Benchmark Digest

Digest of Supreme Court’s

Benchmark  2006 Libertas et Iusticia

LIBERTAS ET IUSTICIA

| DIGEST OF SUPREME COURT’S BENCHMARK 2006

April 2006 Disrespectful Lawyers-Spouses Suspended By Genevieve B. Zuñiga

THE SUPREME COURT RECENTLY suspended a married lawyer-couple for using “very disrespectful, insulting, and humiliating” language against a  judge. Attys. Ellis and Olivia Jacoba were suspended for two years and two months, respectively, for using the words and phrases, “abhorrent nullity,” “legal monstrosity,” “horrendous mistake,” “horrible error,” “boner,” and “an insult to the judiciary and an anachronism in the judicial ju dicial process” in their Motion for Reconsideration of the Resolution issued by Judge Ubaldino Lacurom of the Cabanatuan City Municipal Trial Court, Branch 30. In a decision penned by Justice Antonio T. Carpio, the Court said that “even the most hardened judge would be scarred by the scurrilous attack made by the 30 July 2001 motion on Judge Lacurom’s Resolution... Though a lawyer’s language may be forceful and emphatic, it should always be dignified and respectful, befitting the dignity of the legal profession,” it added. The Jacoba spouses have been previously punished for violation of the Code of Professional Responsibility. Ellis was suspended twice – one for six months and another for one year – for his failure to file the required pleadings, while Olivia was fined for appearing in barangay conciliation proceedings on behalf of a party despite the prohibition in the Local Government Code. (  AC No. 5921, Judge Ubaldino A. Lacurom, Presiding Judge, Regional Trial Court, Cabanatuan City, Branch 29 and Pairing Judge, Branch 30 vs. Atty. Ellis F. Jacoba and Atty. Olivia Velasco-Jacoba, March 10, 2006)

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