This case has been cited 1 times or more.
|
2007-03-22 |
GARCIA, J. |
||||
| In several cases, the Court had set aside technicalities in the Rules in order to give way to justice and equity. The Court can overlook the short delay in the filing of pleading if strict compliance with the Rules would mean sacrificing justice to technicality. The imminence of a person being deprived unjustly of his liberty due to a procedural lapse of counsel is a strong and compelling reason to warrant suspension of the Rules.[10] A healthy respect for petitioner's rights should caution courts against motu proprio dismissals of appeals, especially in criminal cases where the liberty of the accused is at stake. The rules allowing motu proprio dismissals of appeals merely confer a power and do not impose a duty; and the same are not mandatory but merely directory which thus require a great deal of circumspection, considering all the attendant circumstances.[11] Courts are not exactly impotent to enforce their orders, including those requiring the filing of appellant's brief. This is precisely the raison d"etre for the courts" inherent contempt power.[12] Motu proprio dismissals of appeals are thus not always called for. Although the right to appeal is a statutory, not a natural, right, it is an essential part of the judicial system and courts should proceed with caution so as not to deprive a party of this prerogative, but instead, afford every party-litigant the amplest opportunity for the proper and just disposition of his cause, freed from the constraints of technicalities.[13] More so must this be in criminal cases where, as here, the appellant is an indigent who could ill-afford the services of a counsel de parte. | |||||