Institutional Crisis in Nicaragua

Everything identified as live forces of the Nicaraguan nation and the political parties that oppose the government of President Daniel Ortega, have reacted openly, with reasons, against the arbitrary decision of the constitutional commission of the Supreme Court that declared that Article 147 of the Nicaraguan Constitution that bans a consecutive re-election was “inapplicable”. The nullity of this decision stems from the fact that three liberal judges of the six that form the commission were absent and were arbitrarily substituted by Sandinista judges. Two of the judges that were absent declared that they were not properly summoned within the necessary time frame to be present. And a third one was out of the country. Actually, there was a maneuver contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and of the democratic norms so that the constitutional commission could swiftly issue a sentence declaring that an article of the Constitution, the mentioned 147, is inapplicable.

The decision that an article of the Constitution is inapplicable does not respond to the norms of constitutional law in terms of its interpretation. If what has happened in Nicaragua now were legitimate, at any time the Constitution could be modified without a duly convoked Constitutional Assembly, by a sentence of a commission of the Court without the participation of the whole Judicial Power.

Although this was a very regrettable maneuver, which constitutes a violation of the rule of law, perhaps it has its good side since it has awakened the national conscience to mobilize significant civic resources of the country on behalf of the vindication of its institutional life understood in terms of democracy and of republic. Moreover, in the international scene, due to the outrageous situation provoked by the Sandinista judges, there has been a condemnation with the purpose of checking the anti-democratic race that is taking place on the part of several governments of the inter-American system, including an aggression against the sovereignty of Honduras by those governments and also by the Organization of American States. In other words, this case of Nicaragua is considered as being part of a huge conspiracy by several governments in the region against the democratic institutions.

The opposition political parties and the civil society in Nicaragua are now undergoing a transcendent test to preserve the value of the authentic institutions of the republic.