AG lawsuit vs Pai re-assigned to Govendo; Wiseman recuses self

Superior Court associate judge Kenneth L. Govendo has been assigned to handle the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham against Public Auditor Michael Pai.

Saipan Tribune learned that presiding judge Robert C. Naraja first assigned the case to associate judge David A. Wiseman but Wiseman recused himself from handling the matter, saying that Pai is a long-time acquaintance.

Wiseman said that he and Buckingham are also in a committee composed of only four members. Wiseman did not indicate which committee but Saipan Tribune learned from a source that it involves traffic cases.

Buckingham is suing Pai over the Office of the Public Auditor’s decision to hire two lawyers, describing it as “an imminent waste of public funds.”

A check with court records showed that the case’s last movement was in August, when Pai, through counsel Sean E. Frink, filed a motion to dismiss the case. Buckingham and co-plaintiff Finance Secretary Larrisa Larson, through assistant attorney general W. Allen Hazlip, opposed the motion.

As of yesterday, there was no court order for a hearing on the motion.

Buckingham and Larson allege that Pai’s actions in hiring lawyer Brian McMahon and Joseph Przyuski “threaten an imminent waste of public funds.” They want the court to rule that OPA’s contracts with McMahon and Przyuski are invalid and unenforceable.

Hazlip said that OPA’s attempts to renew McMahon’s contract failed to comply with the requirements of the CNMI Procurement Regulations.

The government lawyer also described Przyuski’s contract as “facially invalid” and was not executed or processed in compliance with the standards of the CNMI Excepted Service Personnel Regulations.

In Pai’s motion to dismiss, Frink asked the court to require Buckingham and Larson to follow the law and submit this case to the CNMI Supreme Court by way of a certified legal question.

“The Legislature and the CNMI people [have] made clear what they expect from their high level public servants when they disagree with each other about duties and obligations of their jobs: good faith negotiation and stipulation to the issues disagreed upon, and then the submittal of certified legal question to the CNMI Supreme Court,” Frink said.

This is a process that Buckingham and Larson have declined to follow until now, he added.

Frink said the court should dismiss the lawsuit in its entirety as it lacks subject matter jurisdiction.

If dismissal without prejudice is neither required by law nor in the best interests of justice, Pai asks the court to order a stay on this matter, with a direction to parties to submit a certified legal question to the Supreme Court, Frink said.

He questioned Buckingham and Larson’s move to ignore the constitutional provision that requires submitting a certified question to the Supreme Court and opting to embark on a “much more expensive and time-consuming process of first filing a lawsuit based upon an ancient and rarely used statutory supervision.”

In plaintiffs’ opposition, Hazlip said the motion to dismiss is legally unfounded and must be denied.

Hazlip said that Pai’s argument that the Superior Court lacks jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ claims “mischaracterizes the action alleged in plaintiffs’ complaint” and rests on a misinterpretation of the CNMI Constitution.

“This is an action by the Commonwealth to invalidate two public contracts unlawfully executed by OPA and thereby put an end to OPA’s ongoing and prospective expenditures of public funds on these unlawful contracts,” Hazlip said.