Ateneo Law to stand by plagiarism guidelines despite SC ruling

The dean of the Ateneo School of Law on Tuesday said the institution will abide by its rules on plagiarism even if the Supreme Court recently ruled that one can be excused of passing off someone else's work as one's own if there is "lack of malicious intent." However, Dean Cesar Villanueva clarified that the law school still respects the court's decision to absolve Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo, an alumnus of the law school, who was accused of plagiarizing portions of his ruling on victims of World War II sexual slavery. "The resolution of the Supreme Court on the plagiarism complaint against Justice Del Castillo is already resolved and we live by that," said Villanueva in a phone interview with GMANews.TV. "But as an academic institution, we have maintained our definition of plagiarism. Insofar as the thesis work of our students [is concerned], we abide by our 2010 Rules on Plagiarism where the lack of malicious intent is not a defense," he added. The Ateneo de Manila University's Loyola Schools, the college department of the Jesuit-run university, has earlier said it will also stick to its own Code of Academic Integrity in dealing with plagiarism cases. "The objective act of falsely attributing to one's self what is not one's work, whether intentional or out of neglect, is sufficient to conclude that plagiarism has occurred," the Loyola Schools said last week. "Students who plead ignorance or appeal to lack of malice are not excused," it said. Lack of malicious intent Last October 12, the court ruled that Del Castillo did not commit plagiarism because his researcher, identified by investigative publication Newsbreak as Michelle Juan, inadvertently deleted the footnotes while preparing the decision. Thus, plagiarism was not committed because there was no malicious intent to remove the attribution marks, said the court. The researcher graduated from the same law school and even taught legal research there. The sources from where Del Castillo allegedly borrowed without proper attribution were “A Fiduciary of Theory of Jus Cogens" by Evan Criddle and Evan Fox-Decent, "Breaking the Silence on Rape as an International Crime" by Mark Ellis, and "Enforcing Erga Omnes Obligations in International Law" by Christian Tams. The court said, "Notably, neither Justice Del Castillo nor his researcher had a motive or reason for omitting attribution for lifted passages to Criddle-Decent or to Ellis." 37 UP Law professors The plagiarism controversy broke out in July this year. A month later, 37 University of the Philippines law professors asked for Del Castillo's resignation. On October 20, the court saw this move as "unnecessary, uncalled for, and a rash act of misplaced vigilance." In a resolution, the court ordered the law professors to explain or "show cause" why they should not be sanctioned for such act. The court held that the professors violated provisions of the Code of Professional Responsibility for lawyers, which prohibits the airing of statements that tend to influence public opinion while a case is pending. On Tuesday, Villanueva said the Ateneo Law School's take on the matter was already made public by Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ. "Fr. Bernas' statement was made as our dean emeritus," Villanueva emphasized. Bernas, in his Philippine Daily Inquirer column last November 1, urged the court to withdraw its show-cause order to the UP law professors. (See: Fr. Bernas urges SC to withdraw order to UP Law profs) "For me this is a very unfortunate court order. The Court has been struggling to rebuild its tarnished image before the legal world and now comes out with a blow against freedom of expression," said Bernas, a noted constitutionalist and legal luminary.—JV, GMANews.TV