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Legal Process As Tool For Business
Sep 21, 2001

 

Business schools in the Philippines would be remiss in their duty of effectively educating our future managers and captains of industry if they do not have a place in their curriculum for a course on the business use of the legal process. For the course’s short title, I suggest "Abusing Legal Process To Further Business Objectives". The idea is to introduce students to a growing list of legal suits that are commonly resorted to by some businessmen to advance or protect their economic interests, often in disregard of what is right and just. Here’s a brief course description.

The first part of the course will deal with a hop, skip and jump through the criminal and civil judicial system. The students will learn about the dynamics in a police station (Assignment: count how many are at work as distinguished from how many are actually working), the process of preliminary investigation in the fiscal’s office (Assignment: list down the names of male fiscals who conduct investigations in their T-shirts and female fiscals who wear slippers), and the conduct of trial by judges (Assignment: what is the daily average time spent by a judge in actually hearing cases?). This part should end with a paper on whether the student agrees or disagrees with the proposition that, based on his or her observation, our legal system is the best that money can buy.

Having been provided with the milieu of the legal system, the student will then be introduced to the various ways of calling on the system to aid in the pursuit of one’s business objectives or in defense of one’s business interest.

The temporary restraining order (TRO) and the preliminary injunction will be the first items to be taken up. These are remedies available from a court to ensure that the rights of the parties are preserved during the period of litigation. Case Study No. 1 should be the court order involving Cosmos Bottling Corporation. A paper should be submitted by the students on the subject, "Time Value of Delay".

From civil cases, the student should be shown how to harness the criminal justice system for his ends, particularly on how to harass, if not paralyze government officials by filing cases with the Ombudsman. This is a tool which combines the ease of instituting (a "concerned citizen" can file a complaint anonymously) with particularly harsh consequences, such as suspension of the person charged, and, if he is due for retirement, a hold on his retirement benefits. Research Paper: How Doing Nothing For Government Officials Is More Blessed Than Doing Something.

A similar examination will be made on how the accusation of conspiracy can lead to the indictment of officials, government or private, who have no participation in the crime or wrong complained of beyond their being the head of office. Assignment: Write an essay on victimizing the commanding officer.

Finally, the students will be shown into the halls of the Legislature to observe how congressional and senate investigations "in aid of legislation" are conducted by the honorables. Students would be forced to stretch their imaginations to fathom what "legislation" was being considered during the hearings on Corpus accusations against Lacson. Those inclined to delve into history will be given the alternative assignment of finding out what "legislation" came out of the Amari investigations. The reflection paper for this segment is to be entitled "Aid: How much? For what?"

An oral final exam will cap the course. The student will be asked to answer the question, "Are lawyers and businessmen one another’s hell?" And the final grade of the student will be a measure of how much he can stand the heat.

To supplement the case method, practitioners of legal process abuse will be invited to share with the class the proper way to complain against the corruption and delay in the judicial system without, however, renouncing the benefits of such corruption and delay.

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