COLLEGE OF LAW

MARIANO MARCOS STATE UNIVERSITY

City of Batac Ilocos Norte

LEGAL WRITING: Exercise No 2

REWRITE/CORRRECT THE FOLLOWING BY OBSERVING THE RULES OF

GRAMMAR, ECONOMY OF WORDS, COHERENCE, LOGIC AND CORRECT
LANGUAGE USAGE, WITHOUT OMITTING RELEVANT FACTS.

1. The courts of Spain and the learned commentators on Spanish law have construed these
provisions to mean that such penal laws are to be given a retroactive effect only in so far as
they favor the defendant charged with a crime or a misdemeanor, and that, when a penal law
is enacted repealing a prior law, such repeal does not have the effect of relieving an offender
in whole or in part of penalties already incurred under the old law, unless the new law favors
the defendant by diminishing the penalty or doing away with it altogether, and then only to
the extent to which the new law is favorable to the offender. In other words, that the
enactment of new penal laws, notwithstanding the fact that they contain general repealing
clauses, does not deprive the courts of jurisdiction to try, convict and sentence persons
charged with violations of the old law prior to the date when the repealing law goes into
effect, unless the new law wholly fails to penalize the acts which constituted the offense
defined and penalized in the repealed law. (184 WORDS)

2. The record also discloses that on December 28, 1905, Ramon S. Gavito was appointed
administrator of the Nagtajan Hacienda, by the late Benito Legarda, according to the notarial
instrument Exhibit 8 (record, p. 87), with right to lease parcels of land pertaining to that
hacienda, for such rentals, and on such terms and conditions as he might deem proper, but
with a proviso that all the contracts of lease executed by him should produce no effect
whatever until they had him should produce no effect whatever until they had been approved
by the signature of the lessor Legarda. That the said Gavito continued to act in such capacity
and with that power appears to be proven by the fact that the receipts for rentals paid for the
lands pertaining to the Nagtajan Hacienda were signed by Ramon Gavito, as may be seen by
the receipts 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 (record, pp. 23-32) in which Gavito styles himself
"administrator," and the most recent of them bears the date of May 7, 1914, as corroborated
by Valdez (record, p. 53). However this power and authority granted to Gavito in the
document of December 28, 1905, should be deemed to be revoked by reason of the full and
unlimited power conferred by the said Benito Legarda upon his son Benito Legarda y de la
Paz and his sons-in-law Mauro Prieto y Gorricho and Benito Valdez, by means of the notarial
document of December 20, 1907, which was amplified by another such instrument of
November 12, 1909 (record, pp. 99-107). (219) WORDS).
 RULES:

1. SUBMISSION : In MS Word as an attachment to an email (col@mmsu.edu.ph).

PLEASE EMAIL ONLY ONE ANSWER.
2. FORMAT
a. PAPER: A4
b. FONT: 12 Times New Roman
c. Double space
d. FIRST LINE: your full name, followed by your email address.
e. SECOND LINE, the title: “LW EXER 2 V1”
f. SUCCEEDING LINES: your work product
3. YOUR WORK PRODUCT
a. Use plain English
b. Observe rules of grammar
c. Check spelling.
d. In law school, always remember that when you answer a question, you are
conveying a legal concept (a law, argument, theory, hypothesis or conclusion), so
you must use correct words and phrases. I strongly recommend you consult a
dictionary or a thesaurus, for words/phrases you do not understand.
e. The idea is to understand and comprehend the paragraph and be able to re-write
the same in a coherent, understandable style using plain words, without useless
verbiage.
4. DUE DATE: LW EXER 1 V1 IS DUE ON OR BEFORE 8:OO PM OCT 12, 2016.

IMPORTANT: It is to your best advantage to personally go through the process of reading,

understanding, drafting (re-drafting, as many time as you need to) and finalizing. Submitting a
work product that is not your own or copied from somewhere, will not help you develop or
improve the skills necessary in law school.