The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to rule that Puerto Rico must remain a dependent US Territory and not an independent "sovereign" based on legal proceedings that goes back more than one hundred years ago.
According to a report by SCOTUS, this challenges the nation's claim that its commonwealth is a self-governing entity since 1952, and allows its people to have their own legislature to write its own laws. This includes writing its own criminal law. The Court will have a hearing on January 13 in the issue of criminal prosecutors using Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle.
Meanwhile, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported that Senate president Eduardo Bhatia said Friday that the nation' leader should prepare the people for its new relationship with the United States, which is based upon "political stability and democratic power." He said this statement after the US Justice Department announced that Puerto Rico is not a sovereign entity during the Sanchez Valle case filing.
Yahoo News also wrote that Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla sent a letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, saying that the new stance of the US Justice Department on the sovereignty of the nation contradicts the autonomy the country gained in the 1952 constitution. "I believe it is my moral obligation to defend and to clarify the historic record, not only before us, but before the courts, the United States and the international community," said Garcia Padilla.
Puerto Rico wants to be a self-governing entity through the Sanchez Valle case to prosecute two individuals suspected for gun crimes even though they have been convicted in federal court for the same incidents. This would normally violate the Constitutional ban on "double jeopardy." However, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban is not applicable if the same crime is punished in two courts from different "sovereign" entities, which usually are the state government and the federal government.
