The Puerto Rico Supreme Court threw the leadership of the island into new turmoil on Wednesday, ruling that the new governor who took over last week, Pedro R. Pierluisi, was sworn in on unconstitutional grounds.
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The unanimous ruling ousts Mr. Pierluisi and paves the way for Wanda Vázquez, the secretary of justice, to be sworn in as Puerto Rico’s third governor in five days. Ms. Vázquez has said she does not want the job but would fulfill her duties as next in the line of succession.
The 29-page ruling, which states that Mr. Pierluisi “cannot remain in the position of governor,” will take effect at 5 p.m., “to guarantee an orderly succession.” Mr. Pierluisi has until then to ask for a reconsideration, though the agreement from the nine justices, reached just a day after receiving briefs in the case, suggests the court’s decision is firm.
The court ruled in favor of the Puerto Rico Senate, which sued late on Sunday asking the court to issue a preliminary injunction against Mr. Pierluisi taking over the office of chief executive. He became governor on Friday even though he had not been confirmed as secretary of state by both chambers of the Legislative Assembly. Only the House of Representatives approved his recess appointment.
“To those who lent themselves, for their personal interest, to this embarrassing attempt to install an illegitimate government, that is how the history of Puerto Rico will remember you,” Thomas Rivera Schatz, the Senate president, said in a statement after the ruling.
Mr. Schatz has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor.
To justify Mr. Pierluisi’s ascent to the governor’s seat, Mr. Pierluisi and his predecessor, Ricardo A. Rosselló, cited a 2005 statute that said the secretary of state did not require legislative confirmation to step in as governor. On Wednesday, the court declared that portion of the law unconstitutional. The rest of the law, regarding the line of succession, is valid, the court found.
“The Constitution requires the advice and consent of both chambers,” said Yanira Reyes Gil, a constitutional scholar and associate law professor at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. “It is a basic principle of constitutional law that the Constitution takes precedence.”
Mr. Pierluisi’s lawyers had argued that the Senate could have voted on his nomination, as the House did, but chose not to do so before Mr. Rosselló’s resignation became effective on Friday. The former governor was forced out of office by massive public protests prompted by the leak of hundreds of pages of private messages that showed Mr. Rosselló and his aides insulting politicians and everyday Puerto Ricans.
In a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Pierluisi, 60, told reporters that he would resign if the court ruled against him.
“The Supreme Court will decide,” he said. “I trust them, and they’ll do the right thing for Puerto Rico.”
After he was sworn in on Friday, Mr. Pierluisi, a lawyer, said that while he consulted with Mr. Rosselló and Ms. Vázquez, he made the decision himself to take the oath — in spite of the controversy that he knew existed over the 2005 statute, which had never been challenged in court.
“Who was going to stop me?” he said at the time.
Mr. Pierluisi, like Mr. Rosselló, is a member of the ruling New Progressive Party, which supports statehood for Puerto Rico. He is also a Democrat when it comes to national politics, though political parties on the island do not match up with those on the mainland.
In his brief time in office, Mr. Pierluisi, the island’s former nonvoting resident commissioner in Congress, emphasized his experience and competence. He made no major decisions and issued no executive orders but tried to give off an air of stability, holding meetings with agency heads and prominent businesspeople and discussing matters such as hurricane preparedness and the new school year.
But the political crisis has paralyzed much of the government for nearly a month and has hurt Puerto Rico’s credibility in Washington, where the Trump administration has already delayed more than $8 billion in federal disaster prevention funds pending more oversight.
Mr. Pierluisi said on Tuesday that if forced out by the Supreme Court, he had no interest in remaining as secretary of state and would instead return to the private sector. In that case, Ms. Vázquez could appoint a new secretary of state and then resign if she is sworn in but does not wish to remain governor.
Even before he took office, Mr. Pierluisi struggled to overcome questions about the conflicts of interest he could face as governor. Lawmakers asked him whether he might some day find himself having to assert attorney-client privilege in matters relating to the fiscal control board, the board created by Congress to oversee Puerto Rico’s finances because of its more than $70 billion in public debt.
Court filings show that Mr. Pierluisi earned about $20,000 in legal work for the fiscal control board, according to the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit group that conducts research on Puerto Rico.
The group found that he even billed the board for meetings with his former chief of staff, who now works for the control board. The president of the board is Mr. Pierluisi’s brother-in-law.
Mr. Pierluisi, the group said, did legal work for the board relating to the restructuring of the electric company’s debt while at the same time serving as a lobbyist for the AES Corporation, one of the electric company’s creditors.
Although many Puerto Ricans viewed Mr. Pierluisi as the least objectionable candidate from the ruling party, activists who led the movement on the streets to unseat the previous governor viewed his selection as an example of holding the seat inside the political establishment.
Culled from .nytimes.com
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