‘Atalig was Senate counsel when Brown was confirmed’

Malite estate lead counsel Pedro Atalig acted as temporary legal counsel for the Senate when it confirmed the nomination of attorney general Pamela Brown on Nov. 17, 2003 and had taken the position that the takeover by the Senate faction that rejected her nomination before was invalid.

Assistant attorney general James Livingstone disclosed this statement in a recent pleading he filed with the Superior Court on behalf of Brown, opposing the request of the Malite case defendants to dismiss the lawsuit.

Livingstone asserted that the Sept. 17, 2003 rejection of Brown’s nomination by the four-member Senate faction led by Pete Reyes was invalid because the former Senate president, Paul Manglona, did not call for the special session.

He said that only the governor and the Senate president could call for special sessions of the Upper House.

Livingstone said that Atalig shared this view when he represented senators Manglona, Joaquin Adriano and Diego Songao in a separate lawsuit that sought to declare the takeover of the Reyes’ faction and the latter’s actions invalid.

“In the Senate action, Pedro Atalig, on behalf of his clients, took the position that the Sept. 9, 2003 session was ‘unlawful’ because Paul Manglona, the Senate president, did not call the special session, as the NMI Constitution requires, and because of a lack of quorum,” Livingstone said.

Superior Court judge Kenneth Govendo, however, abstained from ruling on that case, treating the matter as a political question.

In yesterday’s hearing before the courtroom of Superior Court judge Juan T. Lizama, Atalig objected to Livingstone’s statement that cited the Malite estate attorney’s presence in the Nov. 17, 2003 Senate session that confirmed Brown, on the ground that that statement is not evidence.

Lizama allowed Livingstone to proceed with his argument, but questioned and rebutted the government attorney several times. The defendants jointly asked that Livingstone’s pleading, which was submitted last Friday, be stricken out from the records.

The three-hour hearing also focused on the defendants’ request to impose sanctions on the CNMI government over the last-minute withdrawal of its injunction request last Dec. 23. The defendants’ lawyers are asking the court to assess the government a total of over $30,000 in attorney’s fees and costs.