MIN CHC 2000-03-08 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

• entered as a colony, and that goes back to the 1887 (indiscernible) Constitution and the so-called overthrow of 1893. Treaties was kept until .1898, the point that they were going to expire. That's why U.S. citizen Dole, who became the so-called President under provisional government, never signed any treaties. The only treaty was with his own government, they called the United States. YUEN: Well, I don't know how detailed you want me to be in responding to your question. On the first point, Mr. Vicente does not believe that the United States government lawfully constitutes beyond the original 13 colonies. There are a lot of ways to answer that, as a lawyer. I think probably the simplest way is to point out that the United States exercises apparent authority over the 50 states, and that this is recognized by all other countries in the world. This is the general definition for how is a country recognized. It is recognized by other countries, and in international law, it appears to have authority and control over its citizens. To just give an example. If somebody claimed to be the King of France, and they said that the monarchy of France was illegally overturned, and that they are the rightful rulers of France, people would say, well, the monarchy in France has not been in existence for 150 years. You have no apparent control over this. There's a French government that is recognized by all the governments of the world, and that's why it is the legitimate government. There are a lot of things that he's brought up. I could respond to them on a point -by - point basis, but it would take, kind of, a long time to do it. Another way of answering this question, and looking specifically at the authority of the United States government over the Hawaiian Islands, that this has been upheld by a number of court decisions in the United States court system. If somebody wants to challenge the validity of that, then there really aren't any good ways to go from that. Beyond that, I could go through a history, certainly, of how Hawaii became United States territory, and what are the legal consequences of that, but I think that what he's talking about is at an extremely fundamental level. It can be dealt with point -by -point on that kind of level, but as I say, it would take quite a bit of time to do it. RAY: Marni. did you have a - HERKES: Thank you very much for coming, Mr. Vicente, and I'm interested in your point, but we were appointed as Charter Commissioners. We had a specific job to do, a role to play. The County Council confirmed us. I think we need to stay within the parameters of the things that the County government has asked us to do. I don't think we should get outside those parameters. If it is illegal for us to change the County Charter, then I think there are avenues besides this room, and besides this Commission, that you can pursue that under. This is not the place or the time to pursue an illegal Charter Commission, if that's what you're saying. If that's what you want to do, then there are other places to pursue it. We can't help you with it. There's nothing we can do. We've agreed, and been appointed and confirmed by the Council, to change the County Charter. We have to do what we have to do. Otherwise we would not be fulfilling our responsibility and we have to fulfill our responsibility.