FACTS:
The Commission on Bar Integration submitted
its Report with the earnest recommendation that "this
Honorable Court ordain the integration of the Philippine Bar as soon as
possible through the adoption and promulgation of an appropriate Court
Rule." The petition in Adm. Case No. 526 formally prays the Court
to order the integration of the Philippine Bar, after due hearing, giving
recognition as far as possible and practicable to existing provincial and other
local Bar associations. Arguments in favor of as well as in opposition to the
petition were orally expounded before the Court. The Court has closely observed
and followed significant developments relative to the matter of the integration
of the Bar.
ISSUES:
(1) Whether or not the Court have the power to integrate the
Philippine Bar.
(2)
Whether or not the integration of the Bar be constitution.
(3) Whether or not
the Court ordain the integration of the Bar at this time.
HELD:
(1) YES. The
Court may integrate the Philippine Bar in the exercise of its power, under
Article VIII, Sec. 13 of the Constitution, "to promulgate rules concerning
pleading, practice, and procedure in all courts, and the admission to the
practice of law." Indeed, the power to integrate is an inherent part of
the Court's constitutional authority over the Bar. In providing that "the
Supreme Court may adopt rules of court to effect the integration of the
Philippine Bar," Republic Act 6397 neither confers a new power nor
restricts the Court's inherent power, but is a mere legislative declaration
that the integration of the Bar will promote public interest or, more
specifically, will "raise the standards of the legal profession, improve
the administration of justice, and enable the Bar to discharge its public
responsibility more effectively.
(2)
YES. The Court quotes discussion made by the Commission on Bar Integration. To
compel a lawyer to be a member of an integrated Bar is not violative of his
constitutional freedom to associate (or the corollary right not to associate).
For the Court to prescribe dues to be paid by the members does not mean that
the Court levies a tax. A membership fee in the Integrated Bar is an exaction
for regulation, while the purpose of a tax is revenue. A lawyer is free, as he
has always been, to voice his views on any subject in any manner he wishes,
even though such views be opposed to positions taken by the Unified Bar. Bar
integration is not unfair to lawyers already practising because although the
requirement to pay annual dues is a new regulation, it will give the members of
the Bar a new system which they hitherto have not had and through which, by proper
work, they will receive benefits they have not heretofore enjoyed, and
discharge their public responsibilities in a more effective manner than they
have been able to do in the past.
(3) YES. In
the event of integration, Government authority will dominate the Bar; local Bar
associations will be weakened; cliquism will be the inevitable result;
effective lobbying will not be possible; the Bar will become an impersonal Bar;
and politics will intrude into its affairs. The national poll conducted by the Commission
in the matter of the integration of the Philippine Bar shows that 96.45% voted
in favor of Bar integration, while only 2.51% against it. The Court is fully
convinced, after a thoroughgoing conscientious study of all the arguments
adduced in Adm. Case No. 526 and the authoritative materials and the mass of
factual data contained in the exhaustive Report of the Commission on Bar
Integration, that the integration of the Philippine Bar is "perfectly
constitutional and legally unobjectionable," within the context of
contemporary conditions in the Philippines, has become an imperative means to
raise the standards of the legal profession, improve the administration of
justice, and enable the Bar to discharge its public responsibility fully and
effectively.
ACCORDINGLY, the Court, by virtue of the power vested in it
by Section 13 of Article VIII of the Constitution, hereby ordains the
integration of the Bar of the Philippines in accordance with the attached COURT
RULE, effective on January 16, 1973.
