Decree 33-2022

This decree completely eliminates the Law on Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDE) approved in 2013, arguing that it violates the Constitution by affecting Honduras's national territory and form of government. The decree declares null all laws, decrees, and decisions related to ZEDEs, and establishes that there will be no compensation for the revocation of contracts or concessions linked to these zones.

The Constitution of Honduras, which has been in force since 1982, established that Honduras is a State of Law, free, sovereign and independent, whose form of government is republican, democratic and representative. The power or sovereignty belongs solely to the people, which shall be exercised in a representative manner and by the free decision of the Honduran people, through three (3) powers: Executive, Legislative and Judicial throughout the entire national territory. And, that no person, group or other nation can usurp popular sovereignty, nor usurp the powers of the State.

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

The Constitution of the Republic imposes limits on the constituted powers or powers of the State. These limits that are denominated as formal and material. Formal limits that are deduced from the establishment of the constitutional amendment process and from the submission to the Constitution of the Republic that ordinary or secondary laws must be subject to, such as this Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), since the Constitution itself establishes what formal or procedural requirements the Legislative Power must comply with or observe in order to be able to amend the Constitution of the Republic and to be able to approve ordinary or secondary laws such as the Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE). As well as material limits, which are observed when the constituent power establishes intangibility clauses or unamendable provisions, because they defend values, principles and contents or specific topics 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 topics or matters, which the constituent configured as intangible or unamendable articles, are found the form of government and national territory, established in Article 374 of the Constitution. This means that all those articles or provisions of the Constitution that contain these protected topics or matters are denominated as intangible or unamendable articles, better known as unamendable provisions. That all ordinary or secondary laws, such as the Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), must be subject to the supremacy of the Constitution of the Republic.

On June 12, 2013, the Legislative Power approved the Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), through Decree No. 120-2013 published in the Official Journal "La Gaceta" on September 6, 2013, under number 33,222. Said organic law that develops the formation of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), based on a constitutional amendment that created and configured them, was violated with it, altering, modifying and damaging national territory, the sovereignty and independence of the Republic, usurping popular sovereignty and usurping the three (3) powers of the State through the configuration of exclusive institutions for private zones, of private companies and to grant privileges to a group of persons to the detriment of all Hondurans, creating this regime of ZEDE and institutions with functions, competencies, attributions and powers that constitutionally are the proper or exclusive domain of the Executive and Legislative Powers. Also, altering and modifying in these zones (ZEDE) the system of administration of justice, allowing it to be usurped by other judicial or jurisdictional systems of other countries. A power that is only proper and exclusive in Honduras of the Judicial Branch throughout the entire national territory. In effect, also severely altering, violating and modifying our form of government.

The constituent established as unamendable or irreformable these specific topics of the form of government and national territory, among others, with the objective that the authorities respect, protect and defend these topics, the form of government and national territory, against situations such as these, that is, of these Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), of an invasion, of ceding, of selling or of giving away national territory or, of altering, or replacing with 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, in that the power, which is the sovereign Honduran people, will be exercised throughout the entire national territory by the three (3) powers of the State established.

The Legislative Power of the Republic, far from complying with constitutional legality, respecting the Constitution and the prohibitions to powers, by approving and ratifying through constitutional amendment the creation of these Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) and incorporating them into the constitutional text and through the approval of the Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) as well as any other legislation that exists and derives from it, are null by operation of law, lack legal validity, because their creation was made outside the Constitution, without faculties to create this type of ordinary or secondary laws and violating or overstepping the formal and material limits imposed by the constituent on the legislator and on the constituted powers or powers of the State; having a strict prohibition in Article 374 of the Constitution of the Republic, so as not to reform articles 294, 303, 304 and 329 and to approve said Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), overstepped and violated the formal limits, of procedure and material limits, of content, such as, the form of government and national territory. Similarly, as in the hierarchy of Law the constitutional amendment or reform law, the organic law or secondary or ordinary law have a rank of law inferior to the original Constitution, especially in the face of intangibility clauses or unamendable provisions, the Legislative Power of previous periods by overstepping and violating the limits mentioned in the previous paragraph, produced to the constitutional amendment and to the Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) a nullity of constitutional origin, for which its approval and ratification lacks legal validity, for being outside the Constitution of the Republic. Consequently, the Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) and all those legal norms that derive from the constitutional amendment and from said organic law, such as other laws, regulations, resolutions, as well as any provision, contracts, concessions or any legislation and/or decision, etc., related to Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) lack legal validity. Since no authority has faculties to create this type of decision or secondary laws, violating or overstepping 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 intangible or unamendable clauses, to maintain constitutional order, sovereignty and the democratic system.

In accordance with articles 321, 323 and 374 of the Constitution, this National Congress 2022-2026 does not recognize any judgment, opinion or resolution of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice and of the Supreme Court of Justice in full in favor of these Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE). Since it is widely known that any judgment or any judicial decision that violates the unamendable provisions lacks legal validity, as it has become clear that the constituted powers, among them, the Judicial Power do not have the faculty to reform (via jurisprudence), modify or alter and violate the unamendable provisions of our Constitution (article 374 of the Constitution). Since the constituent power imposed limits on the three powers of the State, that includes the Judicial Power. Limits that the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Supreme Court of Justice itself, when issuing judgments and judicial decisions in favor of these Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), also violated them in terms of the prohibition of reforming, by any other means, or in any manner and in no case, the protected, unamendable or irreformable articles, that affect, modify or alter the form of government and national territory of Honduras, Article 374.

The revocation of any provision, contract, concession, etc., linked, issued or dictated in favor of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) will not generate indemnifications of any kind, to any natural person, to any company and to any investor. Since no natural person, company or investor has rights to claim over an illicit business, stemming from this excessive violation of our Constitution, of sovereignty and of the dignity of all Hondurans. Since even though Honduras makes its own the principles and practices of international law, Article 15 of the Constitution, no treaty or international agreement is above the Constitution, Article 17 of the Constitution, nor does any organic law stand above the Constitution, Article 320 of the Constitution. The Constitution is categorical regarding that, for a treaty or international agreement that affects a constitutional provision, worse yet, that produces such a grave violation, as it is, in this case, of the unamendable, intangible or irreformable articles, and thus the treaty becomes part of the internal law of Honduras, that is, that it becomes mandatory for the State of Honduras to comply with it, it must comply with the constitutional requirements, one of them is, that the international treaty must be approved by the procedure that governs constitutional amendment and simultaneously the constitutional article affected by the treaty must be modified in the same sense, before said treaty is ratified by the State of Honduras, Article 17 of the Constitution. However, everything was done with constitutional illegality or outside what is established in the Constitution. Since, on one hand, the procedure to modify the affected constitutional article was not done, which are the unamendable provisions, these, in accordance with the Constitution, may only be modified through a plebiscite or referendum or a national constituent assembly, and this was not done that way. Another is to have the constitutional faculty to approve and ratify said constitutional amendment; which was not had, due to the strict constitutional prohibition to the powers of the State from modifying or altering the intangible or unamendable articles, article 374 of the Constitution. On the contrary, the Legislative Power of previous periods, by approving and ratifying the creation of these Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) and incorporating them into the Constitution and approving this organic law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE), violated the formal limits (of procedure) and material limits (of content, which is grave), such as, the form of government and national territory.

That due to this recognition that the Constitution makes regarding the separation and limits imposed by the constituent power to the constituted power or powers of the State, where it is noted that constitutional laws or laws of amendment or constitutional amendments, this organic law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) as a secondary or ordinary law are under clear and precise limits (constitutional amendment procedure and intangibility clauses) and, that these are not on the same level 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, articles 205.1, 323, 374 of the Constitution, to repeal the Organic Law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) because it violates the formal or material limits established in the Constitution, such as the intangibility, unamendable or unamendable clauses.

This National Congress 2022-2026 will not allow the form of government and national territory of Honduras to be violated, affected, damaged, modified or altered, nor will it allow the sovereignty of the people to be violated through this organic law of Employment Zones and Economic Development (ZEDE) or ordinary or secondary law, which overstepped the limits imposed by the constituent power in the Constitution on the constituted powers or powers of the State; since, "to proceed otherwise would mean destroying the logic of the constitutional State, granting to a legally limited power,... (...)... the attributions of sovereign power."

It is the faculty of the National Congress, in accordance with Article 205 Attribution 1 of the Constitution of the Republic, to Create, Decree, Interpret, Amend and Repeal the Law.