Briefings & Intelligence

30-04-2015: Latin American Weekly Report

  • LatinNews

Honduran supreme court lifts constitutional ban on re-election

Events in Honduras in late April have begun to look like a mirror image (that is, an image in reverse) of those that led in June 2009 to the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009). The constitutional panel of the supreme court has ruled ‘inapplicable’ the very constitutional provisions whose violations by Zelaya triggered his removal from office. As in 2009, the course of current events has been anything but straightforward — to the point that Zelaya has become one of the most vocal critics of the court’s ruling, on the grounds that it is “illegal and arbitrary”.

At stake are the so-called artículos pétreos (“articles cast in stone”) of the 1982 constitution excluded from the legislature’s power to reform the constitution by a two-thirds vote — particularly the core Article 239 which bars the reelection of anyone who has served as President and penalises anyone seeking to change this (a provision strengthened by Article 42 and Article 330 of the penal code).

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