratively
addresses only serious offenses committed by impeachable officers cannot imply
that the Constitution condones misdemeanors and misconduct that are not of equal
gravity.
For, side by side with the constitutional
provision on impeachment is the constitutional policy that “public office is a
public trust” and that “public officers
and employees must, at all times, be accountable to the people.”[20] Even impeachable officials, despite the
nature and level of their positions, must be administratively accountable for
misconduct and misdemeanors that are of lesser gravity than the defined
impeachable offenses. Only this approach and reconciled reading with the
provision on impeachment can give full effect to the constitutional policy of
accountability. If this were not the
case, then the public would be left with no effective administrative recourse
against Supreme Court Justices committing less than grave misconduct. One American writer, Brent D. Ward, writes on
this point that:
It would be a serious weakness in our system to place
systematic judicial misconduct beyond the reach of any remedy save
impeachment. There are limits beyond which
no person – even a federal judge – should be allowed to go with impunity. The courts themselves
have the power and the duty to curtail the effect of repeated contrary and
erratic actions of a judge that occur too frequently to permit effective appellate
supervision in the run of cases.
x x x x
[The] Constitution does x x x shield [judges] from corrective
action by other judges designed to ensure that the law is effectively
administered. The appellate courts have the power to prevent action so obviously
improper as to place it beyond established rules of law.[21]
Adverse Effects of
Expansive View of Impeachment Grounds
If impeachment were to be
the only administrative proceeding to hold Justices of this Court accountable,
then the grounds for impeachment may arguably carry a definition beyond the
traditionally grave or serious character these offenses have always
carried. An expanded definition,
however, is no different from the remedy of burning a house to kill a rat. While
such definition in the long run may kill more rats or assuredly do away with a
particularly obnoxious rat, it will at the same time threaten and adversely
affect a more valuable constitutional interest – the independence of the Judiciary
that allows magistrates to conscientiously undertake their duties, guided only
by the dictates of the Constitution and the rule of law.
It needs no elaborate
demonstration to show that the threat of impeachment for every perceived
misconduct or misdemeanor would open Justices of the Court to harrassment. A naughty effect – if administrative redress
can only be secured from Congress to the exclusion of this Court under an
expanded definition of impeachment grounds – is to encourage every litigant
with a perceived grievance against a Justice of this Court to run to his
congressman for the filing of an impeachment complaint.
Undoubtedly, this kind of scenario
will be a continuing threat to judges and justices, with consequential adverse
effects on the Judiciary, on inter-branch relationship, and on the respect the
public may give the Judiciary, the Legislature, and even of the government
itself. Worse, this kind of scenario may
ultimately trivialize the impeachment process and is thus best avoided.
An expansive interpretation
of the grounds for impeachment must also affect Congress which acts on
impeachment complaints but whose main task under our structure of government is
to legislate, not to police the Supreme Court and other impeachable
officers. To say the least, a deluge of
impeachment complaints may prove to be impractical for Congress because
impeachment is both an arduous and a time consumming process that will surely divert
congressional time and other resources from the principal function of
lawmaking.
The
In the United States (US) federal courts, “the impeachment
process has not been the only check on federal judges [who are removable
through impeachment] who may have abused their independence, or the only
assurance of their accountability.”[22] The US
National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal has posited that there
must be “a power in the judiciary to deal with certain kinds of misconduct [as
this will further] both the smooth functioning of the judicial branch and the
broad goal judicial independence.”
Along this line, the US
Congress created a system enforcing an internal judicial self-discipline
through the judicial councils under their Judicial Councils Reform and Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of
1980 (the US 1980 Act). The judicial council (composed of the federal
judges within a specific judicial circuit) is considered as a “formal and
credible supplement to the impeachment process for resolving complaint of
misconduct or disability against federal judges.”[23] The judicial council of a federal circuit,
through the chief judge, is authorized to receive and to act on complaints
about the conduct of judges who are removable
only through impeachment. If there is
merit to a complaint, the judicial council can “take appropriate action, which
may include censure, reprimand, temporary suspension, and transfer of cases, but not removal from office. If the judicial council believes that it has
uncovered grounds for impeachment, the council is empowered to report its
findings to the Judicial Conference of the
Arguably, the existence of
a judicial council as an additional or supplemental check on US federal judges is
statutory and no equivalent statute has been enacted in our jurisdiction
specifically establishing in our Supreme Court a system of internal judicial self-discipline. This argument, however, loses sight of the
constitutional authority of our Supreme Court to govern the conduct of its
members under its power of general administrative supervision over all courts – a power that the Philippine
Constitution expressly grants to our Supreme Court to the exclusion of remedies
outside of the Judiciary except only for impeachment. Interestingly, even in the
[I]t may be in the [US Supreme]
Court’s best interest, as contributing to the public’s perception of
accountability, to devise and adopt some type of formal procedure for the
receipt and disposition of conduct and disability complaints.
The Commission recommends that the
Supreme Court may wish to consider the adoption of policies and procedures for
the filing and disposition fo complaints alleging misconduct against Justices
of the Supreme Court.[25]
Note should be taken in
these regards that the Philippine Supreme Court has already put in place
various Codes governing ethical rules for the bar and for the Judiciary. The
Code of Judicial Conduct applies to all members of the Judiciary, including the
Members of the Supreme Court. The Code
of Professional Responsibility applies to all lawyers, thus, necessarily to
Members of the Court for whom membership in the bar is an essential
qualification. The Court as well has codified
the Internal Rules of the Supreme Court. A Rule on Whistleblowing is presently
under consideration by the Court en banc.
What is crucial in the
establishment of the judicial council system in the US is the implication that no inherent incompatibility exists between
the existence of Congress’ power to impeach and the Supreme Court’s power to
discipline its own members; the two powers can co-exist and, in fact, even
supplement each other. The
constitutionality of recognizing disciplinary power in the courts over their
own impeachable members (as provided in the US 1980 Act), vis-à-vis the Congress’ power to remove the same officials by
impeachment, has been addressed before the US Court of Appeals in the case of McBryde v. Commission to Review Circuit
Council Conduct and Disability Orders of the Judicial Conference of the US[26]:
Judge McBryde frames his
separation of powers claim as whether the Constitution "allocates the
power to discipline federal judges and, if so, to which branches of
government." Finding that it allocates the power to Congress in the form
of impeachment, he concludes that it excludes all other forms of discipline.
But Judge McBryde's attempt to fudge the distinction between impeachment and
discipline doesn't work. The
Constitution limits judgments for impeachment to removal from office and
disqualification to hold office. It
makes no mention of discipline generally. The Supreme Court recently
observed that it accepted the proposition that "[w]hen a statute limits a thing to be done in a particular mode,
it includes a negative of any other mode." But application of the maxim
depends on the "thing to be done." Here the thing to be done by
impeachment is removal and disqualification, not "discipline" of any
sort.
Thus, when the conduct of a member of the Supreme Court is improper but is
not of such gravity to be considered as an impeachable offense, the Court – to
protect its integrity – may address the misconduct through an administrative
disciplinary case against the erring member.
Conclusion: Court can hear
the case against Justice del Castillo as an Administrative Matter
What the impeachment provisions of the Constitution guarantee is simply
the right to be removed from office only
through the process of impeachment and not by any other means; it does not
preclude the imposition of disciplinary sanctions short of removal on the
impeachable official. Impeachment is the
sole means of removal, but it is certainly not the sole means of disciplining Members
of the Supreme Court or, for that matter, public officials removable by
impeachment.
Accordingly, I believe that
the Court has the authority to hear the present administrative disciplinary
case against Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo; in case of a finding of
misconduct, it can impose penalties that are not the functional equivalent of
removal or dismissal from service. If,
in the exercise of its prerogative as interpreter of the Constitution, it determines
that an act complained of falls within the defined grounds for impeachment, then
the Court should say so and forthwith forward its recommendations to Congress
as the body constitutionally mandated to act in impeachment cases.
Court’s Interpretation of Plagiarism - limited to its Concept as an Ethical violation
of Members of the Judiciary.
The dissatisfaction with the Court’s October 12, 2010 Decision
(resolving the plagiarism charge against Justice del Castillo or the “plagiarism Decision”) primarily lies
with the Court’s declaration that malicious
intent is a necessary element in committing plagiarism. In the plagiarism Decision, the Court
said:
[P]lagiarism presupposes intent and a deliberate,
conscious effort to steal another’s work and pass it off as one’s own.
Why we deemed malicious
intent as a necessary element for judicial plagiarism can be explained by our
repeated pronouncement that:
not every error or mistake committed by judges in the
performance of their official duties renders them administratively liable. In the absence of fraud, dishonesty or
deliberate intent to do an injustice, acts done in their official capacity,
even though erroneous, do not always constitute misconduct.
Only errors that are tainted with fraud, corruption or malice
may be the subject of disciplinary action. For administrative liability to
attach, respondent must be shown to have been moved by bad faith, dishonesty,
hatred or some other motive. Indeed, judges may not be held administratively
liable for any of their official acts, no matter how erroneous, as long as they
acted in good faith.[27]
The term plagiarism does not have a precise statutory definition as it is not a matter covered by present Philippine statutes.[28] What the Intellectual Property Code (Republic Act 8283)[29] defines and punishes is “copyright infringement.” However, these terms are not legally interchangeable. Laurie Stearns, copyright lawyer and author of the article “Copy Wrong: Plagiarism, Process, Property, and the Law” aptly observes the distinctions between the two in this wise:
Plagiarism is not
necessarily copyright infringement, nor is copyright infringement necessarily
plagiarism. The two concepts diverge with respect to three main aspects of the
offense: copying, attribution and intent.
In some ways the concept of plagiarism broader than infringement, in that it
can include the copying of ideas or of expression not protected by copyright,
that would not constitute infringement and it can include copying of small
amounts of material that would be disregarded under copyright law. In other
ways the concept of infringement is broader, in that it can include both
properly attributed copying and unintentional copying that would be excused
from being called plagiarism.
The divergence between
plagiarism’s popular definition and copyright’s statutory framework suggests an
essential contradiction between what is at stake in plagiarism – the creative
process – and what is at stake in copyright infringement – the creative result.[30]
Separately from these distinctions, the matter before the Court is Justice del Castillo’s alleged plagiarism or failure to make attributions as an ethical violation, not a copyright violation under the Intellectual Property Code. Given these distinctions, I see no reason to quibble over the definition of plagiarism – a term that, in the absence of any statutory limitation, the Court can define and interpret for purposes of its administrative authority over all courts and the personnel thereof.
From the point of view of ethical rules, what are important are the intent in undertaking an act and the concepts of integrity, propriety, honesty and impartiality for purposes of dispensing justice by an independent Judiciary. It is in this sense, and in light of the nature of the present case as an administrative disciplinary charge against a Member of this Court, that the pronouncement of this Court on plagiarism and on the merits of the ethical charge should be understood.
In this light, I find it misplaced for Justice Sereno to
describe the Court’s Decision as:
[creating] unimaginable problems for Philippine
academia, which will from now on have to find a disciplinary response to
plagiarism committed by students and researchers on the justification of the
majority Decision.
It has also undermined the protection of copyrighted
work by making available to plagiarists “lack of malicious intent” as a defense
to a charge of violation of copy or economic rights of the copyright owner
committed through lack of attribution.
x x x x
Because the majority Decision has excused the lack of
attribution to the complaining authors in the Vinuya decision to editorial
errors and lack of malicious intent to appropriate ─ and that therefore
there was no plagiarism ─ lack of intent to infringe copyright in the
case of lack of attribution may now also become a defense, rendering the above
legal provision meaningless.[31]
When the Supreme Court acts on complaints against judges
under its supervision and control, it acts as an administrator imposing
discipline and not as a court passing upon justiciable controversies.[32] It is precisely for this reason that
disciplinary cases are docketed as “Administrative Matters” or “A.M.”[33] Hence, any interpretation by the Court of “plagiarism”
is limited to this context and cannot be held to bind the academe in
undertaking its educational functions, particularly its own power to define plagiarism in the educational
context. It likewise cannot bind Congress
in its role as the sole authority to determine what constitutes an impeachable
offense, subject to what I stated above on the established scope of impeachable
offenses and the power of the Court to act in grave abuse of discretion situations
under the Constitution. Specifically, a finding by this Court that plagiarism
was or was not committed cannot preclude Congress from determining whether the
failure or omission to make an attribution, intentionally or unintentionally, amounts
to a “betrayal of public trust.”
For these reasons, I support the conclusion of the Ethics
and Ethical Standards Committee that Justice Mariano C. del Castillo’s
attribution lapses did not involve any ethical violation. I vote for the approval
of the Committee’s Report and for the denial of the petitioners’ Motion for
Reconsideration.
ARTURO
D. BRION
Associate Justice
[1] A Fiduciary Theory of Jus Cogens by Evan J. Criddle and Evan Fox-Decent.
[2] Enforcing Erga Omnes Obligations in International Law by Christian J. Tams.
[3] Breaking the Silence: On Rape as an International Crime by Mark Ellis.
[4]
Petitioners Vinuya, et al.’s
Supplemental Motion for Reconsideration dated
[5] Specifically, the Court referred to the article A Fiduciary Theory of Jus Cogens written by Criddle-Decent and Fox.
[6] CONSTITUTION, Article XI, Section 3(1). The House of Representatives shall have the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment.
[7]
[8]
See De
Leon, Philippine
Constitutional Law, Vol. II, 2004 Ed., p. 831.
[9] See, among others, security of tenure at Section 1; fiscal autonomy under Section 2; defined jurisdiction that Congress cannot touch without concurrence from the Supreme Court; administrative supervision over all courts under Section 6; a Judicial and Bar Council that renders recourse to the Commission on Appointments unnecessary; and the guarantee of strict focus on judicial duties under Section 12.
[10] CONSTITUTION, Article VIII, Section 5(5); RULES OF COURT, Rules 138 and 139-B.
[11] RULES OF COURT, Rule 71.
[12] CONSTITUTION, Article VIII, Section 11; RULES OF COURT, Rule 140.
[13]
Cynthia Gray, A Study of State Judicial
Discipline Sanctions, American Judicature Society (2002), at
<www.ajs.org/ethics/pdfs/Sanctions.pdf>, last visited
[14]
See Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J., The 1987
Constitution of the Republic of the
[15] CONSTITUTION, Article XI, Section 2.
[16] See Bernas, supra, note 14, p. 1113.
[17] Ibid.
[18]
Robert W. Kastenmeier, Report of the
National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal (March 1994), 152
F.R.D. 265, at
<judicial-discipline-reform.org/judicial-complaints/1993-Report-Removal.pdf>,
last visited on
[19] Cynthia Gray, supra note 13, citing In re Lowery, 999 S.W.2d 639, 661 (Special Court of Review Appointed by Texas Supreme Court, 1998).
[20] CONSTITUTION, Article XI, Section 1.
[21] Brent D. Ward, Can the Federal Courts Keep Order in Their Own House? Appellate Supervision through Mandamus and Orders of Judicial Councils, 233 Bringham Young University Law Review 233, 237 and 253 (1980), at <heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=
hein.journals/byulr1980&div=177ID=&page=>, last visited on
[22] Robert W. Kastenmeier, supra note 18.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Michael J. Gerhardt, The Constitutional Limits to Impeachment and Its Alternatives, 68 Texas Law Review 1, 73-74 (November 1989).
[25] Robert W. Kastenmeier, supra note 18.
[26] 264 F.3d 52 (2001).
[27] Cruz v. Iturralde, A.M. RTJ No. 03-1775,
[28] George, Joyce J. “Judicial Opinion Writing Handbook.” 5th edition. William S. Hein & Co., Inc., 2007, page 715, defines plagiarism as “the intentional representation of another person’s words, thoughts or ideas as one’s own without giving attribution.”
[29]AN ACT PRESCRIBING THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CODE AND ESTABLISHING THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICE, PROVIDING FOR ITS POWERS AND FUNCTIONS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
[30]
Stearns, Laurie. “Copy Wrong: Plagiarism, Process, Property and the Law.” Perspectives
on Plagiarism and Intellectual Property in a Postmodern World. Ed. Lise
Buranen and Alice M. Roy.
[31] Dissenting Opinion of Justice Sereno in the Plagiarism decision.
[32]
Icasiano v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. No.
95642,
[33]
See: Rule 4, Internal Rules of the Supreme Court, in relation with Section 4,
Rule 6 on Docket Number and Entry in Logbook.
Administrative cases are not listed as G.R. (General Register) cases as
they are not acted upon in the exercise of the Court’s judicial function.