Supreme Court magistrates on Tuesday turned down a proposal to transfer the regulation of law schools from the Legal Education Board to the SC by groups questioning the LEB’s policy that centralized the entrance examinations in law schools.
During oral arguments, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Marvic Leonen shared the view that the proposal by retired Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Oscar Pimentel and a group of law students to transfer admission in law schools under the supervision of the high court would violate academic freedom under Section 5, Article 14 of the 1987 Constitution.
Carpio grilled petitioners on their argument that the SC is mandated by the Constitution to regulate admission to the legal profession, which supposedly includes admission to law schools.
However, Carpio differentiated admission to legal profession from admission to legal education.
According to the senior magistrate, the High Court is not required by law to regulate law schools because this would mean that the Court has been derelict of such duty since the first Constitution in 1935.