Rules of the Game: Nicaragua's Contentious Constitutional Debate
McConnell, Shelley
The Constitution has become a battleground for political actors seeking to shape state institutions in ways which will promote their own political agenda. When the Sandinista Revolution triumphed...
...redefine diplomatic immunity...
...If the boycott drags on through December, then the FSLN and the Center Group alliance will be in a position-without negotiating with the Right-to name the four Court members who will replace its current appointees...
...Once legitimated in a constitution, these interests and procedures have great weight in determining the outcome of political, social and economic events...
...Finally, the most Assembly also served as the Constituent Assembly, conflictive issues may be suppressed altogether lest the Coordinadora didn't take part in the constitutional they torpedo progress in areas that are ripe for com- debates...
...4. Carl Schmitt, Teoria de la Constituci6n (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1982...
...Rather, it is a second-level election, and all second-level elections occupy a secondary position in terms of legitimacy...
...The Subcommittee on Constitutional Affairs then drew on these findings to compose the first draft of the Constitution...
...1 1 The National Assembly and executive branch are already in a position to punish Court members for unpopular decisions by not reappointing them when their terms are up, but a dismissal law might allow for more immediate repercussions...
...Orlando Trejos, speech at the opening ceremony of the First International Conference on the Protection, Strengthening, and Dignification of the Judicial Power, held at the Olof Palme Con- vention Center, Managua, September 4, 1991...
...The Coordinadora in interpreting the constitution at a later date through represented the business sector and remnants of the ordinary law...
...2. Barricada (Managua), January 11, 1987...
...The split within the UNO has, since last September, prevented the Assembly from attaining any kind of leg- islative consensus, culminating in a constitutional crisis...
...Having government action boycotted the 1984 but do not specify the Vice-President Godoy and President Chamorro as UNO candidates in 1989...
...Within the Assembly, the Sandinistas welcomed the ruling since it rendered Decree 11-90 impotent and thus helped to preserve the property allocation their government had fostered...
...The UNO legal advisory in the National Assembly has advanced two unofficial proposals for such a law...
...In August of of general principles in keeping with both socialist 1989, rules for the elections were agreed upon at a rhetorical and U.S...
...Such a pact could help to consolidate Nicaragua's developing democracy...
...7. Interview with Dr...
...Above all, Nicaragua's polarized political climate makes it difficult to reach a compromise on constitutional reform...
...VOL XXVII, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1993 25 REFERENCES Rules of the Game: Nicaragua's Contentious Constitutional Debate The author is indebted to David Dye and the Central America Historical Institute (CAHI) for generously making available recent information and interviews from Nicaragua...
...Ironically, in the 1986 constitutional process, it was San24NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24REPORT ON DEMOCRACY dinista politicians in search of a minimal political consensus with which to institutionalize and legitimate the revolutionary regime who wrote a constitution riddled with programmatic clauses and conflicting principles...
...The bill would prohibit presidential re-election or election of the president's family members...
...Interview with Roger Guevara Mena, September, 1991...
...By com- National Dialogue among all 21 of Nicaragua's parbining principles of representative and participatory ties...
...Second,' document was the programmatic provi- limited range of sions, which express opposition groups at objectives for future the table...
...In July of 1990, the National Assembly made changes in the Organic Law of Courts that increased the number of Supreme Court Justices from seven to nine...
...It was very respectful, declaring publicly that it had no alternative other than to accept [the ruling], and so it did out of respect for the Supreme Court and judicial power...
...they may be incom- Another factor patible in terms of facilitating the protheir logical conse- duction of the 1987 quences...
...While this specificity may protect Justices from arbitrary dismissal, many politicians have rejected its list of unseemly behavior as crude and insulting to the Supreme Court members...
...They impart a set of first principles to the process of government, which, when effective, provides a democratic and consensual framework for ongoing struggle and debate...
...The use of the Constitution to promote immediate partisan interests is perhaps eroding its legitimacy as a foundation for the evolving political democracy...
...Historically, the Nicaraguan judiciary has been firmly under the control of the executive branch...
...This is a situation very different from the years of the Cesar-dominated Assembly...
...Both Cesar and Roger Guevara Mena, Vice-President Virgilio Godoy's legal advisor who reflects the reactionary current in the UNO, argue that Sandinista Justices on the Court are subject to party discipline and thus cannot make independent decisions free of partisan influence...
...But it is interesting to see how that conflict is expressed and resolved in different cases...
...Supreme Court votes are a matter of public record, leading Justice Chamorro Mora to worry that Court members might be targeted for removal, based on how they vote on controversial issues...
...1 3 The most direct way to resolve conflict over the division of powers in Nicaragua would be through constitutional reform...
...The Sandinistas need the Constitution as never before to defend their civil rights and to protect their political project...
...In the absence of fundamental agreements on economic and social issues, it is by no means clear that Nicaragua's political institutions can contain the deep conflicts that once fueled revolutionary and counterrevolutionary wars...
...All seven of the original Supreme Court Justices were Sandinista appointees, appointed to six-year terms...
...In a press conference, Cesar said that "the independence of the primary power of the nation is at stake" and that the FSLN was boycotting the Assembly because "it is the only power in this country that has resisted being controlled by the Sandinistas...
...23, p. 80...
...The question "How will the UNO govern in light of continuing Sandinista strength...
...The UNO Right now controls 45 votes in the Assembly...
...On December 2, Supreme Court President Trejos instructed the executive branch to ensure Cesar's adherence to the Court's pronouncement...
...The FSLN increasingly opts for a liberal model of democracy-one person, one vote-in the political arena, but sticks to socialist democracy-to each according to his/her needs-in the social and economic spheres...
...Cesar termed the vote "just another opinion" and non-binding, and continued to hold sessions...
...1. Dr...
...One version would specify in detail the causes for dismissal...
...President Chamorro responded with a letter (pub- lished by La Prensa) to a group of U.S...
...Article 43, prohibiting extradition, conflicts with some of the international covenants embraced in the Constitution...
...The process of constitution-making is therefore a key part of any transition to democracy...
...Barricada (Managua), February 7, 1993...
...But even this is controversial...
...limit presidential power over the budget and the organization of state ministries...
...At least some conservatives feel that since the Court has no direct constituency, it is undemocratic to allow it to overturn executive decrees or laws passed by the National Assembly...
...Information on the National Assembly crisis and the National Dialogue was largely drawn from CAHI memos...
...Immediately following the 1990 elections, the UNO drafted a reform bill which contains virtually all the old Coordinadora demands for constitutional reform...
...In the absence of constitutional reform, the struggle over the division of powers has manifested itself in the passage and reform of ordinary laws like the Organic Law of Courts...
...On numerous occasions over the first year, UNO delegates from one faction or the other voted with the FSLN bloc to defeat proposals generated within the UNO coalition...
...The Committee was divided into three subcommittees which spent a year studying options and preparing an initial draft...
...Democratic constitutions don't guarantee a democratic form of government-much less a democratic society-but they provide a framework of rules, moral principles and legitimating beliefs to be drawn on by lawmakers and citizens in times of conflict...
...Conservative thinking on the legitimacy of the Court's right to judicial review is mixed [see "A Test of Judicial Authority," p. 25...
...E A TEST OF JUDICIAL AUTHORITY A good indicator of the independence and effective- ness of the Supreme Court is the nature of its judi- cial review rulings, and the degree of compliance with them...
...The property law conflict is perhaps the dclearest expression of the parties' differing conceptions of democracy...
...All translated quo- tations in this article are taken from that source...
...As revolutionary improvisation gave way to the sober process of constitution-making, those principles found form in Nicaragua's current Constitution...
...The Sandinistas were slow to changed the strategic environment in which the Congenerate such interpretive laws, but in the 1990s these stitution operated...
...In September, Chamorro sup- ported the Sandinista position, issuing a veto of 17 articles and one full chapter of the new law, largely on the basis that these portions of the law violated the constitutional division of powers...
...Off-setting these positive developments, the Court's independence is threatened by proposals to dismiss Justices for uncertain causes, and by the efforts of some UNO members to pack the Court by raising the total number of justices beyond the current nine...
...Chamorro's chief legal advisor recalls: It was necessary to appoint different people, to balance the Supreme Court...
...1 2 Increasing the independence and effectiveness of the judiciary, however, is a frequently articulated goal in transitions to democracy...
...While this makes reform difficult, it also means that, were a reform to be passed, it would represent a pact among a broad spectrum of Nicaraguan political parties...
...SM VOL XXVII, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1993 23REPORT ON DEMOCRACY Courts and also judge if the initiative is valid or not...
...The Court's membership has been changed through a pact, suggesting broader backing and legitimacy for the Court...
...Similarly, the Constitution guarantees private property, but also calls for agrarian reform and worker participation in management...
...On November 27, the Supreme Court, by a vote of 7-2, ruled that the matter transcended the realm of "internal organization" of the legislature...
...As members of the subcommittee, they were denied visas to the United States, though as "independent scholars," several attended a seminar on constitutional law held at Princeton University...
...What the Assembly can do now is lift the immunity of the Justices, but once it is lifted, the matter goes to the common courts because the courts determine guilt...
...The compromises represented in the final promise...
...These openings were filled by people without current links to any party, although some were historically members of parties within the UNO and maintained personal contacts there...
...Significant sectors of constitution...
...2 The document as a whole was endorsed by 89 of the 96 delegates in the National Assembly...
...As the four branches of government compete to protect and increase their areas of authority, they do so increasingly in constitutional terms...
...The Subcommittee on National Consultations sought the opinions of political parties, religious groups, business groups, labor unions, women's organizations and ethnic groups about what should be included in the Constitution...
...Judges enjoy immunity...
...Some 150,000 copies were circulated throughout the country, and submitted for public discussion in 73 open forums organized by region and social sector...
...It also had lation, governments may proceed as they choose, important allies in the Catholic Church and the influsometimes overtly in contradiction to the ential newspaper La Prensa...
...The composition of next year's Court will depend on the on-going power struggle in the legislature [see "Who Controls the National Assembly...
...1 4 To date, no constitutional reform bill has been introduced in the legislature...
...f the UNO Right...
...It appears to have been the product of negotiations between the executive, the legislature and the Court...
...senators, chiding Cesar for failing to abide by the Appeals Court decision...
...No electoral ratification was required...
...with phrases like "in the cases established by law," and "as determined by law," which postponed debate icaragua's 1990 elections, in which voters about the details of the political system and which delivered an upset victory to the conservative provided openings for the National Assembly to inter- . UNO led by Violeta Chamorro, fundamentally pret the Constitution...
...7 e o The influential former president of the National Assembly, Alfredo Cesar, continually insisted that no Sandinistas would be chosen to serve on the Court when the legislature-under his control-made new appointments...
...bly...
...Conflict over the division of state powers is not a new element in transitions to democracy...
...With the threat of dismissal hanging over their heads, Supreme Court Justices could find it difficult to maintain the Court's institutional independence...
...regulate the jurisdiction of military courts...
...allow conscientious-objector status...
...SM 1. Interview with an UNO appointee to the Court, Managua, August, 1991...
...constitutional traditions...
...In addition, scattered throughout the cally diverse constituents...
...Although the National Assembly seemed primed to override her veto, which requires only 50% plus one extra vote in the National Assembly, legislators chose instead to redraft the law...
...Since the Sandinistas practice strong party discipline in the legislature, the UNO is obliged to persuade the FSLN as a party that reforms are worthwhile, or fail in the venture...
...Thomas Delaney, head of the legal advisory group in the executive branch, September, 1991...
...Media coverage of the new policies seems to have raised citizens' awareness of the guarantees provided in the Constitution...
...Cesar and the right wing represented by Godoy are boycotting the National Assembly, which is now controlled by the FSLN and its weak alliance with the UNO Center Group...
...She portrayed her actions as the dutiful implementation of the Supreme Court ruling that Cesar was illegally holding legislative sessions without a quorum...
...national law and nationalism, the Constitution Instead, the UNO coalition, representing 12 parties appealed to a broad audience...
...The final draft was approved on November 19, and took effect on January 9, 1987...
...Interview with Dr...
...6 Throughout 1988 principles and programmatic clauses...
...Interview with a UNO appointee to the Court, August, 1991...
...The UNO will clearly not accept this as legitimate, and neither will the Court...
...Rafael Chamorro Mora, August, 1991...
...This February, Daniel Ortega proposed abolishing Article 96, which established compulsory military service...
...making can be said to have advanced the transition to Not surprisingly, the Coordinadora denounced the democracy at all...
...Aredo Cesar, form Within months of taking office, the UNO government challenged the preponderance of Sandinista appointees on the Supreme Court...
...remove the word "Sandinista" from the name of the army, and prohibit military personnel from voting...
...She announced her refusal to sanction any legislative acts carried out by the Assembly as long as it lacked a legal quorum...
...On the other hand, the FSLN does not consider legitimate Cesar's proposed scenario--no Sandinistas on the Court...
...The Constitution specifies that there should be seven or more Justices, appointed by the National Assembly from a list proposed by the President...
...8. Interviews with Alfredo Cesar and Roger Guevara Mena, Sep- tember, 1991...
...Constitutional scholars point out that several strategies can be used to construct workable-and democra20NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20REPORT ON DEMOCRACY tic-constitutions in mixed principles and highly conflictive sit- programmatic clauses uations...
...Since the National different, less confrontational arena...
...This nine-member arrangement bears all the marks of a political pact...
...What was initially expected to be a contentious debate in the National Assembly went smoothly, with proposals for a 15-member Court defeated by colleagues within the UNO in exchange for Sandinista support for the increase to nine Justices...
...Of the 202 articles in the Constitution, 58 received unanimous approval, 117 passed with at least 80% of the votes, and 19 others with 70...
...The case, however, raises enormous political questions about the viability of the Sandinista model of democracy and its extension into the post-Sandinista period...
...The UNO Right is now boycotting the Assembly, and Chamorro finds herself reliant on the party she defeated in the general election to support her legislative agenda...
...In the absence of such interpretive legis- historically strong Conservative Party...
...9. An English-language translation of the 1987 Constitution is provided in Kenneth Mijeski, ed., The Nicaragua Constitution of 1987 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University, 1991...
...The Executive immediately announced that it supported the decision of the Supreme Court," reported an UNO appointee to the Court...
...15, 1987...
...The opposition dropped its demand that constitu- democracy, of socialism and capitalism, and of inter- tional reforms be implemented prior to the elections...
...3 To begin have provided a toewith, the text may hold for the governcontain and even ing National Opposicombine divergent tion Union (UNO) as ideological princi- it has sought to ples at high levels of implement a new abstraction, although political agenda...
...9 When the Sandinistas were in power, they did not draft a law to regulate dismissal proceedings against Supreme Court Justices...
...The FSLN-Center Group alliance controls 47, a bare majority...
...Then, under the guidance of National Assembly President Alfredo Cesar, the UNO coalition was able to unify around a core agenda, and through much of 1991, suc- cessfully passed key pieces of legislation...
...Upon his return to Managua, Cesar backed Sanchez' position on the Appeals Court ruling, and threatened to sanction legislators who continued to boycott the Assembly...
...3. See Miriam Kornblith, "The Politics of Constitution-making: Constitutions and Democracy in Venezuela," Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol...
...It nullified the Assembly's election of September 2 and all legislative actions taken since that date...
...8 By this logic, the entire left-wing of Nicaragua's political spectrum-all parties practicing party discipline--could become permanently excluded r National Assembly from the Court...
...elections, the political lega pcts ecies- They now represent opposing factions of the governing coalition...
...The FSLN open- and 1989, the FSLN consistently refused to discuss ly advocated an unconstraining constitution made up these reforms with opposition leaders...
...change the way Supreme Court magistrates are appointed to allow consultation with the bar association, university law schools and the Court itself...
...5. Article 2, for example, states, "Power is exercised by the people directly and through their representatives," thereby mixing the principles of direct and representative democracy with no guidance concerning where each applies...
...1 0 Others go further, suggesting that the proposals circulating in the UNO are unconstitutional...
...On September 2, the FSLN and the Center Group, protesting Cesar's questionable maneuvering to fill a vacancy on the executive board, boycotted a National Assembly session, thereby deliberately preventing a quorum on the date the Assembly was scheduled to elect two new secretaries...
...In doing so, they exposed it to interpretation by the UNO-dominated National Assembly, which threatened to chip away at the remnants of the revolutionary regime using precisely those compromise provisions which were expected to preserve it...
...1 5 The proposal has been accepted-with some dissent-by the FSLN, and hearings have been held in the Assembly, but given the current legislative impasse, its fate remains uncertain...
...the Court has passed a crucial test of its authority over the Executive...
...These principles, of course, are themselves the objects of debate, and inevitably reflect a preference for--or the dominance of--certain interests and procedures over others...
...5 The question of how drawn from both the Coordinadora and the parliamenthese conflicting principles would be reconciled in tary opposition, incorporated these demands into its practical terms was left to be worked out later through campaign platform as a rallying point for its ideologiordinary law...
...The UNO won 51 of the 92 seats in the National Assembly, a simple majority...
...Excessive use of conflicting principles and parties which had participated in the 1984 elections programmatic clauses gives legislators wide discretion and held seats in the legislature...
...At the same time, two Sandinista Justices suddenly resigned their positions on the Court, leaving a total of four seats open on the nine-member Court...
...Although on one important occasion, the UNOled legislature refused to submit to a Court ruling [see "Who Controls the National Assembly...
...The branches of state have fallen under the influence of different actors with divergent political = agendas, and each actor has tried to strengthen the institution in which it has the most influence...
...According to press reports, it lists behavior 22 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 22REPORT ON DEMOCRACY such as drunkenness and gambling as reasons for starting dismissal proceedings...
...We think that this is unconstitutional because nobody can accuse someone and judge him at the same time...
...The UNO delegates rapidly split into two groups: one made up of rightists allied with Vice-President Virgilio Godoy and members of the recently disarmed Contras, and the other consisting of moderate centrists...
...The Sandinista representatives staged a walkout rather than participate in debates on the law, which the FSLN viewed as blatantly unconstitutional...
...p. 23...
...Nicaragua's current Constitution began to be crafted in 1985 with the appointment of a Special Constitutional Committee composed of representatives from all seven of the political parties holding seats in Nicaragua's elected legislature, the National AssemShelley McConnell teaches political science at Bard College in Annandale, NY An earlier version of this article was presented to the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies in 1991...
...The elections themselves, for VOL XXVII, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1993 21REPORT ON DEMOCRACY example, partially allayed concerns over whether or not the Constitution provided adequate guarantees of due process, civil liberties, and human rights...
...abolish the Preamble because it establishes a special relationship between the FSLN and the state...
...The ruling on Decree 11-90 met with a mixed response...
...further distinguish the state from the FSLN by establishing national symbols and by prohibiting use of state facilities and resources by political parties...
...Constitution, and in December of 1987 demanded 17 The 1987 Constitution is peppered with conflicting substantial constitutional reforms...
...In the legislature's internal election, held January 9, a quorum elected Center Group deputy Gustavo Tablada as president...
...The UNO Right accused Chamorro of a "coup d'6tat A la Peru...
...The National Assembly is empowered in Article 138 to "consider and acknowledge the resignation or dismissal of Judges of the Supreme Court of Justice, of Members of the Supreme Electoral Council or the Controller General of the Republic...
...4 In such cases, the constitution simply Nicaraguan society were thus excluded from the conlacks force, and it is doubtful whether constitution- stitution-making process...
...Virtually all these reforms Constitution are programmatic clauses, beginning remain on the UNO political agenda...
...If the dismissal draft is introduced into the Assembly and passed into law, it will surely be challenged in court and overturned as unconstitutional...
...The Constitution underlies the UNO government's legitimacy, and gives President Chamorro authority over the army despite its Sandinista sympathies...
...In the course of the struggle over the constitutional division of powers, political democracy has on occasion been served...
...The Assembly proceeded to elect the secretaries, only to have an Appeals Court judge suspend the election until the Supreme Court could rule on its legality...
...The draft was then revised, and submitted to the legislature for debate in full session, an event widely covered by the local press...
...Even now, warns Supreme Court President Orlando Trejos, "sectors with a recognized and undoubtedly democratic ideology are proclaiming the establishment of a dictatorship, suggesting and almost urging that the Executive Power take the 'reins' of the Judicial Power...
...Four of the five Sandinista appointees come up for reappointment this December, and the fifth in April...
...Obviously this was a political accord between the three powers...
...The members of the Court are unified in their opposition to the National Assembly's claim that it has the power to dismiss them...
...In 1991, the Court found that two key clauses of presidential decree 11-90, which set up an authority to review property confiscations, were unconstitutional on the grounds that powers constitutionally allocated to the judiciary were improperly given to an administrative agency...
...The unified stance of conservatives and Sandinista appointees on the Court against the UNO proposals makes them seem somewhat a dead letter...
...The new law won the unanimous backing of UNO representatives in the National Assembly...
...Many citizens active in politics-to preserve or to change the status quo-are now using the Constitution as a point of reference...
...But the UNO majority subsequently passed a property law which included an article similar to the one ruled unconstitutional by the Court...
...The key obstacle to constitutional reform is the distribution of seats in the National Assembly...
...It states that Supreme Court Justices may be dismissed for "bad performance" and "public conduct contrary to morality and respectability...
...tio the it legal precepts neces- parties in the rightsary for immediate application, allow thorny issues to wing Coordinadora Democrfitica opposition alliance be postponed for discussion at some future time in a had no seats in the legislature...
...The substance of the ruling was that the agency designed to evaluate claims concerning the return of properties confiscated by the Sandinista government could not make accusations of wrongful ownership, pass judgement on the charge, and order a property transfer...
...A second proposal is more general, leaving room for interpretation and politicization of the law...
...Judgements, the Court ruled, were properly the purview of the courts...
...AII Nicaragua's major actors have a stake in the Constitution for the first time since its incepion...
...She would also like to thank the NACLA editors for assistance in the revision of this article...
...has been partially answered: "By finding cracks in the Sandinistas' institutionalization...
...No ceiling is mentioned, leaving the judicial branch vulnerable to court-packing schemes...
...the Sandinistas won 39 seats, enabling them to block constitutional reforms, which require a 60% vote in the legislature...
...When the Sandinista Revolution triumphed in 1979, Nicaragua had already gone through 10 constitutions, generated and discarded by a succession of dictators and generals according to their political needs.' After overthrowing the Somoza dynasty, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) used a variety of revolutionary, socialist and liberal-democratic principles to gradually cobble together a replacement for Somoza's autocratic, personalistic form of government...
...Recently however, the UNO has split again into an ultra-conservative majority led by Cesar and Godoy, and a moderate "center group" which has tenuously allied itself with the FSLN...
...There were negotiations there by certain people so that two of the Justices resigned and made space for new ones to enter and balance the Court, to be left with an independent Court...
...A conservative Justice terms this a "dangerous pretension," arguing that the Assembly "has the power to consider but not decide...
...The legislative body's acting president Luis Sanchez (National Assembly President Alfredo Cesar was out of the country) rejected the ruling, saying that the Constitution did not give the judiciary the authority to decide quarrels involving the internal organization of other branches of state...
...6. See "Pronunciamiento de reformas del gobierno de la Rep0blica de Nicaragua sobre la 'Propuesta de Reformas Constitucionales' presentado por los partidos y agrupaciones politicas participantes an el Dialogo Nacional," Dec...
...One hundred and sixty-five articles were approved by at least half of the 34 opposition-party representatives...
...Article 162 of the Constitution states: "Judges L shall serve for a term of six years and may be I dismissed from their position only for reasons determined by law...
...During Chamorro's first three years in office, the Constitution has become a battleground for political actors seeking to shape state institutions in ways which will further their interests...
...Supreme Court Justices uniformly assert that their decisions are based on juridical rather than political criteria...
...Given the acute social polarization in Nicaragua, a remarkably high level of consensus on the final draft was reached within the National Assembly...
...President Chamorro then ordered the Ministry of Governance to safeguard the National Assembly building and its archives, and named a provisional governing board to oversee internal elections for a new president and gov- erning board of the Assembly...
...Instead of the expected bipolar division between the UNO and the FSLN, a more complicated and fluid set of alignments emerged from the elections of 1990...
...The Subcommittee on International Affairs traveled to a number of Latin American and European countries-including seven Communist countries-to compare different constitutional laws and political systems...
...and finally, establish a tribunal to "consider and decide conflicts between the powers of state, between municipalities and the central government, and between the Autonomous Region of the Atlantic Coast and the Central Government...
...Drafting a version of the text which the President would be politically capable of implementing seemed less risky than a showdown in the Court...
...A day after Sanchez' statement, Supreme Court President Orlando Trejos (an UNO appointee) wamed the Assembly that adherence to the lower court ruling was mandatory...
...It also elected a governing board made up of three Sandinistas, three members of the Center Group, and one "neutral" member of the Assembly...
...set new criteria for appointment to the Supreme Electoral Council...
...The draft was issued on February 21, 1986...
...Justice Rafael Chamorro Mora, a Sandinista appointee, explains: The Assembly wants to impose the causes for dismissal of Justices of the Supreme Court and at the same time take initiative toward dismissal of Justices of the Who Controls the National Assembly...
...Even counting on the elusive unity between right and center, and on the two independent votes in the Assembly, the UNO can-at the very most-muster 53 of the 55 votes required to reform individual articles of the Constitution...
...document only extended to the so-called "parliamen- These strategies, of course, are not without their tary opposition," the centrist and left-wing opposition dangers...
...A court," opines Guevara Mena, Godoy's legal advisor, "cannot impose obstacles to legitimate representation because the magistrates of the Supreme Court do not have popular representation...
...Rafael Chamorro Mora, "Historia Constitucional," unpub- lished presentation, August 22, 1985...
...The Supreme Court has ruled two Presidential decrees unconstitutional, and had its rulings respected...
...In the absence of negotiated agreements between the Sandinistas and the UNO about property rights, any such law seems destined to be challenged on constitutional grounds...
...Ante-Proyecto de Reforma Parcial de la Constituci6n Politica," unpublished draft secured from the UNO...
...At the same time, a new struggle over the division of powers emerged among the branches of the state...
Vol. 27 • September 1993 • No. 2
