This case has been cited 2 times or more.
|
2005-09-14 |
SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ, J. |
||||
| In granting bail, it is imperative that a judge be conversant with the procedures provided by the Rules and basic legal principles. A judge presiding over a court of law must not only apply the law but must also live by it.[6] The exacting standards of conduct demanded from judges are designed to promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.[7] When the judge himself becomes a transgressor of the law which he is sworn to apply, he places his office in disrepute, encourages disrespect for the law and impairs public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary itself.[8] | |||||
|
2004-07-27 |
YNARES-SANTIAGO, J. |
||||
| It is apparent that respondent Judge is ignorant of the procedure in conducting a preliminary investigation. Evidently he was referring to the old rule where preliminary investigation consisted of two stages, namely: (1) preliminary examination, and (2) preliminary investigation proper. Under Rule 112, Section 3 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, there is now only one stage of preliminary investigation.[12] Under the old rules, the preliminary investigation conducted by a municipal judge had two stages: (1) the preliminary examination stage during which the investigating judge determines whether there is reasonable ground to believe that an offense has been committed and the accused is probably guilty thereof, so that a warrant of arrest may be issued and the accused held for trial; and (2) the preliminary investigation proper where the complaint or information is read to the accused after his arrest and he is informed of the substance of the evidence adduced against him, after which he is allowed to present evidence in his favor if he so desires. Presidential Decree 911, upon which the present rule is based, removed the preliminary examination stage and integrated it into the preliminary investigation proper. Now, the proceedings consist only of one stage.[13] Every judge is required to observe the law. When the law is sufficiently basic, a judge owes it to his office to simply apply it; and anything less than that would be constitutive of gross ignorance of the law. In short, when the law is so elementary, not to be aware of it constitutes gross ignorance of the law.[14] When the inefficiency springs from a failure to consider so basic and elemental a rule, a law or a principle in the discharge of his duties, a judge is either too incompetent and undeserving of the position and title he holds or is too vicious that the oversight or omission was deliberately done in bad faith and in grave abuse of judicial authority.[15] | |||||