ROGER B. PATRICIO, PETITIONER, VS. HON. ENRIQUE P. SUPLICO, RESPONDENT.

Patricio versus Suplico

The Case

This is a special civil action of certiorari brought by Atty. Roger B. Patricio against Judge Enrique P. Suplico, then presiding judge of Branch 14 of the Regional Trial Court at Roxas City. Atty. Patricio asked the Supreme Court to annul Judge Suplico's order of November 20, 1986, which denied his motion for inhibition, summarily declared him guilty of direct contempt in seventeen cases, fined and jailed him for each case, fixed bail, struck the motions from the records, and recommended disbarment. The case matters because it draws the boundary between legitimate criticism of a magistrate and contumacious conduct, and because it measures the limits of the contempt power: the penalty must be corrective, not vindictive, and must stay within what the Rules of Court allow.

Procedural History

Everything began in the sala of Judge Suplico. Atty. Patricio filed an urgent motion for inhibition in seventeen criminal and civil cases and special proceedings pending before that branch, attaching a petition dated November 4, 1986 addressed to the President, the Chief Justice, and the Minister of Justice, which he and nineteen other Capiz lawyers had signed, urging the acceptance of the judge's resignation or his immediate removal. In his order of November 20, 1986, Judge Suplico denied the motions, declared them direct contempt, sentenced Atty. Patricio to a fine and imprisonment for each case, fixed bail, ordered the motions stricken from the records, and recommended disbarment proceedings.

Atty. Patricio went straight to the Supreme Court by petition for certiorari with an urgent prayer for a restraining order, asking that the order be nullified and that the judge be inhibited from the seventeen cases. A companion action for prohibition was filed by Atty. Patricio and other signatories of the petition, praying that the judge be enjoined from taking further judicial action and directed to inhibit himself in all cases where they appeared as counsel. The Court issued temporary restraining orders in both actions and consolidated them.

In the meantime, the President accepted Judge Suplico's resignation, which the Court Administrator communicated to him in February 1987. In May 1987 the Court ruled that the resignation had rendered moot the question of inhibition, lifted the restraining orders, dismissed the prohibition action as moot, and left as the sole issue the validity of the November 20, 1986 contempt order. The parties were required to submit memoranda on that question, and the case was decided in April 1991.

Facts

Twenty active law practitioners of Capiz Province signed a petition dated November 4, 1986 addressed to the President, the Chief Justice, and the Minister of Justice. They urged the acceptance of the resignation or the immediate removal of Judge Suplico. They alleged that he had been appointed during the 1983 reorganization of the courts through the patronage of his brother-in-law, then an assemblyman, and a regional political kingpin, then an ambassador, despite meager experience in practice; that he was deficient in legal knowledge, skill, and application; and that, as a graver fault, he solicited, required, and received valuable consideration in matters affecting cases pending before him and showed unusual interest in cases before other judges and investigating officers. They said their charges rested on personal knowledge and experience, on information from clients and other parties, and on the judge's general reputation, and that the informants hesitated to come forward formally because of their situation or station. Atty. Patricio was one of the signatories.

On November 11, 1986, Atty. Patricio filed a consolidated urgent motion for inhibition in seventeen cases in which he was counsel of record, attaching a copy of the petition. He argued that the petition would unavoidably generate personal prejudice in the judge against him and his clients, depriving them of the cold neutrality of an independent, wholly free, disinterested, and impartial tribunal.

In his order of November 20, 1986, Judge Suplico reproduced the petition and quoted testimony from a civil case in which, according to him, he had ruled against Atty. Patricio's objections and terminated his cross-examination, leaving counsel offended and embarrassed before his clients. The judge denied the motion for inhibition on several grounds, including that it was not verified, not under oath, not an original, and unsupported by affidavits; that it contained contemptuous words constituting criminal contempt; and that it was premature and amounted to harassment and direct contempt. He then declared Atty. Patricio guilty beyond reasonable doubt of direct contempt, sentenced him to a fine of five hundred pesos and imprisonment of three months for each of the seventeen cases, fixed bail of five thousand pesos for each case, ordered the motions stricken from the records, and recommended disbarment proceedings.

Issues

• Whether or not Judge Suplico acted in excess of jurisdiction in imposing, for direct contempt, a fine of five hundred pesos and imprisonment of three months for each of the seventeen cases, and in fixing bail of five thousand pesos for each case.
• Whether or not the single urgent motion for inhibition, though it sought inhibition in seventeen cases, could be treated as seventeen separate acts of contempt meriting seventeen distinct penalties.
• Whether or not Atty. Patricio's urgent motion for inhibition, taken together with the petition annexed to it, was correctly categorized as direct contempt.

Applicable Provisions

Section 1 of Rule 71 of the Rules of Court defines and penalizes direct contempt:

Direct contempt is misbehavior in the presence of or so near a court or judge as to obstruct or interrupt the proceedings before the same, including disrespect towards the court or judge, offensive personalities toward others, or refusal to be sworn or to answer as a witness, or to subscribe an affidavit or deposition when lawfully required so to do.

This is the provision the judge invoked, and its penalty clause fixes the ceiling he exceeded.

Section 1 of Rule 71 also fixes the penalty for direct contempt:

A person guilty of misbehavior in the presence of or so near a court or judge as to obstruct or interrupt the proceedings before the same, including disrespect toward the court or judge, offensive personalities toward others, or refusal to be sworn or to answer as a witness, or to subscribe an affidavit or deposition when lawfully required so to do, may be summarily adjudged in contempt by such court and punished by a fine not exceeding two hundred pesos or imprisonment not exceeding ten days, or both, if it be a superior court, or a judge thereof, or a fine not exceeding ten pesos or imprisonment not exceeding one day, or both, if it be an inferior court.

The Court measured the judge's sentence against this ceiling and found it clearly in excess.

Section 2 of Rule 71 provides on the finality of direct contempt judgments:

Judgments of superior courts on direct contempt shall not be appealable.

Because such a judgment is not appealable, the fixing of bail for its review had no place.

Section 3 of Rule 71 governs indirect or constructive contempt and the procedure for it:

After charge in writing has been filed, and an opportunity given to the accused to be heard by himself or counsel, a person guilty of any of the following acts may be punished for indirect contempt.

This is the procedure the Court contrasted with summary punishment, and which the judge should have observed if the conduct was not in his presence.

Article 354 of the Revised Penal Code, on privileged communications, provides:

Every defamatory imputation is presumed to be malicious, even if it be true, if no good intention and justifiable motive for making it is shown, except in the following cases: a private communication made by any person to another in the performance of any legal, moral or social duty.

The Court used this to treat the petition to the President as a privileged communication, not a contumacious act.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that Judge Suplico acted in excess of jurisdiction. The penalty of a five hundred peso fine and three months imprisonment for each case is clearly in excess of that fixed by Section 1 of Rule 71, which allows a fine not exceeding two hundred pesos or imprisonment not exceeding ten days, or both. The fixing of bail likewise ran afoul of the rule that judgments of superior courts on direct contempt are not appealable. The aggregate bail of eighty-five thousand pesos was unreasonable and excessive, and the whole exercise of the contempt power was inconsistent with the settled policy that it be wielded on the preservative, rather than the vindictive, principle: to correct, rather than to retaliate.

On the second issue, the Court held that the urgent motion for inhibition was one single act. That it sought inhibition in seventeen cases did not convert it into seventeen separate applications for disqualification, and there was really only one act of contempt, if contempt it was, not seventeen contumacious acts meriting seventeen distinct penalties.

On the third issue, the Court held that the motion and the petition annexed to it did not constitute direct contempt. Nothing in the language of the motion itself was disrespectful or offensive. The petition was a privileged communication under Article 354 of the Revised Penal Code, written by twenty lawyers in fulfillment of what they considered their social, civic, and legal duty, addressed exclusively to the officials competent to act on it, and attended by no publicity. Absent evidence of malice or improper motive, it was prima facie not actionable as libelous or contumacious, and it was an exercise of the constitutional right to petition government for redress of a legitimate grievance. Once the judge learned of the petition, it was inevitable for the lawyers with cases in his sala to seek his inhibition, and inevitable that a copy of the petition be attached, since it was the very basis of the motion. Contempt of court presupposes a contumacious attitude, a flouting or arrogant belligerence, a virtual defiance of the court, and no such attitude was discernible here. The statements of the reasons for the petition necessarily involved some denigration of the judge's qualities, but there was no unnecessary debasement or abuse of his person, and the references to him were strictly relevant to the thesis that he should be removed in line with the policy to reform the judiciary.

Doctrine

A Bar candidate should retain these rules. First, the power to punish for contempt is inherent and essential to the court's right of self-preservation, but it must be exercised on the preservative, not the vindictive, principle: to correct, not to retaliate. Second, direct contempt is misbehavior in the presence of or so near a court or judge as to obstruct or interrupt the proceedings, and it may be summarily adjudged; indirect or constructive contempt is committed outside the sitting of the court and may be punished only after a written charge and an opportunity to be heard. Third, the penalty for direct contempt against a superior court may not exceed a fine of two hundred pesos or imprisonment of ten days, or both, under Section 1 of Rule 71; a sentence beyond that ceiling is in excess of jurisdiction. Fourth, judgments of superior courts on direct contempt are not appealable, so bail for their review is out of place. Fifth, a single motion seeking inhibition in several cases is one act, not as many acts as there are cases. Sixth, a petition to the President, the Chief Justice, and the Minister of Justice for the removal of a judge, made in the performance of a legal, moral, or social duty and without publicity or malice, is a privileged communication under Article 354 of the Revised Penal Code and an exercise of the right to petition for redress of grievances; it is not contempt, and the motion for inhibition that attaches it to show the basis for the prayer is likewise not contempt.

Disposition

The Court granted the writ of certiorari and annulled and set aside Judge Suplico's order of November 20, 1986, with no pronouncement as to costs. Atty. Patricio won.

Remember This

Memorize the line that the contempt power is wielded on the preservative, not the vindictive, principle, to correct rather than to retaliate, and that a privileged petition for a judge's removal is not contempt. Examiners use this case on the limits of summary punishment for direct contempt, on the distinction between direct and indirect contempt, and on the constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances.