{"id":369050,"date":"2022-05-24T06:05:50","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T20:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=369050"},"modified":"2022-05-24T06:05:50","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T20:05:50","slug":"torres-plans-to-appeal-decision-in-jgo-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/torres-plans-to-appeal-decision-in-jgo-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Torres plans  to appeal decision in JGO lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has notified the CNMI Supreme Court that it will be appealing Superior Court judge pro tempore Timothy Bellas\u2019 recent decision dismissing the governor\u2019s case against the House of Representatives\u2019 Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Torres\u2019 counsel, Gilbert Birnbrich, filed a notice of appeal with the CNMI Supreme Court last week, just a day after the issuance of Bellas\u2019 order, which supported the JGO\u2019s motion that sought to have Torres\u2019 case dismissed.<\/p>\n<p>According to Saipan Tribune archives, one of the main reasons Bellas granted the JGO\u2019s motion was because he determined that the committee can invoke legislative immunity and that the subpoena it issued to summon Torres\u2014which Torres had defied\u2014falls within the \u201clegitimate legislative sphere\u201d protected by the Speech or Debate Clause.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_365079\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-365079\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Torres-pix-PW-11-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-365079\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-365079\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Torres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Bellas explained that it is plain from the face of the complaint and the matters taken under judicial notice that the JGO was acting \u201cwithin the sphere of legitimate legislative activity,\u201d and the court need not inquire into the committee\u2019s motives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe subpoena covers seven subject areas that all relate to the governor\u2019s expenditure of public funds and use of government personnel and resources. Not only are these topics ones \u2018on which legislation could be had,\u2019 there is in fact pending legislation relating to more than one of these expenditures,\u201d Bellas said.<\/p>\n<p>As for Torres\u2019 argument that legislative immunity under the Speech and Debate Clause is not applicable to the JGO as a whole, Bellas said because the clause\u2019s central purpose is to provide legislative independence, the JGO may invoke the clause as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe court reads the language of Article II, Section 12 of the NMI Constitution broadly to effectuate its purpose of protecting legislative independence. The court finds no compelling reason to limit the protections of the Speech or Debate Clause to individual legislators only, and therefore the House standing committee may invoke legislative immunity as an affirmative defense from suit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The court also found that Torres, in his capacity as governor of the CNMI, is not immune to subpoenas issued by the legislative branch as he previously argued.<\/p>\n<p>In related news, Torres still faces criminal charges pursuant to alleged illegal first-class travel paid for by local funds. <\/p>\n<p>A hearing on the criminal charges will be held today at 3pm. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has notified the CNMI Supreme Court that it will be appealing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":365080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[8223],"class_list":["post-369050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-jgo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}