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SC strikes down PhilSAT requirement for admission to law schools


The Supreme Court has struck down for being unconstitutional the Legal Education Board's (LEB) requirement for aspiring law students to pass a standardized entrance test before being admitted to law school.

In a September 10 decision made public Tuesday, the court en banc said this admission requirement under LEB Memorandum Order (LEBMO) No. 7-2016 violates the academic freedom of law schools to determine who to admit into their program.

The justices also made permanent the temporary restraining order they released against another LEB issuance which made passing the Philippine Law School Admission Test (PhilSAT) a prerequisite for admission to law schools.

The decision was the court's action on consolidated petitions that argued Republic Act No. 7662, the law that created the LEB, which in turn imposed the PhilSAT requirement, was unconstitutional.

They said only the SC has the power to make rules on the admission to the practice of law, which they claimed includes legal education.

But the court ruled in a 107-page decision that the supervision and regulation of legal education is an executive function. It said it has not promulgated any rule that directly regulates legal education.

The tribunal also held that the LEB has the power to administer an aptitude test in the same way that the government can prescribe the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT), and found that the PhilSAT is "reasonably related" to the state's interest to improve legal education.

The PhilSAT is thus not per se unconstitutional, the SC said.

However, the court saw that the exam contains "exclusionary, restrictive, and qualifying" provisions—including the requirement to pass so one can enter law school—that "usurps the right and duty of the law school to determine for itself the criteria for the admission of students."

Though the PhilSAT claims to be "without prejudice" the right of school to impose "additional requirements," this "token regard for institutional academic freedom comes into play, if at all, only after the applicants had been 'pre-selected' without the school's participation," the SC said through Associate Justice Jose Reyes, Jr.

Under this setup, law schools can only choose from a "state-determined pool of applicants, under pain of administrative sanctions and/or payment of fines," the court observed.

But law schools should have the discretion to determine how much weight PhilSAT results will carry in relation to their own admission policies, the court said. The NMAT score, it noted, is not the sole basis for admission to medical school.

The SC nullified LEBMO No. 7-2016's provisions prescribing the passing of the PhilSAT and its taking within two years before admission to law school, but said the rest of the provisions should remain in effect as they are "free from any taint of unconstitutionality."

The SC also declared as unconstitutional the LEB practice of dictating the qualifications and classification of faculty members, dean, and dean of graduate schools of law for violating institutional academic freedom on who may teach.

LEB provisions on increasing awareness of lawyers of the needs of the underprivileged, on legal apprenticeship, and on continuing legal education were likewise voided for encroaching on the SC's rule-making powers.

But the court said Section 7(c) and 7(e) of RA 7662 are constitutional.

These are the provisions that empower the LEB to set the standards of accreditation for law schools and to prescribe the minimum requirements for admission to legal education and minimum qualifications of faculty members, all without encroaching upon academic freedom. — BM, GMA News

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