Thursday, August 12, 2004 Legal fee hike too much: IBP By Grecar A. Nilles Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THE Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu City chapter wants the Supreme Court to review and reconsider the imposition of new and increased legal fees.
The local IBP chapter passed the resolution following numerous complaints from lawyers, litigants and concerned citizens regarding the increase in legal fees.
Drastically increasing the fees, the lawyers said, will affect the rights of would-be litigants and practicing lawyers whose clients are not big corporations but individuals who belong to the low and middle-income class.
Contrary
The move is also contrary to Article 3, Section 11 of the Constitution, which stipulates that “free access to the court and quasi-judicial bodies and adequate legal assistance shall not be denied to any person by reason of poverty.”
While the lawyers admit the SC has the inherent power to increase the legal fees, the lawyers believe increasing the fees now is “not in harmony with the prevailing critical economic and social conditions.”
The lawyers’ group cited the increase in the fees one has to pay for a civil wedding.
Anti-poor?
Before, couples need to pay only P200. The amount was recently increased to P2,000.
“This greatly discouraged poor spouses from legalizing their union due to exorbitant fees,” the resolution read.
In another resolution, the IBP Cebu City chapter condemned the unsolved murders of judges and journalists in the country.
The attacks, they said, “also constitute an assault on press freedom. The killing of judges is also an assault on the judiciary and endangers the rule of the law which is the cornerstone of a republican system of government.”
IBP Cebu City chapter president Democrito Barcenas said the failure of the government to afford protection to the judges and journalists has created “a climate of fear, which is not conducive to the untrammeled exercise of the freedom of expression and to the orderly administration of justice.”
Commended
Also, the IBP Cebu City chapter commended lawyer Gloria Lastimosa-Dalawam-pu for her “invaluable performance” in the reversal of Cedrick Devinadera’s conviction.
The commendation, which was the third resolution passed by the lawyers, cited Dalawampu’s instrumental role in the reversal of the ruling.
Devinadera, who claimed to have helped kill Alona Bacolod-Ecleo last Jan. 5, 2002, was convicted of homicide by Regional Trial Court Judge Ildefonso Suerte.
But Judge Leopoldo Cañete, who took over Suerte’s cases, reversed the latter’s decision convicting Devinadera.
When the lawyers’ group learned about Devinadera’s conviction, the IBP Cebu City chapter, through Dalawampu, filed a motion for intervention and attended the proceedings of the case, until the ruling was reversed.
Devinadera’s conviction would have made a huge impact in the parricide case against Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association head Ruben Ecleo Jr., who is accused of killing his own wife, Alona.
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