Apparently not noting the irony, the president of the Colegio de Abogados in Honduras said he believed Honduras should have the right to defend itself against the OAS charges.
From the La Prensa piece linked by Greg in the above quote:
“La OEA tiene que darnos el derecho de defensa y no se nos ha dado la oportunidad de exponer su caso ante la OEA. Simplemente escucharon a Manuel Zelaya y no escucharon a nuestra parte, es justo que la OEA cumpla con la carta democrática que ellos deben respetar, ya que lo que hubo no fue un golpe, si no una susstitución constitucional”.
Translation:
:The OAS has to give us the write to a defense and it has not given us the opportunity to present our case before the OAS. They have only listened to Manuel Zelaya and not to our side, and it is just that the OAS complies with the democratic constitution that we have respected. What we did was not a coup, but a constitutional substitution.”
I welcome full disclosure of the process and justifications thereof. But Greg is right, the irony here is incredible.
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July 4th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Hi professor,
I am posting here a few excerpts from the statement of the Catholic church.
They also don´t see this as coup
But I saw in Telesur that they were forced to signed at gun point. If Telesur says, it must be true.
Comunicado de la Conferencia Episcopal de Honduras
(..)
2. Ante la situación de los últimos días, nos remitimos a la información que hemos buscado en las instancias competentes del Estado (la Corte Suprema de Justicia, el Congreso Nacional, el Ministerio Público, el Poder Ejecutivo, Tribunal Supremo Electoral) y muchas organizaciones de sociedad civil.- Todos y cada uno de los documentos que han llegado a nuestras manos, demuestran que las instituciones del Estado democrático hondureño, están en vigencia y que sus ejecutorias en materia jurídico-legal han sido apegadas a derecho.- Los tres poderes del Estado, Ejecutivo, Legislativo y Judicial, están en vigor legal y democrático de acuerdo a la Constitución de la República de Honduras.
3. La Constitución de la República y los órganos administradores de justicia del país nos hacen concluir que:
a.) Conforme a lo contemplado en el Artículo 239 de la Constitución de la República “Quien proponga la reforma” de este Artículo, “cesa de inmediato en el desempeño de su cargo y queda inhabilitado por diez años para el ejercicio de toda función pública”. Por lo tanto, la persona requerida, cuando fue capturado, ya no se desempeñaba como Presidente de la República.
b.) Con fecha 26 de junio de 2009, la Corte Suprema de Justicia, por unanimidad, nombró un Juez Natural que giró la orden de captura contra el ciudadano Presidente de la República de Honduras, a quien se le supone responsable de los delitos de: CONTRA LA FORMA DE GOBIERNO, TRAICION A LA PATRIA, ABUSO DE AUTORIDAD Y USURPACION DE FUNCIONES en perjuicio de la Administración Pública y del Estado de Honduras, lo anterior a raíz del Requerimiento Fiscal presentado en esa Corte por parte del Ministerio Público.
(…)
4. “Ningún hondureño podrá ser expatriado ni entregado a un Estado extranjero” (Art. 102, Constitución de la República”).- Creemos que todos merecemos una explicación de lo acaecido el 28 de junio.
July 4th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
You keep referring to it as a “military coup”. Do you call the coup that Vargas did in 1937 a “military coup”?
At this point it is clear that the order to take action came from the SCJ and that the main beneficiary was a civilian.
If it was a coup, I calling it a military coup seems misleading. There is no evidence that this came from just a meeting of generals. The military take part on the action, but that happens in all coups. All of them are “military coups”?
July 4th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
The military ousted him, and appears to have admit doing so illegally. How is this not a “military coup”? Granted, no military government took over. However, I don’t think that the term “military coup” only refers to cases in which the military takes over.
In regards to Vargas, I must confess my memories of the exact nature of the event are dim at the moment.
July 4th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
I have found the sentence by the CSJ and some other documents.
http://www.poderjudicial.gob.hn/NR/rdonlyres/87E2BFFC-AF4D-44EA-BFC5-D93730D8D81C/2413/ExpedienteJudicial1.pdf
I have read some of it and there are some points worth mentioning:
1) They are not using article 239.
I don´t have the least notion as to whether this was appropriate or not. I know that in Brazil, the AG can denounce the president to the SCJ. It is one of the ways to impeach him (the other being by rule of the congress). I don´t know, however, if the SCJ can (1) declare that the process will start under secrecy of Justice and (2) order the suspension of his powers as president before reaching a final decision.
2) The court have informed Zelaya, at least two times, that changing the name of the referendum or making it unbinding would not change the fact that his actions where against the articles about the inviolability of the constitution and that this would give cause for many charges, including treason. His lawyers have appealed against those decisions, but the court decided to maintain that decision.
3) The law about the crime of treason says that the intention of treason is judged as if the actions were carried out.
4) so the reasoning of the sentence, at least for treason, appears to be that, binding or unbinding, the referendum was an attempt to rewrite the constitution, including the “set in stones” clauses, and, as such, it was an action of treason. So he will be judged as if he had changed those clauses.
5) When it was clear that he was going ahead, the AG denounced him to the Supreme Court on many charges including treason, usurpation of powers and some others. He called for his judicial detention (what in Brazil we would call “preemptive detention”, a temporary arresting before the real trial) and the suspension of his powers as president. The AG has also asked for secrecy of justice so that he would not try obstruct the justice or run away.
6) The SCJ unanimously accepted the denounce. In the sentence the court says that since they were talking about the President, the arresting should be made by the military, invoking the articles of the constitution that defines they mission (the military have the constitutional mission of keeping the internal order and collaborate with the regular police in Honduras).
7) Apparently, all the rulings are not final (they talk about suspension of his powers as president, for example) and may be eventually overturned in the “real” trial that will take place in the future.
July 4th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Por fin…
It wasn’t there earlier in the week and the web site was down.
I will give it a look tomorrow.
July 5th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Hi Professor,
There are a couple of things that, at least to me, are clear now:
1) The Armed could be called to act under the law by the supreme court. This comes from their constitutional mission;
2) The SCJ is the forum to judge the president;
3) Zelaya broke the law and repeatedly refused to obey court orders.
It is my understanding that, even if you don´t like the way that the SCJ has ruled or proceed, that would be a case of justice malpractice not one of constitutional disruption.
Let´s suppose (as many believe to this day) that the USCJ dropped the ball in Gore vs. Bush. Does it follow from that the Bush’s first term represented a disruption of the institutional order? I don´t think so.
If it is so clear that the SCJ was usurping powers that belong to other branches (as Zelaya, the OAS and the US government seems to think), why haven´t anyone point where in the law it said it is?
We have yet to hear one legal argument coming from Zelaya. All that he has been saying is that he was a victim of a coup, without explicitly arguing what prevented the military or the SCJ to act the way he did?
The resolution of the OAS also lacks any sort of legal arguing. It just declare that this a coup.
I am also of the opinion the the illegalities in his “exile” does not affect the decision by the SCJ. It only makes the military involved subjected to some sort of legal penalty. It does not absolve Zelaya.
This was not a coup, professor. The worse thing you can say is that this was a justice malpractice and that the SCJ was unfair to him. But this fall very short from being a disruption of the constitutional order.
July 5th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I have not yet had time to look at the order. However, even if everything you say is correct, the moment that Zelaya was arrested, not given a trial or hearing and then summarily exiled from the country and removed from office, you had a coup.
If they had arrested him and taken him to court, different story. But then again, I have maintained that from the beginning.
July 5th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
But he problem with your reasoning is that he has yet to be judged. They have an order to his “judicial detention”. They are not, as far as I know, declaring him guilty yet. He may try an “habeas corpus” and he will have, I´m assuming, the opportunity to defend himself against the charges. But, until the final decision or a suspension of the decision to suspend his powers as president, his mandate is suspended.
I don´t know if they can do that to the president. But courts order arrest or suspend functions of oficials without warning or hearings all the time.
In Brazil this would not happen, because the Congress have to impeach the president before the SCJ can accept the denounce. Or, to say in other words, once the SCJ starts the process, the President is no longer the President.
Now, the Honduran constitution does not have that provision about impeachment. So, apparently if the President commits a crime, he will be treated as any other official (although all rulings will have to come from the SCJ which is the appropriate forum). Otherwise, he would be untouchable and, in fact, above the law. Which is absurd and unconstitutional.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Vladimir,
You keep arguing as if there is an ongoing process here. He has already been removed from office and replaced (what Micheletti has called a “constitutional substitution”) and there remains the not inconsequential exile issue. And the Honduran government does not want a trial, as they will not let his plane land.
No, the road to a legal process was short circuited, hence the it was a coup.
And there is no way one can look at what has been going on since about this time last week and say that it is part of an orderly, legal process.