Willens: MPLA autonomy inconsistent with Constitution

Allowing the Executive Branch to manage public lands would be more consistent with the CNMI Constitution, rather than keeping the autonomous status of the Marianas Public Lands Authority, according to the legal counsel of the First Constitutional Convention.

Assistant attorney general Howard Willens, who also serves as special legal counsel to Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, said the proposed legislation to abolish MPLA is fully consistent with the CNMI Constitution and the Covenant between the United States and the Northern Marianas.

According to Willens, the Covenant negotiators recognized that the CNMI government might create a special legal entity to manage public lands. This entity could be under the Legislative Branch or the Executive Branch, or an independent agency.

The First Constitutional Convention opted to create a separate entity—the Marianas Public Lands Corp.

In creating the MPLC, the Convention also included a provision that the corporation, after having been in effect for at least 10 years, “may” be dissolved and its functions transferred to the Executive Branch with the consent of two-thirds of the each house of the Legislature.

Willens noted that the 1985 Constitutional Convention amended this provision, making the dissolution of the corporation a requirement, rather than an optional matter.

The amendment provided that: “After this Constitution has been in effect for at least 12 years, the Corporation shall be dissolved and its functions shall be transferred to the executive branch of government.”

MPLC was dissolved on Aug. 23, 1994, through an executive order issued by then Gov. Froilan C. Tenorio. It was replaced by the autonomous Marianas Public Lands Authority.

Willens suggested that the enactment of legislation creating MPLA may have violated the constitutional amendment, which required that the functions of MPLC be transferred to the Executive Branch.

Hence, the bills that would abolish MPLA bring the management of public lands completely consistent with the provisions and intent of the Constitution.

“Abolition of MPLA and assignment of its duties to a traditional department within the Executive Branch has the additional merit of being fully in compliance with [the Constitution],” Willens said.