Feb. 5, 2018
FACTS
Respondent Atty. Vitto Kintanar’s wife filed a civil case against complainant Roberto Mabini.
Attached to the said complaint in the civil case was an Affidavit of Lost Owner’s Duplicate Copy of Title executed by his wife.
Atty. Kintanar notarized his wife’s affidavit in 2002.
Mabini thereafter filed an administrative case against Atty. Kintanar for notarizing his wife’s affidavit.
Mabini alleged that Atty. Kintanar knew that he (Atty. Kintanar) was not authorized to notarize a document of his wife, or any of his relative within the fourth civil degree, whether by affinity or consanguinity.
For having done so, Atty. Kintanar committed misconduct as a Notary Public.
Atty. Kintanar countered that the subject Affidavit executed by his wife was notarized in 2002; as such, it was governed by the Revised Administrative Code of 1917, which did not prohibit a Notary Public from notarizing a document executed by one’s spouse.
ISSUE
Whether or not Atty. Kintanar committed misconduct by notarizing his wife’s affidavit of loss.
RULING
NO, Atty. Kintanar did NOT commit misconduct by notarizing his wife’s affidavit of loss in 2002.
A lawyer cannot be held liable for a violation of his duties as Notary Public when the law in effect at the time of his complained act does not provide any prohibition to the same.
The 1917 Revised Administrative Code repealed the Spanish Notarial Law. In turn, the provisions anent notarial practice embodied in the Revised Administrative Code were superseded by the passage of the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice. This only means that any prohibition enumerated in the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice does not cover the acts made by a Notary Public earlier, including those executed in 2002.
DISPOSITIVE PORTION
WHEREFORE, the Complaint against Atty. Vitto A. Kintanar is DISMISSED for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED.
Full text of this decision.
