Tuesday, August 21, 2007 RTC judge answers plaint of bias and grave abuse RTC judge answers plaint of bias and grave abuse
A COMPLAINANT has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to investigate a Cebu City Regional Trial Court judge for allegedly abusing her powers of contempt and for showing “serious bias” in a pending criminal case.
Elizabeth Gotianuy, in the complaint, hopes the High Court will dismiss Judge Sylva Paderanga from service.
In the meantime, Gotianuy wants the 2006 libel case filed against her and Jerry Lee be reassigned to another court “to protect the right of therein accused.”
Gotianuy lodged her complaint against Paderanga last Feb. 14, but it is still pending.
The judge has denied all the allegations in a letter to Court Administrator Christopher Lock last March 27.
“The acts of alleged bias purportedly committed by the judge against Gotianuy are more imagined than real as her theory that the orders issued by the court are part of a conspiracy against her, when in fact the alleged biased orders are consistent in the law and jurisprudence,” Paderanga argued.
Gotianuy is the respondent in a libel case before Paderanga. The charge stemmed from the complaint-affidavit submitted by Atty. Augusto W. Go, one of Cebu City’s biggest businessmen and the president of the University of Cebu (UC).
The complaint stemmed from a white paper circulated inside the Palace of Justice and outside the UC complex on Sanciangco St., alleging that it was not Augusto, but his elder brother Jose, who owned the school and all its assets.
Gotianuy, who has instituted a separate corporate case against Go in another venue, got blamed for the publication and was charged. She is Jose’s only daughter and sole heir.
In her complaint, Gotianuy narrated how Paderanga gave due course to the case despite manifestations that it was defective from the beginning and that a lot of irregularities were committed during the preliminary investigation of the complaint.
She cited, for example, how there was practically no evidence to prove she authored the libelous publication and how the case was anchored solely on the rationalization of the handling prosecutor that her denial to being the author of the publication was not a valid defense.
Even when the Department of Justice voided the resolution that became the basis of the complaint, Paderanga allegedly continued with the case and even issued a warrant for her arrest.
“Under the rules of criminal procedure, the judge shall personally evaluate the resolution of the prosecutor and supporting evidence. He may immediately dismiss the case if the evidence on record clearly fails to establish probable cause,” Gotianuy said.
She said Paderanga has since repeatedly refused her bid to post bail, intending that she first sign a prepared statement saying there was probable cause against her.
Paderanga, she said, also issued a contempt order against her lawyer and ordered that the lawyer be jailed for five days or pay P100,000.
She said Paderanga and Go were colleagues in a past business venture—the Cebu Shipyard.
Paderanga was one of the company’s lawyers while Go sat at the board of directors.
Paderanga has denied all of the allegations and called the administrative case against her “purely a harassment case.”
“The administrative complaint contains a narration of facts so maliciously distorted with the clear intent of misleading the Honorable SC to believe that Gotianuy and her counsel Jesus Delfin were unduly oppressed by the court and the presiding judge,” she said.
She said she cited Delfin in contempt and ordered him placed under custody because of the way his motions to court were flavored with “innuendoes of having been bribed and being ignorant of the law.” (KNR)
