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Tuesday, March 15, 2005
City claims judge sells rulings
By Karlon N. Rama
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
The Cebu City Government wants the Supreme Court (SC) to dismiss a regional trial court judge who, among other alleged violations, allegedly “sells” his injunction orders to litigants.
According to the complaint prepared by City Hall lawyers Evangeline Abatayo, Jerone Castillo and Bryce Ponce, some of the orders have been used by litigants, particularly transport groups, to thwart the City Government’s efforts for a better traffic system either through the establishment of “legal” transport depots and clearing the sidewalk of “illegal structures.”
The judge, the complaint further said, also handles other civil suits either against or filed by the City Government and, in at least one of these cases, “acted as lawyer for the plaintiff” by calling and cross-examining his own witness.
Inhibition
The City Hall lawyers want the SC to order the judge’s inhibition from all cases involving the city government until the administrative complaint for “repetitive and multiple counts of serious misconduct, gross ignorance of the law, grave incompetence, willful violation of laws, rules and the code of judicial conduct” can be resolved.
Sun.Star Cebu is withholding the name of the judge in the complaint that has been mailed to the High Tribunal in deference to a Supreme Court prohibition against the publication of complaints yet to be evaluated by the Office of the Court administrator.
But a lawyer has stepped up and defended the judge at least on the allegations involving his issuance of restraining orders to transport groups.
Lawyer Gloria Lasti-mosa-Dalawampu, whose client, the Cebu 3rd District V-Hire Operators and Drivers Multi-Purpose Cooperative, is depicted to have been among the judge’s injunction order buyers, called the filing of the administrative complaint “unfair.”
“(The judge) has not committed any act which could be basis for an administrative complaint against him. He has acted in accordance with laws and procedure, which, unfortunately for Cebu City, may not be in its favor.
Orders adverse to Cebu City do not mean that the judge has committed acts of misconduct or irregularities or his orders were for sale,” she said in a written statement.
Tyrannical
She warned against the City Government’s being tyrannical in its dealings.
“It has reached this representation that respondent, though the loud murmurs and unvoiced complaints coming from legal practitioners in the City of Cebu, has been practically selling his court’s issuances for temporary restraining orders and injunctions,” City Hall said.
“While nobody may have come out in the open to prove such incidents to the honorable Supreme Court, this representation finds it obligatory on his part to inform the Honorable Court of said form of anomaly before the public develops outright and compete distrust in our courts,” it added.
Cited, among others, in support of their administrative complaint is the judge’s handling of the land-related case Rogue and Fatima Ting filed against the Cebu City Government over a property within the South Reclamation Project.
They said the judge, despite the absence of any motion from both the defendant and the petitioner, called former Cebu City Hall official Samuel Darza to the witness stand and conducted the “longest direct examination ever done by a judge in the history of the Philippine justice system.”
The judge also allegedly sat on some cases involving the City Government, particularly the case City Hall filed against the Cebu Port Authority for failure to pay its real estate taxes.
(March 15, 2005 issue)
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