A Test of Judicial Authority
McConnell, Shelley
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. Although on one important...
...Judgements, the Court ruled, were properly the purview of the courts...
...1. Interview with an UNO appointee to the Court, Managua, August, 1991...
...The new law won the unanimous backing of UNO representatives in the National Assembly...
...Although on one important occasion, the UNOled legislature refused to submit to a Court ruling [see "Who Controls the National Assembly...
...The ruling on Decree 11-90 met with a mixed response...
...The Sandinista representatives staged a walkout rather than participate in debates on the law, which the FSLN viewed as blatantly unconstitutional...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...The property law conflict is perhaps the dclearest expression of the parties' differing conceptions of democracy...
...But the UNO majority subsequently passed a property law which included an article similar to the one ruled unconstitutional by the Court...
...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...
...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...
...The Executive immediately announced that it supported the decision of the Supreme Court," reported an UNO appointee to the Court...
...Drafting a version of the text which the President would be politically capable of implementing seemed less risky than a showdown in the Court...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...the Court has passed a crucial test of its authority over the Executive...
...The case, however, raises enormous political questions about the viability of the Sandinista model of democracy and its extension into the post-Sandinista period...
Vol. 27 • September 1993 • No. 2
