THIRD DIVISION
[A.M. No. MTJ-00-1270. January 23, 2001]
GERMAN WENCESLAO CRUZ, JR., complainant, vs. JUDGE DANIEL C. JOVEN, Municipal Circuit Trial Court, Sipocot, Camarines Sur, respondent.
D E C I S I O N
VITUG, J.:
German Wenceslao Cruz
lodged an administrative complaint against Judge Daniel C. Joven of the Second
Municipal Circuit Trial Court, Sipocot-Lupi, Sipocot, Camarines Sur, for gross
negligence, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty and failure to render
decision within thirty days as so prescribed in the rules on summary procedure.
Complainant averred that
he was the representative of the plaintiff estate in Civil Case No. 548
(“Estate of German Cruz vs. Gregorio Batalla”) for unlawful detainer. The complaint was initiated on 22 February
1996 and, although summons and a copy of the complaint were served on the
defendant on 28 February 1996, no answer was filed within the reglementary
period provided therefor. Instead,
counsel for the defendant filed a motion for extension of time within which to
answer the complaint and for the inhibition of respondent Judge from further
taking cognizance of the case on the ground that said defendant had charged
respondent Judge before the Ombudsman.
In his order, dated 08 March 1996, respondent Judge denied the motion
for extension of time to answer the complaint for being a prohibited pleading
under the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure but granted the motion for
inhibition so as to assure the parties of the impartiality and cold neutrality
of the court. The order of inhibition,
however, was later denied by then Executive Judge Salvador G. Cajot of the
Regional Trial Court of Libmanan, Camarines Sur, Branch 29, and respondent
Judge thereupon proceeded with the case.
Complainant filed a number of motions, e.g., for judgment on the
pleadings, to present evidence, and for judgment, but the matters remained
unresolved. Finally, in his order of 26
March 1997, respondent Judged declared that no answer having been filed by the
defendant in the ejectment suit, judgment on the case would be rendered within
thirty days in accordance with Section 10 of the Revised Rule on Summary
Procedure. Still, no decision came
down. Instead, after a new Executive
Judge (Hon. Thelma C. Villareal) assumed her post, respondent Judge issued
another order, dated 22 April 1997, where he again inhibited himself from
presiding over the case.
In his 2nd
Indorsement in answer to the complaint, respondent Judge admitted that he had
failed to resolve the motion to present evidence filed by complainant because
he inadvertently overlooked the same. He justified his second order for inhibition by asseverating that
the case filed against him by the defendant might affect his impartiality and
cold neutrality as the presiding judge in Civil Case No. 548, and he felt it to
be both his right and his duty to excuse himself therefrom. He claimed to have received word that
complainant was reporting that the ejectment suit would be decided in his favor
because respondent Judge, a close friend of complainant’s father, owed the
family a great deal of gratitude.
Following its review of
the instant matter, and finding it to be impressed with merit, the Office of
the Court Administrator (“OCA”) recommended that the complaint be so
re-docketed as an administrative case.
The Court, in its resolution of 29 March 2000, approved the
recommendation of the OCA and required the parties to manifest whether or not
they would prefer to submit the case for resolution on the basis of the
pleadings and records already extant on file.
Complainant, in his manifestation of 06 May 2000, responded in the
affirmative. Respondent Judge made no
compliance with the Court resolution.
The Court sustains the
findings of the OCA and adopts its recommendations.
It was inexcusable for
respondent Judge to allow the unlawful detainer case, filed on 22 February
1996, to drag on end. It was not right
for respondent Judge to recuse himself from hearing the case simply because the
defendant had previously charged him before the Office of the Ombudsman. The inhibition order was aptly denied by
then Executive Judge Cajot, who forthwith directed respondent Judge to continue
with the case, and to hear, try, and decide it, in the way that the Court, in
People vs. Serrano, intimated. Thus-
“x x x Neither is the mere filing of an administrative case against
a judge a ground for disqualifying him from hearing the case, ‘for if on every
occasion the party apparently aggrieved would be allowed to either stop the
proceedings in order to await the final decision on the desired
disqualification, or demand the immediate inhibition of the judge on the basis
alone of his being so charged, many cases would have to be kept pending or
perhaps there would not be enough judges to handle all the cases pending in all
the court.”’[1]
Instead of resolving the
case as Executive Judge Cajot so directed, respondent Judge awaited the
appointment of a new executive Judge, upon whose assumption to office,
respondent again inhibited himself from the proceedings on the same ground he
had invoked in his first attempt to divorce himself from the case. Respondent Judge thusly showed little
respect to his bounded duty.
Perhaps, it would be
unnecessary to still give any reminder that it is the grave task of courts to
provide litigants with speedy and inexpensive resolution of their
disputes. Being the paradigm of justice
in the first instance, a municipal trial court judge, more than any other
colleague on the bench, is the immediate embodiment of how that trust is
carried out. In the evolvement of the
public perception on the judiciary, there can likely be no greater empirical
data that influences it than the prompt and proper disposition of cases before
the courts.
WHEREFORE, Judge Daniel C. Joven is found to have been
remiss of official duty, and he is imposed a FINE in the amount of Ten thousand
(P10,000.00) Pesos, with a warning that a repetition of the same or similar
acts in the future shall be dealt with most severely. Judge Joven is further directed to resolve Civil Case No. 548
within thirty (30) days from notice, and to submit to the Court a copy of his
decision, if he has not as yet done so.
SO ORDERED.
Melo, (Chairman),
Panganiban, Gonzaga-Reyes, and Sandoval-Gutierrez,
JJ., concur.