Mark Williamson wrote:
I have a couple of questions.
First of all, in what circumstances should an admin block another admin?
Second of all, is it somehow "dishonest" for an admin to unblock themselves when they honestly believe they have done nothing wrong? Does it make them untrustworthy if they do not observe a block imposed upon them by another admin?
I can only speak for consensus on the English Wikipedia, and don't know how far these are universal, but on en:
1. An admin generally cannot block another admin (or any other established user, for that matter), except in emergencies like vandalbots, or specific circumstances like a 24-hour block for 3RR violations. Those sorts of blocks are the Arbitration Committee's job---unilateral blocks by a single admin are only for cases like anon vandals or vandal-only accounts, not for blocking established users who have gotten engaged in disputes.
2. An admin is not generally supposed to unblock themselves, but instead place an {{unblock}} request on their talk page and wait for another admin to do it for them.
So I guess by en: standards, both sides in your description would be in the wrong. But some things are a little different---presumably small wikipedias have no ArbCom, and also don't have enough admins for an {{unblock}} request to be likely to be seen. So that's a bit of a problem.
-Mark