Banana Republics | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Banana Republics | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Who's right? It's hard to say. Philip Giraldi of the American Conservative Defense Alliance may have put it best: 'there is no clear good and bad in what happened in Honduras.'

Without question, the Honduran constitution bars amendment via referendum of eight constitutional provisions, including term limits. However, does that provision apply to an advisory measure which does not directly address presidential tenure? Still, the Supreme Court made a clear and presumptively valid ruling, which bound the president. The National Congress and military should have ensured that the law was respected. Was his forcible removal by the military necessary? Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution states that anyone attempting to change the term limit 'will immediately cease in their functions.' Was it legitimate for the Court to decide that that is what he intended on doing in the future, even if he was not doing so today? If so, presumably he lost his office automatically. That still didn't necessarily warrant the military's bedtime arrest and exile, however.

What were Zelaya's plans? His intentions might have been malign, though Honduras is one of many countries where economic and political elites tend to help each other at the expense of the poor. Moreover, his critics had reason to worry that Zelaya hoped to follow the precedent created by Venezuela's Chavez, who has steadily dismantled legal restraints on presidential power and tenure, and eliminated protections for civil and political liberties. Nevertheless, suspicions alone provide a dubious basis for removing a president. Especially since Zelaya was constrained by the very institutions which removed him from power as well as his lack of popularity. Assume that his ouster was valid. His arrest and exile remain dubious. The latter certainly is extra-constitutional if not expressly illegal."