Lawyers of the Malite estate vehemently opposed the complaint filed by the Attorney General\u2019s Office, saying that the Malite heirs deserve just compensation after their land was obtained by the then Trust Territory government in 1968.<\/p>\n
By filing the complaint to freeze the payment of some $3.45 million, lawyer Pedro Atalig said the CNMI government effectively continues to maltreat the Malite heirs. Atalig also threatened to file a separate lawsuit against Pamela Brown to unseat her from her the AG post.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Malites were finagaga. They were treated like animals by the TT government. The CNMI government [AGO] continues to treat them like animals,\u201d Atalig said.<\/p>\n
Atalig echoed the statement by Superior Court judge Juan T. Lizama, who presided over a hearing on the AGO\u2019s request for temporary restraining order to stop the drawdown of funds for payment to the Malite estate.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinagaga. The government treated everybody like dirt,\u201d Lizama said during the hearing, eliciting claps from the jampacked gallery of the courtroom. The judge quickly reminded the audience, though, not to clap. Assistant attorney general Benjamin Sachs responded that the situation is not the fault of the CNMI government, adding that counsel represented the Malite estate during the Trust Territory court proceedings.<\/p>\n
After a hearing that lasted more than two hours, Lizama said he would study the issues presented before him. As of press time, the court has issued no TRO.<\/p>\n
Atalig argued against Sachs\u2019 request for a TRO, speaking almost entirely in Chamorro. In an interview after the hearing, he explained that Brown has no authority to bring the complaint before the court, questioning the validity of her confirmation as attorney general.<\/p>\n
He said Brown caused the filing of the suit despite the instruction of Gov. Juan N. Babauta to release the land compensation being claimed by the Malite estate. He said he would soon file a separate lawsuit against Brown, questioning her legitimacy as AG.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of respecting the decision of the governor, the Attorney General instituted a lawsuit in direct contravention of its client\u2019s wishes, the governor. When the governor ignores the AG\u2019s advice, the AG runs amok,\u201d Atalig said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe AG in the NMI is not an elected AG like Guam. However, the NMI AG treats herself as one ignoring the wishes of her client, Gov. Juan N. Babauta,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
Atalig said the court should not grant the request for a TRO because the AGO has not exhausted administrative remedies. Following the Marianas Public Lands Authority board\u2019s decision favoring land compensation for the Malite heirs on Aug. 13, 2004, the AGO never appealed the decision before the MPLA board.<\/p>\n
He said the AGO failed to appeal the decision within the time frame allowed by law. \u201cThus, plaintiff [CNMI government] has waived his administrative hearing and thus is precluded from appealing the board\u2019s decision\u2026for administrative hearing for any board action for which a party affected by its decision is aggrieved,\u201d Atalig said.<\/p>\n
Atalig justified that the estate is only claiming money damages, which would not result in irreparable injury to the CNMI government, citing precedent court rulings. He belittled the AGO\u2019s probability to succeed on the merits in the lawsuit it filed against the MPLA, its board members, the Commonwealth Development Authority, and the Malite estate\u2019s administrator.<\/p>\n
Atalig, a former CNMI Supreme Court justice and former MPLA board member, said public outcry would result if the court favors the AGO\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n
He also said the passage of pieces of legislation had the intent to compensate persons affected by the Trust Territory government\u2019s taking of private property based on eminent domain, referring to Public Laws 13-17, 13-25, and 13-37.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe statutes were created to bring to a close these outstanding land disputes between the government and private persons victimized by government taking of their private lands without just compensation,\u201d Atalig said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese pieces of legislation were forwarded to the AG\u2019s office for their review and comments before being signed into law by the governor. For the AG to now complain these statutes are improper or wrong, [and] disturbing and puzzling,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Atalig said that his sister, MPLA board member Benita Atalig-Manglona, abstained from voting on the land compensation request by the Malite estate, which was represented by the lawyer\u2019s co-counsel and brother, Antonio Atalig. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lawyers of the Malite estate vehemently opposed the complaint filed by the Attorney General\u2019s Office, saying that the Malite heirs deserve just compensation after their land was obtained by the then Trust Territory government in 1968.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86206","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}