ART. 357. When, after a hearing has begun, any associate justice becomes sick or is prevented in any other manner from attending, and it is improbable that he will be able to attend after a few days, a new hearing shall be instituted, the number of associate justices being supplemented by the person or persons who should replace the ab

sentee.

ART. 358. Parties to an action or a cause may, with the permission of the presiding judge, make such statements as they deem proper for their defense during the trial or when a petition is being presented in which they may be concerned.

The presiding judge must grant them the right of speech so long as they confine themselves to facts and preserve due decorum.

ART. 359. Visitors to court rooms shall remove their hats, remain silent, preserve good behavior, and observe the rules issued by the presiding officer for keeping order.

Associate justices, fiscales, and their auxiliary officers shall be respected in the same manner in any act or place in which they perform their respective duties.

ART. 360. Persons interrupting the hearing of any trial, cause, or other solemn judicial act, by showing ostentatiously their approval or disapproval, lacking the respect and consideration due courts, or in any way disturbing order, without, however, committing a crime by this action, shall be admonished at once by the presiding judge, and expelled from the court room if they disobey the first warning.

ART. 361. Persons resisting an order of expulsion shall be arrested and disciplined without appeal by a fine not exceeding 10 pesos in municipal courts or courts of justices of the peace, 15 pesos in courts of examination or of first instance, 20 pesos in criminal audiencias, and 30 pesos in territorial audiencias; and they shall not be released from arrest until they have paid the fine or otherwise have remained under arrest the number of days necessary to serve the sentence, computed at the rate of 2 pesos 50 centavos a day.

ART. 362. In the manner expressed in the preceding article, a punishment shall be imposed upon witnesses, experts, or any other persons who, either as parties or as their representatives, are guilty during hearings or solemn judicial acts, by speech, act, or writing, of lack of deference, respect, or obedience due courts, when such acts do not constitute crimes.

ART. 363. Persons who are subject to disciplinary jurisdiction in accordance with the provisions of this decree-law are not included in the provisions of the two preceding articles.

ART. 364. When the acts treated of in the two preceding articles are so serious as to be classed as crimes or offenses, their perpetrators shall be detained at once, the proper preliminary proceedings being instituted, and the prisoners being placed in the custody of the court of competent jurisdiction.

ART. 365. All judicial acts performed under the influence of intimidation or force shall be null.

Judges, superior courts, and chambers which have yielded to intimidation or force shall, as soon as they find themselves free therefrom, declare all acts performed under its influence null, and shall at the same time bring an action against the guilty parties.

TITLE XIV.-INSPECTION AND SURVEILLANCE OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

FIRST AND LAST CHAPTER.

ART. 366. The inspection and supervision of the duties of judges and superior courts shall be exercised:

By the presiding judges of superior courts.

By the chambers of administration of audiencias and of the supreme court.

By the chambers of justice of audiencias and of the supreme court. By the courts of examination and of first instance.

ART. 367. The inspection and supervision shall be exercised by the presiding judge of the supreme court, and by presiding judges of audiencias, and by examining and first instance judges, by virtue of the powers and duties that are assigned to them.

ART. 368. In order to facilitate the inspection and supervision, annual statements of the civil and criminal matters pending or completed during the preceding judicial year shall be submitted:

By municipal courts or courts of justices of the peace to judges of examination and first instance.

By courts of examination and first instance to audiencias.
By audiencias to the supreme court.

ART. 369. The statements submitted by the judges of examination and first instance to the audiencias shall contain a summary of the ones they may have received from the municipal courts or from the courts of justices of the peace, besides their own, which it is their duty to forward.

The reports of the audiencias shall be accompanied by a summary of the statements of the municipal courts or courts of justices of the peace, and courts of examination and first instance.

ART. 370. In the supreme court a general summary of these statements shall be made and forwarded to the Government, together with those of the said court.

ART. 371. The regulations shall fix the form and the date on which each superior and inferior court must submit to their respective superior the statements referred to in the three preceding articles.

ART. 372. The presiding judge of the supreme court and the presiding judges of audiencias may order visits of inspection:

By order of the Government.

Officially.

At the instance of the department of public prosecution.
At the instance of chambers of administration.

At the instance of chambers of justice.

ART. 373. Judges of first instance and examination can not order visits of inspection of municipal courts or courts of justices of the peace; but when an inspection of any of said courts is necessary in their judgment, they shall communicate their opinion to the presiding judge of the audiencia, in order that the latter may decide what he may deem proper after hearing, in a proper case, the chamber of administration.

ART. 374. The chambers of administration may institute visits of inspection, whenever they consider it advisable, as a consequence of the memorials presented by judges of first instance or examination.

ART. 375. The chambers of justice shall make an inspection in the civil or criminal matters of which they take cognizance.

When in their judgment it would be advisable, in order to avoid abuses, to adopt some measure which does not lie within their power, or to make an inspection of some inferior or superior court, they shall state their opinions to the presiding judge, in order that the latter may decide what is proper after hearing the chamber of administration.

ART. 376. As visiting inspector there shall be selected an officer of a rank higher than that of the officers whose office is to be inspected. ART. 377. The presiding judge of the supreme court may, whenever he considers such action proper, delegate to the presiding judge of an audiencia the appointment:

Of the associate justice to inspect a court of first instance.

Of the associate justice or judge of first instance to inspect municipal courts.

ART. 378. In the cases of delegation mentioned in the preceding article the judges and associate justices appointed for the inspection shall report to the presiding judges of the respective audiencia on all matters referring to the inspection.

ART. 379. In this service associate justices of audiencias shall serve by turn, without distinction between those composing the civil and criminal chambers. Presiding judges of audiencias and their chambers shall be exempted from this service. Excuses for exemption from this service shall not be accepted when not based on the impossibility to render it. Presiding judges of audiencias shall decide on said excuses according to their discretion, and shall submit them, with their own report containing a statement of reasons, to the colonial secretary.

ART. 380. The visits of inspection, made in conformity with the provisions of this title, shall include the examination of everything that refers to the rules established for the government of superior courts, and for a good administration of justice in the offices of their secretaries and in all their dependencies.

ART. 381. Visits of inspection in the cases expressly ordered by the presiding judges of audiencias or of the supreme court may include: 1. The civil registry.

2. The registry of property.

3. Registries of notarial offices.

4. The verification of the correctness of the annual reports.

ART. 382. The inspectors shall write a report of the inspection intrusted to them, which shall be forwarded to the fiscal of the court whose presiding judge may have ordered the visit.

ART. 383. The board of administration of the proper court, by virtue of the report of the fiscal, shall adopt such measures as lie within its power, and if it does not extend far enough it shall make such recommendations as it may consider proper to the Government.

ART. 384. The Government may appoint Royal commissaries to inspect superior and inferior courts whenever it considers such action

necessary.

ART. 385. For the discharge of their duties, visiting inspectors shall be allowed a secretary and the other necessary employees, who shall be paid from the appropriations provided for these cases in the budgets of the respective island.

TITLE XV.-DISCIPLINARY JURISDICTION.

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FIRST AND LAST CHAPTER.

ART. 386. The following officers shall be subject to disciplinary jurisdiction:

1. Judges and associate justices.

2. Auxiliary officers of inferior and superior courts.

3. Attorneys and solicitors.

ART. 387. Disciplinary jurisdiction over judges and associate justices shall be exercised:

By the judges of first instance over municipal judges or justices of the peace in a proper case.

By the chambers of administration of audiencias over judges of first instance and examination.

By the chamber of administration of the supreme court over associate justices.

The chambers of administration of audiencias and that of the supreme court, in order to exercise disciplinary jurisdiction, shall resolve themselves into chambers of justice.

ART. 388. The disciplinary jurisdiction shall not extend to acts or omissions which constitute a crime or to acts of private life which have not been publicly exposed.

ART. 389. Judges and associate justices shall be punished in a disciplinary manner:

1. When they show disrespect to their hierarchical superiors, either in speech, writing, or action.

2. When they show serious disregard of the respect due their equals. 3. When they trespass the reasonable limits of their authority with respect to the auxiliary and subordinate officers of inferior or superior courts, or with respect to those who assist them in judicial matters or those who attend the court-room, with whatever object it may be. 4. When they are negligent in fulfilling their duties.

5. When by the irregularity of their moral conduct or their bad habits which lower them in the public esteem, they affect the decorum of their office.

6. When, on account of expenditures beyond their means, they contract debts which result in writs of execution against them.

7. When they recommend to judges or superior courts matters pending in suits where the parties are present at the trial in criminal

causes.

8. When they address to the executive power, to public officers, or to official corporations congratulations or censures for their actions. 9. When they take part, other than by casting their personal vote, in popular elections of the territory in which they perform their functions.

Notwithstanding this, they shall exercise the functions and fulfill the duties which are imposed upon them by virtue of their offices.

10. When they take part in meetings, manifestations, or other public acts of a political character, even if said acts are permitted to all other Spaniards.

11. When they attend in corpore, officially, or in ceremonial dress, feasts or public occasions, excepting only when it is their object to

compliment the monarch or the regent of the realm, or when the Government gives explicit orders therefor.

12. When, without authorization from the colonial department, they publish writings defending their official conduct, or criticising that of other judges or associate justices.

ART. 390. Disciplinary penalties may be inflicted only:

By the presiding judges of the courts who have disciplinary jurisdiction in the specific case.

By the fiscales of the same courts.

ART. 391. The presiding judges as well as the fiscales may inflict punishment by virtue of information of a positive character which has come to their knowledge; by complaint of the wronged parties, with sufficient facts to prove the existence of acts subject to disciplinary jurisdiction, or when they are notified by their hierarchical superiors.

ART. 392. The proceedings shall have merely the character of an examination, and shall consist of hearing the judge, or the associate justice and the fiscal, against whom charges are brought on the facts; of admitting evidence presented by both of them; of procuring the complement of the other evidence which may contribute to explain or prove the facts, and of receiving a written plea or argument from the party concerned and from the department of public prosecution.

ART. 393. The judge or the associate justice against whom said proceedings are directed shall be heard before the fiscal when the presiding judge has instituted the proceedings.

When the fiscal shall have instituted said proceedings, he shall be heard first.

The party whose papers are admitted in the hearing after those of the opponent, shall have the papers of the opponent submitted to him. ART. 394. When the proceedings have been completed, the court or the chamber of administration shall either impose the disciplinary penalty or declare that there are no grounds for punishment.

ART. 395. The penalties imposed on municipal judges shall consist of only:

A simple reprimand.

A fine not less than 12 pesos nor more than 120 pesos.

ART. 396. The penalties imposed on judges of first instance and examination and associate justices shall consist of:

A simple reprimand.

A specific reprimand.
Postponement of promotion.

Loss of salary.

Suspension from office and loss of salary.

ART. 397. A simple reprimand shall consist of the literal communication of the penalty which the presiding judge of the court which imposed it shall make to the delinquent officer directly, if the latter is a municipal judge, judge of first instance and examination, or a presiding judge of an audiencia, and through the presiding judge of the proper court in all other cases.

ART. 398. The specific reprimand shall consist of a communication made in the manner specified in the preceding article, and of the loss of salary for a period of from one to three months.