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la tormenta perfecta del 9 de junio:
sánchez valle, promesa y la quiebra criolla
Más adelante el Tribunal reconoce los grandes cambios en
el desarrollo constitucional de Puerto Rico y valida la autoridad
del gobierno federal para renunciar a sus poderes aunque esto
no incluya revisar la historia.
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10 Continúa el Tribunal: “And contrary to petitioner’s claim, Puerto Rico’s trans-formative
constitutional moment does not lead to a different conclusion. True enough, that the
Commonwealth’s power to enact and enforce criminal law now proceeds, just as petitioner says,
from the Puerto Rico Constitution as ‘ordain[ed] and establish[ed]’ by ‘the people.’ P. R. Const.,
Preamble; see Brief for Petitioner 28-30. But that makes the Puerto Rican populace only the
most immediate source of such authority –and that is not what our dual-sovereignty decisions
make relevant. Back of the Puerto Rican people and their Constitution, the ‘ultimate’ source
of prosecutorial power remains the U. S. Congress, just as back of a city’s charter lies a state
government. Wheeler.. Congress, in Public Law 600, authorized Puerto Rico’s constitution-
making process in the first instance; the people of a territory could not legally have initiated that
process on their own. ... And Congress, in later legislation, both amended the draft charter and
gave it the indispensable stamp of approval; popular ratification, however meaningful, could not
have turned the convention’s handiwork into law. Put simply, Congress conferred the authority
to create the Puerto Rico Constitution, which in turn confers the authority to bring criminal
charges. That makes Congress the original source of power for Puerto Rico’s prosecutors– as it is
for the Federal Government’s. The island’s Constitution, significant though it is, does not break
the chain.
“Petitioner urges, in support of its different view, that Congress itself recognized the new
Constitution as “a democratic manifestation of the [people’s] will,” Brief for Petitioner 2 –but
far from disputing that point, we readily acknowledge it to be so. As petitioner notes, Public
Law 600 affirmed the ‘principle of government by consent’ and offered the Puerto Rican public
a ‘compact,’ under which they could ‘organize a government pursuant to a constitution of their
own adoption.’ §1, 64 Stat. 319; And the Constitution that Congress approved, as petitioner
again underscores, declares that “[w]e, the people’ of Puerto Rico, ‘create’ the Commonwealth–
a new political entity, “republican inform,” in which the people’s will is ‘sovereign []’ over the
government. P. R. Const., Preamble and Art. I, §§1–2; see Brief for Petitioner 2, 29-30; supra,
at 4. With that consented-to language, Congress ‘allow[ed] the people of Puerto Rico,’ in
petitioner’s words, to begin a new chapter of democratic self-governance.” Id, pp.7-8.
“Recall here the events of the mid-20th century –when Puerto Rico, just as petitioner
contends, underwent a profound change in its political system. See Brief for Petitioner 1-2 (‘[T]
he people of Puerto Rico [] engaged in an exercise of popular sovereignty . . . by adopting their
own Constitution establishing their own government to enact their own laws’). At that time,
Congress enacted Public Law 600 to authorize Puerto Rico’s adoption of a constitution, designed
to replace the federal statute that then structured the island’s governance. The people of Puerto
Rico capitalized on that opportunity, calling a constitutional convention and overwhelmingly
approving the charter it drafted. Once Congress approved that proposal –subject to several
important conditions accepted by the convention–the Commonwealth, a new political entity,
came into being.” Id, pp. 13.
“III Puerto Rico boasts ‘a relationship to the United States that has no parallel in our history.’…
And since the events of the early 1950’s, an integral aspect of that association has been the
Commonwealth’s wide-ranging self-rule, exercised under its own Constitution. As a result of
that charter, Puerto Rico today can avail itself of a wide variety of futures. But for purposes
of the Double Jeopardy Clause, the future is not what matters—and there is no getting away
from the past. Because the ultimate source of Puerto Rico’s prosecutorial power is the Federal
Government—because when we trace that authority all the way back, we arrive at the doorstep
of the U. S. Capitol—the Commonwealth and the United States are not separate sovereigns.
That means the two governments cannot “twice put” respondents Sánchez Valle and Gómez
Vázquez ‘in jeopardy’ for the ‘same offence.’ U. S. Const., Amdt. 5. We accordingly affirm the
judgment of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.” Id, pp.18.
Hemos omitido algunas citas de los volúmenes en que aparecen algunos casos por razones de
espacio.