Decree 32-2022

This decree nullifies two constitutional reforms from 2013 that created Special Economic Zones and Employment Zones (ZEDE). Congress considers these zones violated untouchable constitutional articles regarding the form of government and national territory. It declares that all laws, contracts, and decisions derived from the ZEDE lack legal validity.

Whereas, the Constitution of the Republic of Honduras, which has been in effect since 1982, established that Honduras is a State governed by law, free, sovereign, and independent, whose form of government is republican, democratic, and representative. Whereas, power or sovereignty belongs exclusively to the people, which shall be exercised in a representative manner and through the free decision of the Honduran people, through three (3) Powers: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial throughout the entire national territory. Whereas, no person, group, or other nation can supplant popular sovereignty or usurp the Powers of the State.

Whereas, constituent power is configured as an originating power, creator of a new order, a prior power that, in the exercise of its sovereign faculties, organizes and establishes the attributions, competencies, powers, scope, and limits of the three (3) Powers of the State or constituted powers. These constituted powers or powers of the State, which are a derived power, not originating, that act as delegates of that constituent power, constitute a power subordinate to constitutional legality and to the Constitution of the Republic.

Whereas, the Constitution of the Republic imposes limits on the constituted powers or powers of the State. These limits, known as formal and material limits. Formal limits that derive from the establishment of the constitutional reform process, since the Constitution itself establishes what formal or procedural requirements the Legislative Power must comply with or observe in order to reform the Constitution of the Republic. As well as material limits, which are observed when the constituent power establishes clauses of intangibility or entrenched clauses, because they defend values, principles, and contents or specific matters that the constituent itself decided to protect, thereby prohibiting the constituted power or powers of the State from reforming or modifying them. Among these specific matters or subjects, which the constituent configured as intangible or irreformable articles, are found the form of government and national territory, established in Article 374 of the Constitution of the Republic. This means that all those articles or precepts thereof that contain such protected matters are denominated intangible or irreformable articles, known as entrenched articles.

Whereas, on January 23, 2013, the Legislative Power approved the reform of articles 294, 303, 304, and 329 of the Constitution of the Republic, by means of Decree No. 236-2012 published in the Official Gazette "La Gaceta" on January 24, 2013, under Number 33,033. An approval that was ratified on January 30, 2013, by means of Decree No. 09-2013 published in the Official Gazette "La Gaceta" on March 20, 2013, under Number 33,080. Creating through this constitutional reform the Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), thereby violating, altering, modifying, and damaging the national territory, sovereignty, and independence of the Republic, supplanting popular sovereignty and usurping the three (3) powers of the State through the configuration of exclusive institutions for private zones, private companies, and to grant privileges to a group of persons to the detriment of all Hondurans, creating this regime of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), and institutions with functions, competencies, attributions, and powers that are constitutionally the exclusive province of the Executive and Legislative Powers. Likewise, altering and modifying through these Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) the system of administration of justice, allowing it to be supplanted by other judicial or jurisdictional systems of other countries. A power that is exclusively the province of the Judicial Power in Honduras. In short, also severely altering, violating, and modifying our form of government.

Whereas, the constituent power established in the Constitution of the Republic as entrenched or irreformable these specific matters concerning the form of government and national territory, among others, with the objective that the authorities respect, protect, and defend these matters such as: The form of government and national territory, in the face of situations such as these, that is, these Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), an invasion, ceding, selling, or donating the national territory, or altering, or supplanting under any other name or figure, the form of government that is established in articles 1, 2, and 4, among other articles of the Constitution of the Republic, insofar as power, which is the sovereign Honduran people, shall be exercised throughout the entire national territory by the three (3) powers of the State established in the Constitution of the Republic of Honduras.

Whereas, the Legislative Power constituted in the period 2022-2026, far from complying with constitutional legality, respecting the Constitution of the Republic, including prohibitions on the constituted powers or powers of the State established in the Constitution of the Republic, by approving and ratifying through constitutional reform the creation of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), having a categorical prohibition in Article 374 against reforming articles 294, 303, 304, and 329, exceeded and violated the formal limits of procedure and material limits of content, such as the form of government and national territory. Likewise, as in the hierarchy of Law the constitutional reform or reform law has a rank of law inferior to the original Constitution, especially in the face of clauses of intangibility or entrenched articles, the Legislative Power constituted in periods prior to, by exceeding and violating the limits related above, produced for the constitutional reform an original constitutional nullity, so its approval and ratification lacks legal validity, being absolutely outside the margin of the Constitution of the Republic. Consequently, all those legal norms that derive from this constitutional reform, such as organic law, laws, regulations, resolutions, as well as any provision, contracts, concessions, or all normative and/or decision, etc., related to Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) lack legal validity. Since no authority has the faculties to create this type of decision or secondary laws, violating or exceeding the formal and material limits imposed by the constituent on the powers of the State, which protect our national territory and form of government, in addition to material values that transcend the formal, such as the sovereignty and independence of the Honduran people. Because constitutional legality responds to values and principles that the constituent power protects through these clauses of intangibility or entrenched articles, to maintain the constitutional order, sovereignty, and the democratic system.

Whereas, in accordance with articles 321, 323, and 374 of the Constitution of the Republic, this National Congress of the 2022-2026 period does not recognize any sentence, opinion, or decision of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) and of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) in full in favor of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE). Since it is common knowledge that any sentence or judicial resolution that violates the entrenched articles lacks legal validity, as it has been made clear that the constituted powers, including the Judicial Power, do not have the faculties to reform through jurisprudence, modify, or alter and violate the entrenched articles of the Constitution of the Republic, Article 374. Since the constituent power imposed limits on the three (3) powers of the State, which includes the Judicial Power. Limits that the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) and the Full Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), in issuing sentences and judicial resolutions in favor of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), also violated in regard to the prohibition of reforming, by any other means, or in any manner and in no case, the protected entrenched or irreformable articles that affect, modify, or alter the form of government and the national territory of Honduras as established in Article 374 of the Constitution of the Republic.

Whereas, the revocation of any provision, contract, concession, etc., linked to, issued, or issued in favor of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) shall not generate indemnities of any kind, to any natural person, to any company, and to any investor; no natural person, company, or investor has rights to claim over an illicit business, arising from this excessive violation of the Constitution of the Republic, of sovereignty, and of the dignity of all Hondurans. By virtue of the fact that even though Honduras makes its own the principles and practices of International Law, as established in Article 15 of the Constitution of the Republic, no international treaty or agreement is superior to the Constitution as established in Article 17, being this categorical in that, for an international treaty or agreement that affects a constitutional provision, especially when it affects and produces such a grave violation, as in this case, the entrenched, intangible, or irreformable articles, and thus the Treaty becomes part of Honduran Domestic Law, that is, that it be mandatory; it must comply with constitutional requirements, one of which is that the international treaty must be approved by the procedure that governs constitutional reform and simultaneously the article affected by the treaty must be modified in the same sense before it is ratified by the State of Honduras said treaty as established in Article 17. However, everything was done with constitutional illegality or outside what is established in it. Since the procedure to modify the affected constitutional article was not carried out, which are the entrenched articles, these, in accordance with said supreme body of law and for everything that has been developed in the statement of reasons, can only be modified through a plebiscite or referendum or a constituent national assembly, without this occurring, as well as not having the constitutional faculty to approve and ratify said constitutional reform; which was not had, because of the categorical prohibition on the powers of the State to modify or alter the intangible or entrenched articles, established in Article 374. On the contrary, the Legislative Power constituted in previous periods, in approving and ratifying the creation of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) and incorporating them into the Constitution of the Republic, violated the formal limits of procedure and material limits of content, which is grave, such as the form of government and national territory.

Whereas, by virtue of the recognition in the Constitution of the Republic regarding the separation and limits imposed by the constituent power on the constituted power or powers of the State, where it is established that constitutional laws or reform laws or constitutional reforms have clear and precise limits, in accordance with the procedure for constitutional reform and the clauses of intangibility, and given that these do not find themselves on the same plane as the original Constitution, it is considered that it is not only an attribution, faculty, or power of the Legislative Power, but also that it becomes an obligation for this power of the State in accordance with its constitutional mandate contained in articles 205.1, 323, and 374; to repeal those constitutional reforms or reform laws and any secondary law that may violate the formal or material limits established, such as the procedure for reform and the clauses of intangibility.

Whereas, the National Congress of the 2022-2026 period is committed to not permitting that the form of government and national territory be violated, affected, harmed, modified, or altered, as well as the sovereignty of the people, through constitutional reforms or reform laws, ordinary or secondary laws that exceeded the limits imposed by the constituent power in the Constitution of the Republic on the constituted powers or powers of the State; since proceeding in another manner would mean destroying the logic of the constitutional State, granting to a legally limited power, the attributions of sovereign power.

Whereas, Article 374 of the Constitution of the Republic establishes that "The preceding article, this article, the constitutional articles that refer to the form of government, to the national territory, to the presidential period, to the prohibition of being President of the Republic again, the citizen who shall have served it under any title, and that referring to those who cannot be Presidents of the Republic for the subsequent period shall not be reformed in any case"; which leaves no margin for a constituted power to invalidate, fail to apply, reform, or repeal these originating and immovable precepts, which reflect the will of the original power.

Whereas, in accordance with Article 205, Attribution 1) of the Constitution of the Republic, it is the faculty of the National Congress: To create, decree, interpret, reform, and repeal laws.