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CNMI Descent: Federalization law violates Covenant
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Posted on Mar 11 2009
The CNMI Descent for Self-Government and Indigenous Rights says the federalization law’s direct and immediate injury to the CNMI is not economic hardship but loss of constitutional right.
CNMI Descent supports the lawsuit filed by Gov. Benigno R. Fitial against the federal government.
In a 37-page amicus curiae to the lawsuit filed by the CNMI government against the U.S. government, CNMI Descent said the U.S. government misapprehends the true nature of the injury that Public Law 110-229 or the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 inflicts on the CNMI.
“That injury is not primarily economic in character, but rather constitutional, i.e., the violation of the Covenant, which is the constitution of the U.S.-CNMI union,” CNMI Descent said through counsels John E. Drury and Robert J. O’Connor.
It said the infringement on, and deprivation of, the CNMI Covenant-guaranteed right of self-government is the immediate and primary injury, not any economic harm that may ultimately result from that deprivation.
“The injury, in other words, does not consist primarily in the economic hardship that will result from the Act, but rather from the fact that the Act directly and presently removes from the CNMI the power to wield vital tools necessary to prevent that hardship from occurring, or to respond effectively when it does occur,” the group said.
CNMI Descent said the degree of intrusion into the internal affairs of the CNMI by Title VII Subtitle A of CNRA exceeds any federal interest served by the Act.
The group said the right to self-government, as provided in the Covenant, is not satisfied by “consultation with the governor of the Commonwealth” by federal officials in the exercise of total federal discretionary authority.
Title VII Subtitle A of the Resources Act is, therefore, “null, void and unlawfully unenforceable with respect to the CNMI,” the group said.
“The CNMI’s complaint should not be dismissed, and the injunction it seeks should be granted,” CNMI Descent said.
