Friday, October 15, 2010

Regime prepares path for its own constitutional changes

VIERNES 15 DE OCTUBRE DE 2010 09:39 RED MORAZÁNICA DE INFORMACIÓN

Tegucigalpa, September 8, 2010

The president of the Legislature, Juan Orlando Hermandez, congratulated the head of the continuing coup government, Porfirio Lobo, for "promoting dialogue" and that Lobo  "send (to the Congress) anything that will create the conditions to revise Article 5, so that no one can prevent consultation with the  people."

Hernandez assured Lobo that the revision could  be "ready" before the end of this legislative session in December.

The preceeding congress, under the coup maker, Roberto Micheletti Bain, approved a law governing plebicites and referendums that contained 36 articles and proposed rules for Article 5 of the Constitution through a long list of restrictions. Included in these restrictions is that a call for a plebecite would have to be published three times in two of the newspapers with major circulation in the country; the referendum would have to be published once and it could not be called within six months of the general elections.

The approval of the Special Law of Plebiscite and Referendum had the open intention of impeding the project for the Fourth Urn of President Manuel Zelaya.

That law established that it is not possible to consult the people on any reform of Article 374 of the Constitution of the Republic, which states that, in no instance, can there be any changes to the (constitutional) articles related to the form of government, the national territory, the presidential terms, or to the prohibition of any subsequent election to the presidency of anyone who has occupied that function under any title.

According to this law, it is also impossible to change affairs related to tax questions, public credit, amnesty, national currency, budget, treaties, international agreements and social well-being.

The initiative to convene a plebiscite or referendum can occur with at least 10 members of the National Congress; the President of the Republic with a resolution of the Council of Secretaries of  State; or with 6 percent of the citizens registered with the National Electoral Census, approximately 4.6 million people.

Roberto Micheletti, at that time the president of the Congress, called the law a "great advance for Honduran Democracy".
Later  the Congress which conspired to organize the coup d'etat annulled the Law of Citizen Participation that was sponsored by President Manuel Zelaya and approved in the legislature by Micheletti, who did so with the condition that Zelaya would support him as president of the executive committee of the congress.

This article was translated by VC from
 
Preparan camino a su propia constituyente. Golpismo se mueve acelerado a revisar artículo 5 constitucional para plebiscito y referéndum

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