José Trías Monge

José Trías Monge (May 5, 1920 – June 24, 2003) was a lawyer and judge in Puerto Rico. He served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico from 1974 to 1985.

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he was appointed, without any prior court service, by Gov. Rafael Hernández Colón, who, as President of the Senate of Puerto Rico between 1969 and 1972, had espoused that Chief Justices should be selected from among current Associate Justices.

In 1940, he graduated Bachelor of Arts at the University of Puerto Rico and, in 1943, obtained the master of Arts from Harvard University. The following year, he graduated from law, also of Harvard. In 1947 he completed doctoral studies in law at Yale University. From 1947 to 1949, he taught professorship at the University of Puerto Rico.

Prior to his service as Chief Justice, Trías Monge served as Attorney General of Puerto Rico under Gov. Luis Muñoz Marín and was one of the top delegates to Puerto Rico's Constitutional Assembly between 1951 and 1952. Along with Muñoz Marín and Dr. Antonio Fernós Isern, he is considered one of the chief architects of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's Constitution. As Chief Justice, he chaired the 1980 Constitutional Board for Electoral Reapportionment.

Trias Monge is the author of several books on the judicial history and political status of Puerto Rico, in both Spanish and English.

Several years prior to his death, despite his own contribution to the drafting and approval of the 1952 Commonwealth Constitution, he began writing and speaking publicly that Puerto Rico remained a territory or colony of the United States.^[1]

Selected publications

• Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World, by José Trías Monge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
• La Justicia en sus Manos, by Luis Rafael Rivera, 2007, ISBN 1-57581-884-1

See also

• Attorney General of Puerto Rico
• List of Puerto Ricans

References