SC fines judge for bail without hearing

The Supreme Court has reprimanded and fined a judge in Mindanao for granting bail to a murder suspect without conducting a bail hearing.

The suspect also did not file a petition seeking the granting of bail.

The high court ordered Judge Jaime Infante of the Saranggani Regional Trial Court to pay a fine of P20,000 for gross ignorance of the law and judicial rules and warned him that he would be dealt with more severely if he repeated the offense.

“The failure of Judge Infante to conduct a hearing prior to the grant of bail in capital offenses is inexcusable and reflected gross ignorance of the law and the rules,” said the high court in its decision penned by Justice Lucas Bersamin.

The tribunal said that being the trial judge, Infante had to be aware of the precedents laid down by the Supreme Court regarding bail hearings “being mandatory and indispensable.”

“He ought to have remembered then that it was only through such a hearing that he could put himself in a position to determine whether or not the evidence of the prosecution was weak or strong,” the court said. “Hence, his dispensing with the hearing manifested gross ignorance of the law and the rules.”

Infante had argued that no bail hearing was necessary when he granted bail to murder suspect Faustino Ancheta in April 2003 because the accused did not file an application for bail and the public prosecutor had recommended bail for Ancheta.

The Supreme Court disagreed, saying that a bail hearing was mandatory as a bail bond serves to ensure that the accused would appear for his arraignment and trial.