817.041/13: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in Nicaragua (Munro)
144. Your 246, September 16, 2 p.m. Legation’s cables do not make it clear how Supreme Court has acted in its removal of judges. Supreme Court has no power to remove another judge by administrative act. All it could do would be to declare the title void in a judicial trial. Congress also apparently has no power to remove judges by administrative act. It could initiate impeachment proceedings which properly would not lie here, the judges having committed no misconduct or removable offence. Their title to their office is defective and that presents a judicial question provided it is brought up in the proper way.
On account of this, the Department has felt safest course is to have the Chamorro judges resign and Congress make a new appointment. This also has the advantage of not tending to disturb the decisions of the de facto judges. However, now that everybody apparently agrees that title of Chamorro judges is illegal and void in a case like Leon where the illegal judge has actually given up the office and the former legal judge has reassumed it, it seems the latter’s title would be perfectly good without any further action. Therefore, if you can work out a compromise such as suggested in your 219, August 31, 9 a.m., by which both sides will recognize the reorganized court at Leon, the court at Bluefields can be hereafter reorganized according to the way suggested. Unless all parties agree, however, and it is, definitely understood that the Leon case does not constitute a precedent for disregarding decisions by the de facto courts, a situation which should be guarded against in every possible way, the Department will have to take the definite stand that Supreme Court cannot remove the judges as an administrative act.