Supreme Court rulings re-balanced power

2010 will go down as the year when the Navajo Nation Supreme Court changed the balance of power in Window Rock.

In its role as final interpreter of the law, the high court issued a series of far-reaching rulings that went far towards rebalancing power between the executive and legislative branches.

Most of the decisions were prompted by the debate over reducing the membership of the Navajo Nation Council, which had brought the two other branches into fruitless conflict for most of the year.

The court affirmed the Dec. 15, 2009, special election to reduce the Council from 88 to 24 members, laying down the principle that only the Navajo people have the right to determine the shape of their government. The ruling sharply curtailed the Council's power to prevent changes approved by ballot initiative.

The court acted again when the legislative branch - which includes the Navajo Election Administration - tried to delay the reduction on grounds that there was not time to create new districts in time for the 2010 elections.

President Joe Shirley Jr. petitioned the court to order the redistricting, pointing to redistricting plans the executive branch had drawn up and presented in public hearings throughout the spring.

The Supreme Court again made it clear that the voters' wishes had to be respected, and ordered the Navajo Board of Election Supervisors to work with the president's office and choose a reapportionment plan so the election of 24 delegates could proceed.

The court also took care of some unfinished business from 2009, limiting the power of the Council to remove the president and declaring that the Council had acted illegally when it put Shirley on administrative leave in October 2009.

It also ordered the Council to reinstate the Commission on Navajo Government Development, which was set up in 1990 to help the Navajo people create a government best suited to their wishes.

The court also threw out a Council referendum aimed at converting the Navajo Nation judiciary to elective positions.

And when Chief Legislative Council Frank Seanez issued a memo to his clients - the Council - advising them to ignore the rulings on the judge referendum and the government development commission, the Supreme Court inflicted the most severe penalty possible. It disbarred Seanez, calling his actions "gross misconduct." (It later changed the disbarment to a suspension.)

And in a defining moment, the Supreme Court rejected a Council effort to prohibit the use of Diné Fundamental Law in court rulings.

Taken together, the Navajo Nation Supreme Court's actions of 2010 marked its emergence as a fully empowered member of the three-branch system of government, and did much to bring the other two branches closer to balance.

NEXT, No. 2 Road to 24-member Council held unexpected twists

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