CASE DIGEST: IN THE MATTER OF IBP MEMBERSHIP DUES DELINQUENCY OF ATTY. MARCIAL A. EDILLON. A.C. No. 1928. December 19, 1980

 FACTS:

Respondent was disbarred due to his stubborn refusal to pay his membership dues to the IBP. He argued that such rule in the payment of membership dues constitutes invasion of his constitutional rights in the sense that he is being compelled as a pre-condition to maintaining his status as a lawyer in good standing, to be a member of the IBP and to pay the corresponding dues, and that as a consequence of that compelled financial support of the organization, he was deprived of his constitutional right to liberty and property.

ISSUE:

Whether the payment of membership to the IBP violates constitutional right to liberty and property.

RULING:

No. The court relate the same issue with the settled case of Ozaeta et al. and reiterated again that the integration of the Philippine Bar raises no constitutional question and is therefore legally unobjectable and within the context of contemporary conditions in the Philippine, has become an imperative means to raise the standards of the legal profession, improve the administration of justice, and enable the bar to discharge its public responsiblity fully and effectively.

However, the court at the end of its ruling held to reinstate Edillon. The court felt based on other communications filed by Edillion within two years of his disbarment that circumstances of a mitigating character was invoked. The Court also ascertained that there was full acceptance on his part of the competence of the Tribunal in the exercise of its plenary power to regulate the legal profession and can integrate the bar and that the dues were duly paid.