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Friday, August 25, 2006
SC sets contempt on complainants who sued Justice Yap
The High Tribunal has cleared a Court of Appeals (CA) justice earlier charged with grave abuse of discretion over the issuance of a restraining order.
Ruling en banc, the Supreme Court instead found it “necessary to call the attention of herein complainants to show cause why they should not be held in contempt of court for filing this baseless and unfounded administrative complaint.”
Isidro Mirasol, Danilo Javier, Allan Villanueva and Ernie Araola, all barangay councilors of Sto. Rosario, Binalbagan, Negros Occidental, had filed the charge against Justice Vicente Yap of the 20th CA Division based in Cebu City.
Yap retired last Tuesday.
The CA’s issuance of restraining orders has long been the subject of criticism, with less-than-noble motives being ascribed to the issuing authority.
The appellate court has denied the allegation.
Urgency
Restraining orders are released only “if the petitioner shows that he is entitled to the relief prayed for,” explained lawyer Stephen Ygnacio of the CA, in an interview yesterday.
“There must be extreme urgency. It is issued to maintain the status quo pending the determination of the merits of the case,” he told Sun.Star Cebu.
In a letter-complaint dated last Feb. 6, the councilors accused Yap of committing grave abuse of discretion for issuing a temporary restraining order against a local government order unseating their barangay captain, Rolson D. Rodriguez.
The same complainants had filed charges against Rodriguez before the anti-graft office. The ombudsman, in an order dated March 14, 2005, ruled to dismiss him from service.
The ombudsman decision led the Office of the Municipal Mayor of Binalbagan to issue an order, dated May 6, 2005, directing Rodriguez to turn over his office and position to Mirasol, the number one councilor.
But Rodriguez, intending to hold on to his post, filed a suit for prohibitory injunction before the Regional Trial Court of Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental on May 10 last year.
Motion
The case resulted in the issuance of a court order temporarily barring the implementation of the ombudsman’s decision.
Mirasol filed a motion to intervene in the suit and, when the restraining order’s validity lapsed, assumed Rodriguez’s post.
But on June 4 last year, Rodriguez filed an urgent motion for the issuance of a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction before Yap’s division in the CA.
Yap, in turn, granted it.
Harassment
Mirasol, as a result, got unseated last June 20, 2005, less than a month after he assumed the post, and filed an administrative complaint against Yap, even as a petition for review against the restraining order was pending.
Yap denied the charges when ordered to submit his answer by the Office of the Court Administrator, and called them “baseless, unfounded, malicious and unwarranted.”
The High Court agreed with the initial findings of the Office of the Court Administrator that the letter-complaint “is a clear manifestation of harassment against respondent justice.”
“The court does not shirk from its responsibility to impose discipline upon employees of the judiciary, but at the same time, it will not hesitate to shield the same employees from unfounded suits that only serve to disrupt, rather than promote, the orderly administration of justice,” it said. (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 25, 2006 issue)
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