NMI Judiciary faces possible closure

The NMI Judiciary has informed the House Standing Committee on Ways and Means that due to budget constraints, it’s uncertain whether the CNMI’s court doors will remain open in the coming fiscal year.

Last Monday, the NMI Judiciary appeared before the House Standing Committee on Ways and Means for their budget hearing.

According to the Judiciary’s budget request, it needs $14.8 million to continue its operations. However, according to the Office of the Governor’s revised budget proposal, it is proposing a budget of $5.3 million for FY2025

Chief Justice Alexandro C. Castro informed the House panel that due to the over $9-million cut, whether the CNMI’s court doors remain open is uncertain.

“Today is a very important day for our people. If you look at the governor’s submission vs. the Judiciary’s submission, it’s really night and day. I will say that the million-dollar question is ‘should we keep the court doors open on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota or should we shut it down?’ The answer to that question is in your hands. On behalf of our people, I respectfully ask, let’s keep the doors of justice open in CNMI,” he said.

Castro expressed that the NMI Judiciary has done its constitutional duty to submit a budget that reflects the needs of the courts, and the Office of the Governor is just doing its constitutional duty to proportionally appropriate the funds available.

“Our constitution requires me to submit a budget that accurately reflects the needs of the courts on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. To do this, we asked all division in judiciary to submit their needs for FY2025. An in-house committee of the Judiciary went through these submissions and there after Presiding Judge Roberto Naraja and I submitted the budget now before you. Some of my staff and maybe some judges were not very happy of the submission because we did not incorporate every request. Had we considered all requests, from Rota, Tinian, and Saipan, our request would be more than $15 million now before you. The Executive Branch has fulfilled its constitutional duty by trying to proportionately allocate available funds. It is now before you, the Legislative Branch, to carefully examine whether the Judiciary has justified our FY2025 budget submission,” he said.

Naraja echoed Castro’s sentiment.

“Let’s keep the doors of justice open. The Superior Court division remains extremely understaffed which is why we continue to appear before this body asking for funding,” he said.

Rep. Ralph Yumul (Ind-Saipan), House Ways and Means committee chair, expressed that he is in support of the court’s request but it’s difficult to move funds around especially since all branches of government will be experiencing a 10% cut.

“The two branches don’t control the funds. Whatever is handed to us is all we have. I want to make that clear because a lot of the time our community blames this body for the proposal the administration sends us. I want to make it clear that we are in support of the court’s submission, but based on the amount given to us, the administration is asking both branches for an additional 10% cut and that makes it even more difficult for us to move funds around,” he said.

Based on the governor’s revised budget proposal, the administration has $111,474,011 to appropriate after its obligations.