YASAY, JR. vs. RECTO GR No. 129521; September 7, 1999

Facts: The case before the Court is an appeal from a decision of the Court of Appeals setting side the order of the SEC declaring respondents guilty of contempt for disobeying a TRO issued to respondents to desist from holding a stockholders’ meeting of the Interport Resources Corporation.

The Court required respondents to comment on the petition within ten days from notice. Thereafter, the respondents filed their comment. In the main, respondents submit that contempt is criminal in character and their exoneration from a charge of contempt amounts to an acquittal from, which an appeal would not lie.


Issue: Is contempt civil in nature?


Held: No. In this case, the contempt is not civil in nature, but criminal, imposed to vindicate the dignity and power of the Commission; hence, as in criminal proceedings, an appeal would not lie form the order of dismissal of, or an exoneration from, a charge of contempt.

Civil contempt proceedings are generally held to be remedial and civil in their nature; that is, they are proceedings for the enforcement of some duty, and essentially a remedy for coercing a person to do the thing required. In general, civil contempt proceedings should be instituted by an aggrieved party, or his successor, or someone who has pecuniary interest in the right to be protected. If the contempt is initiated by the court or tribunal exercising the power to punish a given contempt, it is criminal in nature, and the proceedings are to be conducted in accordance with the principles and rules applicable to criminal cases. The State is the real prosecutor.

While the SEC is vested with the power to punish for contempt, the salutary rule is that the power to punish for contempt must be exercised on the preservative, not vindictive principle, and on the corrective and not retaliatory idea of punishment. The courts and other tribunals vested with the power of contempt must exercise the power to punish for contempt for purposes that are impersonal, because that power is intended as a safeguard not for the judges as persons but for the functions that they exercise.