Camacho v. Civil Service Commission

• Decision Date: 08 February 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-4155,81-4155
• Citation: 666 F.2d 1257
• Parties: Carlos S. CAMACHO, Governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1257

666 F.2d 1257

Carlos S. CAMACHO, Governor of the Commonwealth of the

Northern Mariana Islands, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 81-4155.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Sept. 17, 1981.

Decided Feb. 1, 1982.

As Amended Feb. 8, 1982.

Randall T. Fennell, Ching, Rosenzweig & Boertzel, Saipan, for defendants-appellants.

Peter Van Name Esser, Michael De Agnelo, Saipan, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, Appellate Division.

Before WALLACE and FERGUSON, Circuit Judges, and TANNER, ^* District Judge.

FERGUSON, Circuit Judge:

I. BACKGROUND.

This case involves a separation of powers dispute between the executive and legislative branches of the government of the Northern Mariana Islands ("NMI"). At issue also is whether this court has jurisdiction to hear an appeal from a local law decision of the District Court for the NMI.

The origin of this case lies in an electoral switch in the November, 1979 general elections conducted in the Commonwealth of the NMI. Before the election, both parts of the bicameral legislature were controlled by the Territorial (Republican) Party. On November 4, 1979, the general election results changed the House of Representatives from a Territorial to a Democratic Party majority that would take office on January 14, 1980; the Senate remained controlled by the Territorial Party. Five days later, during the "lame duck" period, the then President of the Senate requested the Civil Service Commission and its Personnel Officer, Jesus Mafnas, to make determinations to classify employees of the First Commonwealth Legislature as members of the Civil Service System.

On November 19, 1979, the Commission approved Personnel System Rules and Regulations ("Rules") for members of the executive branch. These Rules were approved by the legislature before the termination of the lame duck session. On December 20, the Commission classified various employees of the legislature as within the protection of the Civil Service System.

The Civil Service Commission consists of seven members; the legislature appoints six, and the executive appoints one. The Commission was established pursuant to Public Law 1-9, which was enacted August 11, 1978, over the governor's veto.

Plaintiffs-appellees are Governor Carlos Camacho and Speaker of the House Joaquin Pangelinan. They brought suit in the trial division of the District Court of the NMI, claiming that Public Law 1-9, which permitted appointment by the legislature of six members of the commission, violated a separation of powers requirement in the constitution of the NMI. Plaintiffs further contended that the Rules and classifications never took effect because of a failure to comply with procedural requirements of local administrative law.

The trial court declared that the appointment provision violated the separation of powers provision in the constitution of the NMI. The court further declared the classification of legislative employees invalid, but determined that the Rules met the procedural requirements. Both parties appealed to the appellate division of the district court. A three-judge panel granted complete summary judgment for the plaintiffs by affirming the trial court insofar as it had ruled for plaintiffs and reversing the ruling that the classification had met procedural requirements. Defendants appealed to this court.

On appeal, there are four issues:

1. Whether this court has jurisdiction to hear an appeal from a decision of the Appellate Division of the District Court of the NMI involving an issue solely of local law.

2. Whether the appellate division correctly held the appointment scheme violative of separation of powers.

3. Whether the appellate division correctly held that certain rules and regulations were invalidly promulgated by the Commission.

4. Whether the appellate division correctly held invalid the classification of legislative employees as within the civil service.

II. THIS COURT HAS JURISDICTION OVER ALL APPEALS FROM THE APPELLATE DIVISION OF THE DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS.

Plaintiffs contend that this court does not have jurisdiction over appeals from local law decisions of the appellate division of the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. They argue that the appellate division of the district court, by analogy to a state supreme court, should be immune from federal review of a local question of law. Thus, the threshold jurisdictional question confronting this court requires an analysis of the status of the appellate division. This analysis must begin with background information about the court system that has been established in the Northern Marianas.

The convention that produced the Constitution of the NMI had three basic alternatives regarding the commonwealth judicial branch first, to create a local court system with jurisdiction over all local cases; secondly, to create no local courts, leaving the federal district court with jurisdiction over local cases; thirdly, to create local courts with limited trial and appellate jurisdiction, perhaps with some constitutionally prescribed schedule for the gradual assumption of increased jurisdiction by these courts.

Willens & Siemer, The Constitution of the Northern Mariana Islands: Constitutional Principles and Innovation in a Pacific Setting, 65 Georgetown L.J. 1373, 1442 (1977) (footnote omitted). Balancing considerations involving autonomy and efficiency, the convention decided to set up a dual system. Id. at 1442, 1443.

The Northern Marianas now have a "District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands." The court is so named because, unlike a "United States District Court," it has original jurisdiction over local civil matters involving more than five thousand dollars. See Guam v. Olsen, 431 U.S. 195, 196 n.1, 97 S.Ct. 1774, 1776 n.1, 52 L.Ed.2d 250 (1977). The structure of the court system shows that the convention chose to fit the court system of the NMI into the federal system, rather than to begin anew and create the equivalent of a state court system to hear all local matters. The court is divided into trial and appellate branches. In the case on review, which raises solely questions of the local law of the Commonwealth, trial was held in the trial division of the district court and appeal was taken to the appellate division of the district court.

Article IV of the "Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America" ("Covenant") provides for appeals from the appellate division. Congress has implemented Article IV of the Covenant by establishing the District Court of the Northern Mariana Islands and specifying the jurisdiction of the court, both original and appellate. See (1977) U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 3307, 3307. Appeals from the appellate division are governed by 48 U.S.C. § 1694c. Subsection (b) thereunder provides that the District Court for the NMI shall be treated like the District Court of Guam. Like the District Court of the NMI, the District Court of Guam is also divided into a trial and appellate division. Judgments of the Guam appellate division, even those involving solely questions of local law, are appealable to this court. Corn v. Guam Coral Co., 318 F.2d 622, 628 (9th Cir. 1963); 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Section 1694c(b) accordingly furnishes jurisdiction over the instant appeal.

Plaintiffs attempt to avoid the above analysis with three arguments. First, they maintain that Guam was forced to cede appellate jurisdiction to its district court, while the Commonwealth did so voluntarily. The relevance of plaintiffs' purported distinction is never specified. However the district appellate division acquired its jurisdiction, it remains clear that that jurisdiction is not being exercised by an autonomous court of the NMI. Second, the plaintiffs point to the fact that Guam, unlike the Commonwealth of the NMI, lacks both a constitution and a three-branch republican form of government. Again, this is a distinction without significance for federal jurisdiction.

Finally, plaintiffs seek to avoid 48 U.S.C. § 1694c(b) through reliance on 48 U.S.C. § 1694c(a), which defines the relationship between courts established by the Constitution or laws of the United States and courts of the NMI:

The relations between the courts established by the Constitution or laws of the United States and the courts of the Northern Mariana Islands with respect to appeals, certiorari, removal of causes, the issuance of writs of habeas corpus, and other matters or proceedings shall be governed by the laws of the United States pertaining to the relations between the courts of the United States and the courts of the several States in such matters and proceedings, except as otherwise provided in article IV of the covenant: Provided, That for the first fifteen years following the establishment of an appellate court of the Northern Mariana Islands the United States court of appeals for the judicial circuit which includes the Northern Mariana Islands shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the highest court of the Northern Mariana Islands from which a decision could be had in all cases involving the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, or any authority exercised thereunder, unless those cases are reviewable in the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands pursuant to section 1694b of this title.

Had the Commonwealth chosen to vest jurisdiction over appeals from local matters in its own supreme court, subsection (a) would mandate that that NMI Supreme Court be treated like any other state supreme court, its decisions being appealable to the United States Supreme Court. For reasons of economy, the Commonwealth rejected that course, vesting jurisdiction instead in the appellate division of...