No one can close a channel before some given deadline, preset at the time of its creation.
By the protocol, the deadline for all relevant operations on the channel is set to before the channel close date.
By the protocol, the deadline for all relevant operations on the channel is set to before the channel close date.
This is the reason why Ethereum contract usually set start time, end time and similar in block numbers. Block number is reliable while timestamp is just a local time of the miner that mined the transaction in which the contract call was included.
Each step in our protocol could set a different amount of delay to close the channel. Beginning the close process does not require waiting, but finishing it does. It's actually the opposite, if you wait too long to close, you may not be able to close at all. This means that if you need to close it, and you can't reach your peers for the honest_close case, you better get to it!
Because each step can pick delay, the honest_close case allows a channel to close without any delay.