CHAPTER 1

AN INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL RESEARCH

Legal research is the process of identifying and retrieving the law-related
information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal
research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the
facts of a problem and concludes with the application and communication of the
results of the investigation. Many types of information are needed to support legal
decision-making. Although this book focuses on information sources that are
concerned explicitly with law, legal decisions cannot be made out of their economic,
social, historical, and political contexts. Today, legal decisions often involve
business, scientific, medical, psychological, and technological information.
Consequently, the process of legal research often involves investigation in too there
relevant disciplines. This chapter, an introduction to legal research, explains why
researchers seek certain types of information. This chapter explains the basic
jurisprudential model upon which legal resources are designed, created, and
collected, and introduces materials that are covered more comprehensively in
subsequent chapters.
SECTION A. SOURCES OF LAW
Philippine law, like the law of other countries, comes from a variety of sources. In
the context of legal research, the term sources of law can refers to three different
concepts. In one sense, the term sources of law refers to the origins of legal
concepts and ideas. Custom, tradition, principles of morality, and economic,
political, philosophical, and religious thought may manifest themselves in law. Legal
research frequently must extend to these areas, especially when historical or policy
issues are involved. The term sources of law can also refer to the governmental
institutions that formulate legal rules.
The Philippines is a democratic and republican State. Although there are some
variations in their structures, each of these governments has legislative, executive,
and judicial components that interact with one another. Because all three branches
of government make law and create legal information that is the subject of legal
research, researchers must understand the types of information created by each
branch and the processes through which that information is created. Finally, sources
of law can refer to the published manifestations of the law. The books, electronic
databases, microforms, optical disks (CD-ROMs and DVDs), and other media that
contain legal information are all sources of law.
1. The Nature of Legal Authority
Legal authority is any published source of law setting forth legal rules, legal
doctrine, or legal reasoning that can be used as basis for legal decisions. In
discussions about legal research, the term authority is used to refer both types of
legal information and to the degree of persuasiveness of legal information. When
the term is used to describe types of information, legal authority can be categorized
as primary or secondary. Primary authorities are authorized statements of the law

formulated by governmental institutions. Such authorities include the written

opinions of courts (case law), constitutions, legislations, rules of court, and the
rules, regulations, and opinions of administrative agencies. Secondary authorities
are statements 1 Art. II, Sec. 1 of the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the
Philippines. About the law and are used to explain, interpret, develop, locate or
update primary authorities. Treaties, articles in law reviews and other scholarly
journals, Supreme Court Reports Annotated (SCRA), restatements of the law, and
loose leaf services are examples of secondary authorities. When the term is used to
describe the degree of persuasiveness of legal information, authority is an
estimation of the power of information to influence a legal decision. In this sense,
authority can be termed binding (also called mandatory) meaning that a court or
other decision-maker can, if so persuaded, follow it. Only primary authority can be
binding; but some primary authority will be merely persuasive, depending on the
source of the authority and its content. Secondary authority can never be binding,
but can be persuasive. The application of legal authority to individual problems is a
complex and often controversial process. Variations in the facts of individual cases
enable judges, influenced by their own philosophies and perspectives, to exercise
wide discretion in interpreting and applying legal authority.
2.The Common Law Tradition
The Philippine legal system is a combination of continental civil law and the AngloAmerican common law system. The Philippines gained autonomous status from the
United States in 1935 when the first Philippine Constitution was implemented. The
present constitution originates from 1987 and is similar to the US constitution. The
Philippine justice system is comprised of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals,
the regional trial courts, the Court of Tax appeals and the metropolitan and
municipal trial courts. The common law is the body of law that originated and
developed in England and spread to those countries that England settled or
controlled. Historically, the common law was considered to be the unwritten law
and was
2
Taken from

http:// www.remburssi.org/projects/philippines/legal.htm (last visited on July 21,

2011)