Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Disbarment is the appropriate penalty for conviction by final judgment for a crime involving moral turpitude

See - 7973.pdf





"x x x.

Section 27, Rule 138 of the Rules of Court states that a member of the bar may be disbarred or suspended as attorney by this Court by reason of his conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude. This Court has ruled that disbarment is the appropriate penalty for conviction by final judgment for a
crime involving moral turpitude.4

Moral turpitude is an act of baseness, vileness, or depravity in the private duties which a man owes to his fellow men or to society in general, contrary to justice, honesty, modesty, or good morals.5

The question of whether conviction for homicide involves moral turpitude was discussed by this Court in International Rice Research Institute v. NLRC6 where it ruled:

This is not to say that all convictions of the crime of homicide do not involve moral turpitude. Homicide may or may not involve moral turpitude depending on the degree of the crime. Moral turpitude is not involved in every criminal act and is not shown by every known and intentional violation of statute, but whether any particular conviction involves moral turpitude may be a question of fact and frequently depends on all the surrounding circumstances.

While x x x generally but not always, crimes mala in se involve moral turpitude, while crimes mala
prohibita do not, it cannot always be ascertained whether moral turpitude does or does not exist by classifying a crime as malum in se or as malum  prohibitum, since there are crimes which are mala in se and yet rarely involve moral turpitude and there are crimes which involve moral turpitude and are mala prohibita only. It follows therefore, that moral turpitude is somewhat a vague and indefinite term, the meaning of which must be left to the process of judicial inclusion or exclusion as the cases
are reached.7

x x x."