S1L24 – Why Lawyers love to say things in Latin, Juan Dimacaawat hits on Miss Deema Niwala
Law is general education. That’s why there is really no such thing as the most ideal pre-law preparation. My students come from diverse under-grad backgrounds. I have yet to see one of them enjoy any real advantage over another.
Maybe one of them—Kata, a girl from Pampanga—with an A.B. English major enjoys a little bit of an edge. With her command of the language, she can nuance her expression so precisely I enjoy reading her when I check their test booklets. Once I asked them to explain “nolo contendere” which is a pleading in English (as in Anglo-Saxon) criminal law tradition. It’s when the accused refuses to say whether he is ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty.’ He leaves it to the prosecution to prove its case, he will neither admit nor deny the charge.
In the Philippines, we don’t have a neutral plea like “nolo contendere” (in English: no contest). If an accused “sits on the fence” we enter his plea as “NOT GUILTY.” But if we had “nolo contendere” what would that mean in practical terms, I asked.
Only Kata—whose surname is Ngahan (I think her father was one of those Vietnamese refugees we admitted to this country around 1975 when Saigon fell)—gave an answer that impressed me. She said nolo contendere is like saying, “I didn’t do it, Judge, but I won’t do it AGAIN!”
On the other hand, when it comes to describing a mortal wound that caused the death of a homicide victim, another student—Cabo from Dagupan City, Pangasinan with his pre-med background—makes his classmates eat his dust. This boy, whose surname is Buhan (another Vietnamese refugee? I’m not sure) writes, “with massive loss of blood, hypo-volemic shock overcame the victim so fast he was dead even before his life ended.”
Deema is another student whose answering style is very compelling, she can be persuasive even when she’s wrong. This girl from Tublay, Benguet who is a dead-ringer for Winona Ryder, is the reason Juan Dimacaawat and Jack Makataruz are NEVER absent in my class. When I asked them to describe how difficult it would be to prove the guilt of an innocent man, she wrote, “it’s as fruitless of a hope as a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there.” Amazing girl.
Juan Dimacaawat, Jack Makataruz, Deema Niwala, Kata Ngahan and Cabo Buhan—these are all REAL law students even though I fictionalized their names here—they warm your heart, if you’re a law professor reading their test booklets. They make you feel hopeful that we have a lot of future Supreme Court justices who might still be wobbly and ungainly awkward law students right now—but give them time.
These are the heirs apparent of such illustrious ponentes (“decision pens”) as Justice Isagani Cruz who once wrote a decision absolving a college professor of immorality after marrying one of his students. True, the professor was 15 years older than her, but both were single, unmarried consenting adults and there was no school policy against it. Justice Cruz couldn’t see what this certain Catholic university saw “immoral” about THAT. It just proves the universality of love and how, in the words of the Justice, “the heart has reasons of its own, which reason does not understand.” Wow.
More often than not, however, I find that my students who exhibit plain common sense and street savvy—maybe a dash of wry humor—are the ones who really excel the most, regardless of their undergrad roots. One of them is coming off an engineering background:
“Mr. Juan Dimacaawat, stand up…”
“Yes sir!” the guy sprung to his feet.
“Nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege—translate that for your classmates and explain.”
“Sir, it’s a Latin legal maxim, meaning there is no crime if there is no law penalizing the act.”
“Why do we like saying these Latin maxims, Mr. Dimacaawat?”
“Sir because it’s very handy, I can impress Miss Deema Niwala when I am dumbstruck by her beauty and when I can’t find the words to say, I can just throw in one of these Latin maxims to fill the awkward void!” the whole class exploded in boisterous laughter. Deema was blushing redder than an overripe apple. Again, I had to bang the blackboard to bring back order.
“Nice try, Mr. Dimacaawat, but I’d rather hear an academic answer,” I growled.
“Yes, sir. Death brings permanence, death precludes change. Nothing can evolve anymore after death. The principles of law must also be permanent and unchanging to achieve stability of justice. That’s why we say these principles in Latin…”
“Kaya nga tinatanong ko. Why, Mr Dimacaawat? Because…?”
“Because Latin is a dead language, sir. Anything you say in Latin will never change in meaning anymore.”
I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t find the words to say. To fill the awkward void, I just said, “Quaia Nunc Vale…”
I heard Deema whisper to Juan, “sabi ni Sir, ‘goodbye for now!”
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”