Under Article IV, Section 11 of the Commonwealth Constitution, when elected commonwealth officials disagree over their powers under the CNMI Constitution or a commonwealth statute, the parties may ask the Supreme Court to answer a particular legal question to settle the dispute. In the present case, the attorney general, on behalf of the commonwealth government, and the secretary of the Department of Public Lands, requested that the court answer whether Public Law 16-31 is constitutional.
The Constitution established two constitutional entities to administer public lands.
The Marianas Public Land Corp. was established as the initial temporary agency with the power to manage and dispose of public lands, and the Marianas Public Land Trust was established as a permanent constitutional entity designed to receive and invest revenues derived from public lands for the benefit of commonwealth people of Northern Marianas descent.
In 2006, the Legislature passed the Public Lands Act, which established DPL to manage and administer the commonwealth’s public lands.
The court held that money received from leases and other transfers of public lands is constitutionally required to be transferred by DPL to MPLT to hold in trust for the benefit of people of Northern Marianas descent.
The court explained that CNMI Constitution drafters made clear that MPLT would receive the funds generated from public lands even after the MPLC dissolved.
The court further explained that if one of the functions of MPLT is to receive the funds from public lands, then any attempt by the Legislature to spend those funds before they reach the trust would infringe upon the Constitution, and frustrate the framers’ intent to utilize the public lands for the best interest of the people of the commonwealth who are of Northern Marianas descent.
Accordingly, the court ruled that Public Law 16-31 is unconstitutional.
The court recognized that if Public Law 16-31 was held to be valid, DPL’s operations budget would be overwhelmed by land compensation judgments and MPLT would effectively be defunded to the detriment of people of Northern Marianas descent.
