In case you haven’t been following events in Honduras, the president was just ousted by the military. However, it appears that the president was pressing ahead with referendum to extend his term in office that the Supreme Court and the legislature had declared illegal. The military was apparently acting on a court order.
SecState Clinton has condemned the military’s action, saying that “Honduras must embrace the principles of democracy and respect constitutional order.” Arguably, however, the military’s action was respectful of constitutional order. Who’s correct here?
Hard call. I’m not a Honduran constitutional law guy, so I can’t speak with any certainty here - but in the American system, our Supreme Court has no power at all to command the military. If the US Supreme Court ruled that the President was engaged in illegal action, and he persisted in it, that would be grounds for impeachment.
That’s what troubles me about this coup. I have a great deal of sympathy for the military’s position here - Zelaya certainly seemed to be concentrating too much power in the presidency, and keeping himself in that office through fair means or foul. He was almost certainly acting unlawfully - both the Honduran legislature and Supreme Court said so. But the problem is that the legislature took no action to impeach the President. If they’d done that, and lawfully voted to oust the President, and Zelaya ignored it - then I could see the military acting legitimately, once the legal process had run its course. They may not have done that here - unless, of course, the Honduran Supreme Court really does have the “police” power to command the military to act, and used it.
The ones that are incorrect are the ones that made the latest move.
The Honduran military was saying that Chavez was sending troops to Honduras and for that reason it had to remove the president.
Sorry, that was the excuse the day before yesterday, since there was no evidence then yesterday the court claimed that they approved that the military had to **arrest **Zelaya.
Sorry, now we should forget all that, today the military reported that Zelaya resigned and left the country.
Can we swallow all that?
Of course then if Zelaya resigned why in heck are they arresting their followers? (I do not think it is to play Parcheesi)
Why was all media shut down?
Why all electricity and communications cut?
No, the saying goes that two wrongs don’t make a right, in this case the right in Honduras is doing a plethora of wrongs.
As a final example of how wrong this is, they coup plotters claim that Micheletti was the vice president, nope.
Aristides Mejia Carranza is the actual vice president.
“If holding a poll provokes a coup, the abduction of the president and expulsion from his country, then what kind of democracy are we living in?” - Manuel Zelaya
Well, that isn’t really a fair way to put the issue. It’s more like “If holding a poll after the Supreme Court rules it to be unconstitutional, the legislature says likewise, and I attempt to rally the mobs to seize ballot-boxes from a military airbase - if holding a coup after all this provokes a coup, the abduction of the president and expulsion from his country, then what kind of democracy are we living in?”
The answer is, “a fragile one”. The military was wrong to stage this coup, I think - the Congress should have conducted impeachment proceedings, and waited to see how those were resolved - but it isn’t as if Zelaya is a particularly good guy. He’s another Chavez, and he’s a serious threat to Honduran democracy in his own right. Shame of it is, this coup was precisely the wrong way to get rid of him. Odds are that it’ll fail, Zelaya will get back in, and now he’ll be able to present himself as a victim.
Is formal impeachment a necessary requirement for anything, though?
Military Officers take an oath to uphold The Constitution - at what point are you allowed to skip all the rigamarole and uphold the rule of law? I’m not fully acquainted with the facts here, but if the supreme court has already ruled on the constitutionality of the executive’s action, then I wouldn’t necessarily require a formal trial before acting out against the unconstitutional act.
I’m not saying that all depositions, or even this one, are justified once the subject of the deposition crosses some arbitrary line of “not respecting the rule of law”, but I don’t think the correctness of the coup hinges on whether the president was formally impeached or not.
Formal trials are the very essence of the rule of law. The military here acted without the benefit of same, and thus they aren’t enforcing the rule of law at all. The Honduran Supreme Court probably doesn’t have the power to remove the President directly - few Supreme Courts do. The Congress does, though. If Congress had acted to remove the President, and he ignored that action, or prevent Congress from meeting, then it would be appropriate for the military to act. But until that time, the Constitutional mechanisms still have a chance to work - and when the military preempts them, they aren’t protecting the Constitutional any more.
Try this example: Say that I’ve been convicted of first degree murder in a jurisdiction that has the death penalty, but not yet sentenced. My jailers, upon hearing of my conviction, decide to spare everyone the trouble of a sentencing hearing, and hang me in my cell. Are they upholding the rule of law? No, clearly not - even though the court has stated that I am a bad guy, the legal process to determine what will become of me hasn’t run its course yet. Those jailers are nothing more than vigilantes - and so, too, are those who implemented the coup in Honduras.
What if the legislature doesn’t follow the rule of law then, either? So now the supreme court has declared X to be unconstitutional, and neither the legislature nor the executive will enforce that declaration. What then?
At some bottom line, the rule of law means more than just providing due process, it means using force to enforce the rulings of law
here’s from the Honduran Supreme Court (via Wikipedia), and is what i’m getting at…
The Supreme Court stated "The armed forces, in charge of supporting the constitution, acted to defend the state of law and have been forced to apply legal dispositions against those who have expressed themselves publicly and acted against the dispositions of the basic law
What ruling? The opinion that stated the referendum was unconstitutional didn’t go on to order the President’s removal - and later reports that the Supreme Court has ordered his removal must be viewed with the greatest skepticism. (Military juntas are not exactly bastions of truthfullness). This is my point - yes, it is proper to use force to protect the rule of law. But in this case, the use of force preempted the legal process - there was no ruling mandating the result the coup plotters chose.
As for your point that the Congress might have chosen not to impeach Zelaya if he proceeded with his referendum effort - well, this is one of the perils of living in a democracy. Modern democratic republics place great power in the hands of their legislatures, and sometimes those legislatures drop the ball. It happens, and the remedy comes at election time. Not at gunpoint.
I note, in passing, that it isn’t at all unusual for disputes to arise in modern democracies which have no judicial remedy. In the United States, for example, the federal courts will ordinarily refuse to even hear cases involving “political questions” - issues in which the decision-making power is vested solely in the political branches. For example, the Supremes will very rarely decide foreign policy cases on the merits. In these cases, the political branches and the voters are usually left to duke it out themselves.
If the Supreme Court actually said that, absent duress, then that’s probably dispositive as a legal matter. In the United States, the Supreme Court cannot get the law “wrong” in the strictest sense- the law is what they say it is, full stop. However, this would certainly seem to be an unfortunate statement - for the Court to endorse a military solution before legal options had been exhausted seems unwise.
I still wonder how the military can take that and not **arrest **the president and put him on trial.
The military did the equivalent of saying that “We decided to reinterpret that arrest order, we let him go because he resigned.” :rolleyes: “Oh, but we will take care of all those fellow travelers that remain in Honduras”
This was a legally non-binding poll on whether or not to hold a referendum during the November elections on convening a constitutional assembly to address such questions as removing the one-term limit on the presidency. I’ve seen nastier power plays coming from my stepsons over who gets next turn with the Legos.
The National Congress of the Honduras has a strong minority opposition in the form of the National Party, and the acting head of state Micheletti has had a history of conflict with Zelaya, which leads me to think he might be much more sympathetic to the PN than his own (and Zelaya’s) party, the Liberal Party. I’ve looked at the Christian Democratic Party of the Honduras’ website and they seem to be opposed to the referendum (and sour on Zelaya) as well; with the PDC and the PN acting as a bloc in Congress, it pits their 59 seats against the PL’s 62 - a plurality narrow enough for the bloc to force issues if they’re determined enough. It also appears that there are other members of the PL besides Micheletti who are opposed to Zelaya, so that would definitely work out in the PN’s favor. No idea where the other two parties in Congress stand on the issue, but even one of them opposing the referendum would further tip the balance. Furthermore, the Honduran Supreme Court ruled the poll unconstitutional not on its merits but at the request of Congress - the decision, IMO, was stained with partisan politics from the get-go.
Missing one important detail from the story: the commanding general refused to distribute the election materials to the soldiers, basing his decision on the SC and Congressional decisions; Zelaya (in keeping with his powers as president) fired him. The SC reversed the general’s removal as ‘unconstitutional’ (even though, as I understand it, it wasn’t) and that sparked off the protests where Zelaya and supporters went to the airbase to collect the election materials. What the purpose of that maneuver was I don’t fully understand, but since the poll was supposed to be conducted today and the materials hadn’t even been distributed, they most likely weren’t filled ballots waiting to be cast. Furthermore, Zelaya appeared that same night - Friday - in a televised press conference alongside politicians from other parties (still trying to find out who) calling for unity and peace.
Contrast this with, for example, the 48-hour curfew and media blackout imposed by Micheletti immediately after the coup took place. The situation may be fragile, yes, but it would seem fairly clear to me who is on the side of democracy and who isn’t.
The military acted as guarantors of constitutional rule. Were they supposed to just stand by while Zelaya followed his buddy Chavez down the path towards President for Lifetime?
By not putting the president on trial the military and reactionary forces demonstrated that they overplayed their hand and they solved the issue by becoming even bigger outlaws.
And of course, the WSJ ignores the repression that is going on in Honduras right now. Closing all the media is good when right wingers do it.
YES!, the military must obey the orders of their commander in chief (AKA the president) and the constitution, they have not the right to decide when the president must be deposed, the FUCKING congress must impeach him if it wants, NOT the military.
Jeez, is that so hard to understand?, if Zelaya wants to follow Chavez, Hitler or Ghandi is a point that must concern him, the Honduran electorate and the Honduran Congress, NOT the military, and certainly NOT the WSJ. :mad:
