Remedial Law and Legal and Judicial Ethics, with Practical Exercises, is the afternoon of 12 September 2027: 25% of the weighted general average, the last sitting of the examination, on the day when everyone is tired. It is the largest single weight in the paper and the subject most often under-prepared relative to it, because procedure feels less like law than doctrine does.
This article is the map, and the argument for starting it first.
The blocks
| Block | What it contains |
|---|---|
| I. General principles | Concept and nature of remedial law; the Court's rule-making power; construction of procedural rules; applicability to pending actions; suppletory application in administrative bodies; classification of courts; hierarchy of courts; the doctrine of judicial stability |
| II. Jurisdiction | Concept; subject matter jurisdiction; acquired jurisdiction; the jurisdiction of Philippine courts; barangay conciliation |
| III. Civil procedure | Classification of actions; cause of action; parties; venue; pleadings; summons; the pre-trial; judgments; post-judgment remedies; execution |
| IV. Provisional remedies | Attachment; preliminary injunction; receivership; replevin; support pendente lite; provisional deposit |
| V. Special civil actions | Certiorari, prohibition, mandamus, quo warranto, expropriation, foreclosure, partition, interpleader, contempt — as the coverage lists them |
| VI–VIII. Criminal procedure, evidence, and the rest | The remaining movements: criminal procedure from the complaint through appeal, evidence, and the procedural incidents the coverage names |
| Legal and judicial ethics | The Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability; the Notarial Rules; judicial conduct; the discipline of lawyers and judges |
Plus the practical exercises that give the sitting its name — see the practical exercises sitting.
Why procedure is a different kind of subject
Three differences that change how you study it.
It is a sequence, not a set of concepts. Civil procedure runs from the filing of the complaint to the execution of judgment, and every rule is positioned in that sequence. Studying it as a list of rules produces a candidate who knows what a motion for reconsideration is but not where it sits.
The consequence is usually procedural. A missing period does not make an answer "less correct"; it makes the remedy unavailable. So the marks are in the conditions — the period, the court, the requirement.
The vocabulary appears in other sittings. Jurisdiction, actions, evidence and remedies recur in Civil, Criminal and Commercial questions. That is why Remedial Law studied well is an investment in four sittings, not one.
The order to study it in
Study it in the order a case moves through it, with two exceptions noted:
- General principles and jurisdiction. The concepts that make everything else locatable — the hierarchy of courts, the difference between subject-matter and acquired jurisdiction, and the rule-making power that legitimises the whole exercise.
- Civil procedure, from the classification of actions through the pre-trial to judgment.
- Post-judgment remedies and execution. Not last, and not optional: they are where the procedural questions concentrate.
- Provisional remedies, studied as a block — they are five separate regimes with the same structure (grounds, requisites, bond, duration).
- Special civil actions, which are applications of the above to named situations.
- Criminal procedure, in its own sequence.
- Evidence, which is a subject of rules rather than of sequence, and which rewards tables.
- Legal and judicial ethics, which is small and should be finished early — the sitting pairs them, and the ethics marks are the cheapest in the paper.
Where the hours go
For 225 hours on the 25% sitting (and Remedial should get the largest share of the year):
| Block | Hours |
|---|---|
| Civil procedure | 70 |
| Jurisdiction and general principles | 25 |
| Evidence | 40 |
| Criminal procedure | 30 |
| Special civil actions and provisional remedies | 25 |
| Legal and judicial ethics | 25 |
| Revision of everything, timed | 10 |
The three techniques that work
1. The procedural sequence, written from memory
For every remedy in the syllabus — a motion for reconsideration, an appeal, a petition for review, a petition for certiorari — write the sequence from memory: the act, the court, the period, the ground, and what follows.
Then check it. The differences you find are the examinable content, and they are exactly the differences that questions test ("may X file this in the Court of Appeals, and when?").
2. The period and court table
A single table per block:
| Remedy | Ground | Court | Period (from what) | Effect of filing |
Fill it by reading the Rules, then rebuild it from memory weekly. Periods are the most precisely markable thing in the paper; a table is the only way to hold twenty of them.
3. The practical answer drill
Because the sitting is examined with practical exercises, practise practical forms:
- "The judgment was received on [date]. What will you file, where, and when?"
- "The complaint was dismissed for [defect]. What is the remedy?"
- "The witness testified to [hearsay]. Is it admissible, and on what ground?"
Each written in twelve minutes, in the sequence: conclusion, rule, application, consequence. This is the same answer shape as everywhere else, applied to procedure — see how a bar answer is scored.
Evidence: the block that rewards tables
Evidence is often studied last and badly, because it feels like a list of rules without a story. It is actually a series of questions with fixed answers:
- Is it relevant? Then, is it competent? The exclusionary rules are the second question.
- Who must prove what? Burden and presumptions.
- Is it the original? The best-evidence rule and its exceptions.
- Does an exclusion apply? Privilege, hearsay (and its exceptions), admissions, character evidence.
Build evidence as a decision tree, then practise it as classifications: ten fact statements, each answered "admissible / not admissible, because". That drill takes twenty minutes and is worth an hour of reading.
The ethics half
Ethics is a quarter of the sitting by provenance and a small subject by volume. Learn the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability as a list of duties with a fact pattern each, plus the Notarial Rules and the rules on disqualification. The answer shape — duty, provision, application, consequence — is described in legal ethics answers.
Finish it in the first quarter of the year. It is the cheapest block in the examination and it is on the heaviest paper.
Why this subject starts the year
Two arguments, both arithmetic:
- The weight. 25% is the largest single share. A weak quarter is not recoverable elsewhere.
- The decay. Procedure decays fastest without use, because it is a set of sequences rather than concepts. A subject learned in March and never revisited in June is gone by September; a subject learned in January and revisited monthly is retained.
The twelve-month plan puts Remedial in the first two months and returns to it five times for exactly this reason.
The error to avoid
Treating Remedial Law as "the rules", to be memorised late and superficially. It is 25% of your result, examined through practical exercises, on the day you will least want to think hard. It should be the best-prepared sitting of the six.