In the case of ATTY. ERNESTO A. TABUJARA III vs. JUDGE FATIMA GONZALES-ASDALA, EN BANC, A.M. No. RTJ-08-2126 [Formerly OCA I.P.I. No. 08-2896-RTJ], January 20, 2009, the Philippine Supreme Court found the respondent guilty of gross ignorance of law and procedure. She having been earlier dismissed from the service, the Court thus simply fined her the amount of Forty Thousand (P40,000) Pesos to be deducted from the Eighty Thousand (P80,000) Pesos which the Court withheld pursuant to its January 15, 2008 Resolution in her previous administrative case.
The salient pronouncements of the Court in the abovecited case are as follows:
1. As found by the Court of Appeals, respondent judge gravely abused her discretion when she acted on the Urgent Ex-Parte Motion to Order Respondent to Comply with the Writ of Habeas Corpus with Urgent Motion For Partial Reconsideration (Of the Order dated May 31, 2006). That Judge Bay may have left the court premises in the afternoon of May 31, 2006 did not justify her acting on even date on motion of complainant’s wife, as her authority as pairing judge commenced only the following day, June 1, 2006, when Judge Bay’s leave of absence started; Nor did respondent’s opinion on the urgency of the case justify her sacrificing law and settled jurisprudence for the sake of expediency.
2. Respondent also abused her contempt powers. If at all, complainant was guilty of indirect contempt and not direct contempt. Indirect or constructive contempt is committed “outside of the sitting of the court and may include misbehavior of an officer of the court in the performance of his official duties or in his official transactions, disobedience of or resistance to a lawful writ, process, order, judgment, or command of a court, or injunction granted by a court or a judge, any abuse or any unlawful interference with the process or proceedings of a court not constituting direct contempt, or any improper conduct tending directly or indirectly to impede, obstruct or degrade the administration of justice.”
3. For not affording complainant the opportunity to explain why he should not be cited in contempt, she blatantly disregarded Rule 71 of the Rules of Court. In Lim v. Domagas where the therein judge declared the therein complainant guilty of contempt and ordered his arrest for failure to bring three minors before the court without the benefit of a hearing, the Court faulted the therein judge not only for grave abuse of discretion but also for gross ignorance of the law.
