Trader sues Obama over federalization law

A local businessman is suing U.S. President Barack Obama and some of his Cabinet members to stop the implementation of the federalization law, which, according to him, is lawfully unenforceable in the CNMI.

Joaquin Q. Atalig, through counsel Joseph E. Horey, asserted in the lawsuit he filed in federal court on Friday that the enforcement of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 affects his personal, professional, and political capacities.

Atalig is the proprietor of the Sunrise Hotel on Rota and certain rental apartment buildings on Saipan.

Aside from Obama, Atalig also named as co-defendants Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, State Secretary Hillary Clinton, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Atalig wants the U.S. District Court for the NMI to declare that CNRA as lawfully unenforceable and that its implementation and enforcement is valid and lawful only with the consent of the people of the CNMI.

Atalig said that that consent may be withdrawn in accordance with constitutional processes.

In the alternative, Atalig wants the court to declare as unconstitutional those provisions of the Covenant that authorize and allow the implementation and enforcement of the CNRA in the CNMI.

He wants the court to rule that the CNMI does not enjoy the full measure of self-government as required by the Trusteeship Agreement, and that the United States is obliged to establish a full measure of self-government in the CNMI.

Atalig, through Horey, wants the court to issue a mandatory injunction requiring Obama and his Cabinet to take all steps to establish a full measure of self-government in the CNMI, and to continue the progressive development of such self-government until it is fully established.

“This right of local self-government places substantive and enforceable limits on the power of the United States to legislate for the Northern Mariana Islands,” Horey said.

These limits, he said, are exceeded when, for example, the magnitude of the degree of intrusion into the internal affairs of the CNMI by a federal law exceeds the strength and legitimacy of the federal interest to be served by such legislation.

“The CNRA intrudes into the internal affairs of the CNMI to a great and substantial degree,” he said.

Horey said the implementation and enforcement of the CNRA in the CNMI inherently violates the Covenant’s guarantee of self-government to the people of the NMI, including Atalig.

Horey said that Obama has the duty to take care that the laws and treaties of the United States, including the Trusteeship Agreement, be faithfully executed.

“The President’s duty to take care that self-government be developed and established in the Northern Mariana Islands.is mandatory and not discretionary,” the lawyer said.

The Fitial administration had filed a lawsuit before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in an attempt to block the federal takeover of the local immigration system.

In November 2009, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Paul L. Friedman upheld the constitutionality of the law that applies federal immigration laws to the CNMI.