August 3, 2026
Palikir, Pohnpei — Bellarmine Saimon Ioannis has asked the FSM Supreme Court to overturn National Election Director Ausen Lambert’s decision rejecting his candidacy for Pohnpei’s four-year at-large seat in the March 2027 FSM Congressional election, setting up a court test of a recently added constitutional residency requirement for members of Congress.
Ioannis, represented by attorney Salomon Saimon, filed a petition for declaratory and injunctive relief in the FSM Supreme Court Trial Division in Pohnpei on August 2. He also filed an application for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction seeking to prevent specimen and final ballots from being printed without his name while the dispute remains before the court.
The dispute centers on an amendment to Article IX, Section 9 of the FSM Constitution approved by voters in July 2023. Among the qualifications for membership in Congress, the amended provision requires a candidate to have been residing in the FSM for at least five years.
Lambert rejected Ioannis’ nomination petition on July 29 after concluding that Ioannis did not satisfy that requirement. According to Lambert’s letter, immigration records showed that Ioannis’ entry into the FSM was in November 2025, and that he therefore had been physically living in the country for less than a year.
“Your candidacy meets all the qualification requirements except one,” Lambert wrote, saying Ioannis did not meet the five-year residency requirement and therefore could not be placed on the official ballot for the March 2, 2027 Congressional General Election.
Ioannis disputes both the interpretation of residency underlying that decision and the manner in which the five-year requirement is being applied.
According to his petition, Ioannis was born in Pohnpei on May 4, 1962, and lived in Kitti until leaving for high school in Weno, Chuuk. He attended college in the United States from 1981 to 1985, returned to the FSM for volunteer work in Chuuk, and later worked for the Pohnpei Supreme Court and FSM National Government.
The petition says Ioannis subsequently worked in the United States from 2000 until 2024 while serving with the United Nations. During that period, according to the filing, he lived under a UN G-4 visa rather than under the Compact of Free Association and was not a legal resident of the United States. Ioannis says he returned to Pohnpei every year for at least a month to reconnect with family, fulfill traditional obligations and participate in community life. He says he returned permanently in November 2024 and has continuously resided in Pohnpei since then.
Ioannis filed his nomination petition on June 23 for the four-year Pohnpei congressional seat. Lambert rejected it July 29.
The Election Director’s decision followed a May 19 legal opinion from FSM Department of Justice Secretary Leonito Bacalando Jr., issued in response to Lambert’s request for advice concerning the new constitutional residency requirement.
The Justice Department concluded that a citizen living abroad does not satisfy the requirement. Its opinion said the Constitutional Convention intended candidates for Congress to “live in the FSM” for the required period and interpreted the five-year residency requirement as consecutive and immediately preceding candidacy.
The opinion also distinguished FSM citizens living elsewhere within the FSM from those living overseas. It cited the Constitutional Convention committee report as recognizing that someone from Kosrae who moves to Pohnpei to work for the national government could retain residency in the person’s home state for purposes of seeking that state’s congressional seat. However, DOJ concluded that the committee report did not similarly recognize people living abroad as eligible.
Ioannis argues that approach equates residency with physical presence and fails to consider FSM and Pohnpei laws concerning legal residence and domicile.
His filing points to FSM election law defining a “resident” by reference to the laws of the state in which a person is registered or seeks to register to vote. It also cites Pohnpei law and previous FSM court decisions distinguishing legal residence or domicile from a person’s current physical location.
Among the cases cited is Chuuk Health Care Plan v. Pacific International, Inc., in which the court discussed the distinction between legal and actual residence, and In re Mix, which similarly recognized that legal residence generally refers to domicile or permanent abode while actual residence can refer to a person’s current physical location.
Ioannis argues that his annual returns to Pohnpei, family residence, land ownership and voter registration should have been considered in determining whether Pohnpei remained his domicile while he worked overseas. Those assertions are Ioannis’ arguments and have not yet been decided by the court.
His lawsuit raises a second and potentially separate question: whether the five-year residency provision approved in 2023 may be applied to periods before the constitutional amendment took effect.
Ioannis argues that doing so gives the amendment an impermissible retroactive effect. Under his interpretation, the government could begin counting the new five-year constitutional period only from July 2023, meaning no candidate could yet have accumulated five years of disqualifying residency under the new provision.
His filing cites the FSM Supreme Court Appellate Division decision in Heirs of Henry v. Heirs of Akinaga for the proposition that constitutional rights generally operate prospectively rather than retroactively. It also cites a 1993 Chuuk State Supreme Court decision involving candidate qualifications in support of his argument against retroactive application of a newly adopted constitutional restriction.
The court therefore is being asked to address two related but distinct issues: what “residing in the FSM” means under the amended Constitution and whether the five-year requirement may include periods before voters approved the amendment in July 2023.
Ioannis is asking the court to declare that Lambert improperly rejected his nomination petition and that he satisfies the applicable residency requirements. He also seeks a permanent injunction preventing the government from applying the constitutional amendment in the manner challenged in the lawsuit, along with attorney’s fees and other relief the court considers appropriate.
The separate request for immediate injunctive relief focuses on the approaching election timetable.
Ioannis says he has already spent tens of thousands of dollars campaigning and argues that excluding his name when specimen and official ballots are printed could cause harm that could not later be adequately corrected. His attorney has therefore asked the court either to halt ballot printing pending resolution of the case or to expedite proceedings so that the underlying dispute can be decided before the relevant election deadlines.
The motion invokes Rule 65 of the FSM Rules of Civil Procedure and argues that Ioannis meets the factors courts consider when deciding whether to grant preliminary injunctive relief, including likelihood of success on the merits, potential irreparable injury, the balance of possible harm to the parties and the public interest. The filing also asks the court to consider combining the preliminary injunction hearing with an expedited trial on the merits.
The FSM Supreme Court issued summonses to Lambert and the FSM Government, requiring answers to the petition within 20 days of service.
As of the documents provided to The Kaselehlie Press, the court has not ruled on Ioannis’ request for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, nor has it decided whether Lambert’s interpretation of the five-year residency requirement was correct.
The case is Bellarmine Saimon Ioannis v. Ausen Lambert, Election Director, Government of the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Government of the Federated States of Micronesia, FSM Supreme Court Civil Action No. 2026-027.
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