Quote:
Originally Posted by dksuddeth
[/COLOR]if the referendum was allowed by law, then why did the supreme court of honduras rule otherwise? point being, it was not a referendum allowed by law.
i'm at a loss to understand how you can seriously think that the actions of the honduran congress, the actual representing body of the people, was a more egregious violation of the constitution. moreover, it wasn't just the congress that elected to remove zelaya, but the court as well.
when the constitution does not specifically outline methods to remedy situations concerning violations of law, the peoples will (through their elected representatives) must take precedence. This was not a coup, no matter how you try to frame the argument. the constitutional process is what needs to be followed, not the 'democratic' process.
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I didnt say this referendum was allowed by law, I said referendums in general, like this are allowed by law, and this one was blocked by law because of the 180 days issue.
As far as processes for removal of a president, they ARE spelled out in the Honduran constitution. The supreme court has no power, by law, to order the president to be removed from power. The attorney general asked for the process of impeachment to be started, but congress had not gotten around to it by the time he was expelled from the country. What is more: the original order of the supreme court was just to arrest him (which still would not have removed him of the presidency), and the military decided on its own to exile him. The final piece of the puzzle that makes it all obvious is the faked letter of resignation.
In other words, while Zelaya violated the constitution in many ways, his removal was completely outside the bounds of the Honduran constitution as well. I don't know of any other word to describe the removal of a sitting president without doing the proper constitutional process than coup.
As you probably know well, American presidents have been found in the past of violating the constitution, and some even defied supreme court orders, and a couple even had impeachment processes against them.. Despite that, if the supreme court ever gave the order to the military to pick up the president and drop him off in Mexico, it would be a coup as well.
---------- Post added at 07:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:52 PM ----------
Oh, and by the way, it seems that the military there is a lot clearer on what they did than some here:
Top Honduran military lawyer: We broke the law - Americas - MiamiHerald.com