Contempt of court, March 26, 1995...BY JUSTICE ISAGANI CRUZ (REFERENCE ONLY)

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, JUDICIARY, SUB JUDICE RULE, SUPREME COURT

Contempt of court, March 26, 1995

In 1995 on October 24, 2015 at 12:48 am

WHAT is contempt of court? Every so often we read of a person being punished for contempt of court and ordered to pay a fine or suffer imprisonment or both. What is this offense and why is it called contempt of court?

There are two kinds of contempt of court: direct and indirect. Direct contempt is misbehavior in the presence of or near a judge or court that interrupts or obstructs the proceedings before it, such as disrespect towards the court of offensive conduct toward others. Indirect contempt is not committed in the presence of or near a judge or court and includes disobedience to a lawful order of the court and “any improper conduct tending directly or indirectly to impede, obstruct or degrade the administration of justice.”

Such acts are called contempt of court because they evince a lack of the deference toward the court that is expected from the public in the interest of the proper administration of justice. By committing any of these acts, the person manifests his disdain for or contempt of the court or judge.

It is easy to understand the reason for punishing direct contempt of court since it is committed before or near a judge and constitutes disrespect for him or disturbs the proceedings he is conducting. That is why the judgment is summary and is unappealable except when rendered by a municipal court.

It is in the case of indirect contempt that more care is taken before the respondent is declared guilty and punished. A hearing is necessary and the judgment is appealable. This is especially necessary where the charge is that the improper conduct tends “directly or indirectly to impede, obstruct or degrade the administration of justice.”

Some cases are easily remembered. Ramon Tulfo was fined by the Supreme Court for calling its members “isang katutak na bobo” in connection with the checkpoints case. Anders Hultman was similarly punished for “throwing all my rotten eggs at the Supreme Court” because of the alleged delay in the Teehankee case. More recently, Judge Harriet Demetriou imposed a P1,000 fine on Acting Justice Secretary Demetrio Demetria for predicting the conviction of Mayor Sanchez.

In all these cases, the respondents were found to be disrespectful toward the court in a manner that tended to “degrade the administration of justice.”

I can understand punishing indirect contempt when it consists of, say, disobedience to a court decision or order as this is a clear defiance of lawful processes. I have second thoughts, though, about considering as indirect contempt criticisms tending to degrade the administration of justice.

The rule on criticism of official conduct was laid down by Justice Malcolm in United States v. Bustos:

“Complete liberty to comment on the conduct of public men is a scalpel in the case of free speech. The sharp incision of its probe relieves the abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may suffer under a hostile and an unjust accusation; the wound may be assuaged by the balm of a clear conscience. A public official must not be too thin-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts.”

This rule has even been extended to cover the private lives of public men, on the ground that the people have a right to expect and demand from them propriety in even their private acts. By judicial dictum, however, the judiciary has been insulated and shielded from public comment by an exception to that rule. The exception would warn the public to be more careful, and more deferential, when commenting on judicial conduct.

This doctrine was laid down in People v. Alarcon, when a columnist was punished for reprinting a letter complaining against the unjust decision of a trial court in a tenancy case. In the course of its decision, the Court said:

“Newspaper publications tending to impede, obstruct, embarrass, or influence the courts in administering justice in a pending suit or proceeding constitutes criminal contempt which is summarily punishable by the courts. The rule is otherwise after the cause is ended. “

But even if these is no pending case, a person may still be guilty of contempt of court, as Justice Moran emphasized in his dissent, for disrespectful language or conduct toward the court. Hence, one may be punished by the court for (1) publicly commenting on a pending case or one that is sub judice, and (2) commenting disrespectfully on judicial conduct even if there is no pending case.

I have reservations about this doctrine.

On the first ground, I do not see why public comment on a pending case will obstruct or impede the administration of justice. By punishing the indiscreet critic, the judge is impliedly admitting that he may be influenced by the irrelevant remarks although he is supposed to be removed from popular passions or persuasions and to decide only according to his own lights. In the case of Demetria, for example, I am sure his remarks could not have affected the decision in the Sanchez case but he was punished just the same.

On the second ground, I do not see why judges, as public officials, should be handled with kid gloves when their colleagues in the public service, including the president of the Philippines himself and the members of the Congress, can be criticized with impunity and without liability. The reason for the special rule is the need to preserve the people’s faith in the judiciary. But don’t we also have to preserve the people’s faith in the president of the Philippine and Congress? Is it not necessary to preserve the people’s faith not only in the Supreme Court and the other courts, but in the whole Republic?

I also notice that an act is punishable if it “tends” to directly or indirectly impede, obstruct, or degrade the administration of justice. Under the rule now observed by the Supreme Court, an act may be punished only if it results in clear and present danger to society and not if it only tends toward that evil. The dangerous tendency rule as a test of free speech was abandoned by the Supreme Court in 1947.

Cleansing our courts, September 8, 2002 BY JUSTICE ISAGANI A. CRUZ (REFERENCE ONLY)

GRAFT AND CORRUPTION, JUDICIAL AND BAR COUNCIL, JUDICIARY, SUPREME COURT Cleansing our courts, September 8, 2002 In 2002 on July 11, 2014 at 7:07 pm I TAKE this opportunity to reiterate my congratulations to Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide Jr. for the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service that he received recently. Like most of our people, I believe that, more than any of our incumbent public officials, it is the Chief Justice who deserves the distinct honor conferred on him on the basis of his outstanding record, principally as head of the judiciary. I would also like to comment, if I may, on the speech he delivered at the award ceremonies where he dissented from the remarks made less than tactfully by a foreign diplomat. That was US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, who spoke publicly of rampant corruption in our judiciary as a deterrent to foreign investment. My recollection of the rules of diplomatic courtesy is that a foreign ambassador should not involve himself in the internal affairs of the host country and desist from publicly criticizing its government. Any adverse comment on the receiving State should be made privately through official channels lest it be used as political ammunition by the opposition parties. Ricciardone, assuming his good faith, should have addressed his misgivings to our foreign secretary for transmittal to the Chief Justice. In publicly castigating the Philippine judiciary, he sounded as if we were still an American colony being scolded by Governor General Leonard Wood. That said, let me now go to Davide’s speech where he denied that our judiciary was a den of thieves as charged by the the outspoken envoy. The Chief Justice did not claim, as indeed he could not, that our courts were completely honest. On the contrary, he admitted, there were “bad eggs” among our judges (and he might have added justices as well) but they did not outnumber their honest colleagues. Davide stressed that of the 25,000 officials and administrative personnel in the judiciary, only 600 have been disciplined during the past three years of his incumbency as Chief Justice. Three hundred fifty-two of them were magistrates, who were sentenced to the corresponding penalties, including removal. The number of punished offenders, he said, certainly would not justify condemnation of the entire judiciary as a den of thieves. With all due respect to the Chief Justice, I believe that his explanation is far from realistic. He should know, more than any one else, that the numbers he cited do not show the whole picture of the corruption in the judiciary. That venality is more widespread than he imagines and is closer to the truth of Ricciardone’s remarks. Davide’s conjecture that most of the complainants against judicial misconduct are “disgruntled litigants” may be accepted but not completely. Some of them may be disgruntled precisely because of the respondent’s improbity or incompetence; many others dare not complain while their cases are pending, and it is only when they lose that they become disgruntled. And there are also those who may not be litigants at all, much less disgruntled, but are concerned and earnest complainants looking for justice. The Supreme Court has dismissed many administrative cases for the usual excuse of “lack of evidence” but it misappreciates its role as an administrative body and not as a court of justice. As a tribunal, it can act only when its jurisdiction is invoked, but as an administrator, it does not simply await but must initiate action. This means that it should itself seek and produce the needed evidence to enforce judicial discipline if it is to truly discharge its constitutional duty to administer the judiciary. Chief Justice Davide and some of his colleagues on the Supreme Court and other judicial tribunals enjoy the esteem and confidence of the people, but they constitute only an admirable minority. I must inform him, if he naively does not know it yet, that many of our judges, from the lowest to the highest levels, are regarded with suspicion and contempt by the disappointed and hostile public. This attitude is fanned by rumors that, true or not, have seriously impaired the people’s former faith in our courts of justice. I have to regretfully inform him that the Supreme Court is no longer considered the formidable and irreproachable bulwark of justice. I say “former” because the judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, used to be the most respected branch of the government. The justices of the High Tribunal embodied the ideal of the fair and fearless magistrate who could, like Lord Coke of England, defy his monarch’s command with the ringing words: “I will do what becomes me as a judge.” That precious standard established by the Arellano Court was jealously maintained through the years until it was shamelessly rejected during the Marcos dictatorship. Sadly, that lost value has yet to be fully restored today. In my humble view, this can be done through a more careful selection of the nominees of the Judicial and Bar Council, a stricter supervision of the courts by the Court Administrator, and a more assertive leadership of the Supreme Court in weeding out its misfits. Chief Justice Davide, my friend, if you would act more aggressively on cleansing our courts of corruption, ineptitude and indolence, you will have performed the noblest achievement of your outstanding career and earned the highest accolade from our grateful nation.