Ampatuan Massacre prosecutor fined for indirect contempt

CMFR/PHILIPPINES – A PRIVATE prosecutor in the Ampatuan (Maguindanao) Massacre trial has been found guilty of indirect contempt for distributing copies of a disbarment complaint against one of the defense lawyers representing the Ampatuans. However, the Supreme Court dismissed charges against journalists and media companies that reported on the filing of the disbarment case, and against other disbarment complainants.

The Second Division of the Supreme Court ordered lawyer Prima Jesusa Quinsayas to pay a fine of P20.000 (USD490.74) for providing journalists copies of the disbarment complaint against lawyer Philip Sigfrid Fortun. In November 2010, relatives of massacre victims together with Quinsayas and the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ) filed a disbarment complaint against Fortun, who is representing Andal Ampatuan Jr., his father Andal and brother Zaldy in the Massacre case. The disbarment complaint arose from his allegedly unethical behavior as defense lawyer in the Ampatuan Massacre trial.

Fortun filed charges of indirect contempt against Quinsayas, other disbarment complainants, and reporters and editors of GMA Network Inc. (GMA News Online), ABS-CBN Corporation, Philippine Daily Inquirer Inc. (Inquirer.Net), and The Philippine Star for alleged “unauthorized dissemination of the allegations in the disbarment complaint” on 12 December 2010. In his complaint, Fortun asked the Court to fine and imprison Quinsayas and other respondents for two (2) months.

The court said that Quinsayas, as an officer of the Court,  “acted wrongly in setting aside the confidentiality rule which every lawyer and member of the legal profession should know.” The Confidentiality rule refers to Section 18 of Rule 139-B of the Philippine Rules of Court which requires that “(p)roceedings against attorneys shall be private and confidential.” The Supreme Court publishes only its final decision on disbarment cases.

But the Second Division said  in the 13 February 2013 decision that Section 18 “is not a restriction on the freedom of the press. If there is a legitimate public interest, media is not prohibited from making a fair, true, and accurate news report of a disbarment complaint.”

The court also said that “since (Fortun) is a public figure or has become a public figure because he is representing a matter of public concern, and because the event itself that led to the filing of the disbarment case against petitioner is a matter of public concern, the media has the right to report the filing of the disbarment case as legitimate news. It would have been different if the disbarment case against petitioner was about a private matter as the media would then bebound to respect the confidentiality provision of disbarment proceedings under Section 18, Rule 139-B of the Rules of Court.”

Quinsayas is the legal counsel of FFFJ and represents 17 families in the Massacre case. CMFR serves as the administrative and technical secretariat of FFFJ.