SC punishes two Malabon judges over mishandling of search warrants

The Supreme Court has penalized two Malabon City judges over the mishandling of search warrant applications.

Judge Zaldy Docena of the Malabon City Regional Trial Court Branch 170 has been ordered suspended for two years without pay after he was found guilty of gross neglect of duty for the mismanagement of search warrant applications, according to the SC decision dated September 5.

Judge Celso Magsino Jr. of the Malabon RTC Branch 74, on the other hand, was found guilty by the Court of simple misconduct and was fined P20,000 for imposing his own internal policies and practices in the raffle of  search warrant applications.

Both were given a stern warning that a repetition of the same or similar act would be dealt with more severely.

The sanctions stemmed from the spot audit conducted in April 2016 by the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) in response to "persistent reports pertaining alleged irregular issuance of search warrants" by Judge Docena.

The OCA recommended Docena's suspension after it found that many of the search warrants he had issued were enforceable outside the territorial jurisdiction of Malabon City in violation of Rule 126 of the Rules of Court, which provides for the proper venue where applications for search warrant should be filed.

The Court did not agree with the OCA that Judge Docena and Judge Magsino violated Rule 126 by simply issuing search warrants involving crimes committed outside their jurisdiction.

According to the ruling, the judges “simply exercised the trial court’s ancillary jurisdiction over a special criminal process when they took cognizance of the applications and issued said search warrants."

However, the SC found Judge Docena liable for the serious mismanagement of search warrant applications in Branch 170.

The SC said that Docena failed to properly monitor the submission of returns as required under Rule 126 and committed several lapses in ascertaining whether Section 12(a) of Rule 126 has been complied with by certain applicants.

He also failed to comply with his administrative responsibilities under Rules 3.08 and 3.09 of the Code of Judicial Conduct. Six of his staff members were found guilty of simple neglect of duty for failure to diligently perform their respective administrative duties.

Among the lapses the SC noticed were case records that have no minutes of proceedings; some search warrants that are incorrectly dated and were handed over to the witnesses instead of the applicants; and lack of log book for search warrant applications.

Del Castillo was joined in the majority by eight other justices.

Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Justices Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin and Marvic Leonen dissented, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno was on leave, while Justice Alexander Gesmundo took no part. —LBG, GMA News