Petition for a Court Ruling

Great Bights Mum

Great Bights Mum

Grande Dame
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Your Honor,

Since RA membership has sunk to an unprecedented low, the pool of nations eligible to stand for election this term is pitifully small. Under the constitution, Article I, Section 3, Subsection 7, it states: Candidates for these elected officials must be members of the Assembly for 30 days before nominations begin."

My nation's RA membership had lapsed, and was only recently re-approved. I have been part of this region for years, and I have fought many battles to protect and defend it. I know what the letter of the law is, but given the current circumstances in which we find our government, it just doesn't feel right to enforce it.

When the Constitution was written, we never envisioned the conditions we find ourselves living with now. The RA was a bustling place, and our main concern was the threat of outsiders swooping in to hijack the election process. Who ever imagined back then we would see single-digit voter turnouts?

I understand the proper legal procedure would be to propose a change to the constitution. However, the recently announced election schedule does not allow for revision to be accomplished in a timely manner.

Therefore, I respectfully ask the Court to waive the requirements in Article I, Section 3, Subsection 7 for the current election cycle.

Thank you,
-GBM
 
Hmm, Gross is our CJ, so I'll alert him to this. As soon as we all have a chance to go over this, we'll get you a response. I'm gonna try and push this through as fast as possible due to the time sensitive nature.
 
I object to this petition.

There is a law in place and it should be adhered to so long as the sitting Delegate supports it as the law of the land.

If this is a problem today then it was surely a problem yesterday and the day before that and yet no one has seen fit to propose an amendment to the Constitution in order to address it.

The timing of the upcoming elections should not weigh on the determination of whether law should be followed or disregarded.

OOC: Nothing against GBM, just bored.
 
Hmm, looks like you've returned GM. Good to see you.

As for the speed of the ruling, I do believe a quicker look at it will be good in this case. Should the court decide to repeal it for this election that would hardly do any good if the nomination period is over.
 
Interim Court Rules

Rule 101:
H - If for any reason, the Chief Justice is unavailable, and time is of the essence, then the Associate Justice with seniority in office shall make the assignment of an emergency or expedited case.
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Since the Chief Justice is not currently available and the issue is temporally sensitive, you, as the longest standing member of the Regional Assembly currently seated on the bench outside of the CJ chair, can take on the case and set a time for a hearing to be held.

I would like to amend the Petition on the floor to include the caveat that The Minister, representing the voting public of The North Pacific, can speak against said Petition in defense of the Constitution.
 
We would like to amend our earlier comment for the Court. In consideration of two separate addenda that have been submitted to the Interim Court Rules, which have been in place since 2006, in regards to their standing legality, we withdraw the call for the Associate Justice to consider Rule 101, as it is not legally binding.

If however the Interim Court Rules are to be considered then we assert our right under Rule 604 to provide an official Response to the Petition as made.

Further, in preliminary comment, if the Court is allowed, under any circumstances, to overlook or otherwise circumvent the Constitution then it moves away from an interpretive body and becomes a legislative body, thereby undermining the very rule of law and position of the Regional Assembly.
 
I state to my honorable colleague that we have rules in this region that operate within a set and defined system. When the system is distorted and no longer work, we can not allow ourselves to be dictated by rules that are now, also, obsolete.

I speak not just as myself, but as an advocate for even veterans who are returning to a region in disrepair. Should a broken system work against them by imposing counter productive rules that penalize even some of the most productive members? Surely the intent of this law was never to penalize members for the region as a whole, being inactive.
 
Great Bights Mum:
Gracius Maximus:
Oh yeah, this too:

http://z13.invisionfree.com/TNP/index.php?showtopic=5092

The Regional Assembly has the power to bypass the Constitution.  The Court does not.
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Aside to GM: I am impressed you found that! Where Heft states, "That incident was essentially an extrajudicial mandate from the Regional Assembly," do you know to what incident he was referring?
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No need to be impressed, The Minister never forgets anything.

I will look up the issue (the election just prior to the one addressed in the Ruling) later tonight. Hard to search the forum from my phone.
 
HEM:
I state to my honorable colleague that we have rules in this region that operate within a set and defined system. When the system is distorted and no longer work, we can not allow ourselves to be dictated by rules that are now, also, obsolete.

I speak not just as myself, but as an advocate for even veterans who are returning to a region in disrepair. Should a broken system work against them by imposing counter productive rules that penalize even some of the most productive members? Surely the intent of this law was never to penalize members for the region as a whole, being inactive.
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The possible validity of your point is immaterial to the issue at hand.

Whether the current system is sufficiently broken or not to hinder an individuals action may very well warrant drastic change, but the Court is not the body to do so.
 
I looked up the elections of October 2008 and found the issue. It seems Tresville was elected Delegate without having met the 30-day requirement. The oversight was not noted until after the election. I'm still digging around looking for some sort of confirmation vote by the RA.

To clarify my petition, I am not asking the court to change the law, I am requesting a specific waiver of the requirement to have been an RA member for the 30 days immediately prior to the election.
 
Great Bights Mum:
I looked up the elections of October 2008 and found the issue. It seems Tresville was elected Delegate without having met the 30-day requirement. The oversight was not noted until after the election. I'm still digging around looking for some sort of confirmation vote by the RA.

To clarify my petition, I am not asking the court to change the law, I am requesting a specific waiver of the requirement to have been an RA member for the 30 days immediately prior to the election.
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Indeed.

But if the Court waives a part of the law by ignoring the Constitution then they are in fact changing it and setting precedent by doing so.

The Court was established by the Constitution as a means of interpreting the laws passed by the Regional Assembly and upholding the Bill of Rights (note: that is a clue right there to get what you want passed legally). The Constitution and Bill of Rights hold equal weight as the highest law of the land, so long as the sitting Delegate supports it.

In my opinion, there are only two legal options (outside of pursuing the hint I gave above) for this situation:

1. The Regional Assembly as it exists goes through the process of establishing a waiver standard by which certain individuals can ignore specific parts of the regions laws or passes an amendment changing the law, either works and either would be time intensive as with any legislation.

2. The Delegate unilaterally removes its support for the Constitution and submits a substitutionary form of governance.

Outside of these two options, and the possible third loophole which I will make you work for since that is part of the fun, even if the Court were to overstep its authority and move forward with a hearing, if it adheres to any of the Interim Court Rules (which I assume it would have to since no others have been proposed or submitted) regarding hearings then the time it would take for this process to run fully will still be outside of the timetable of the elections.
 
I disagree. It is up to this court to interpret the rule of law according to it's best intent. In a game like Nationstates we do not hold sacred rules to also be the case. Things change far too rapidly and revolutionary.

We must interpret and execute this law under the assumptions of the time. The law was made a security threat, and not an effort to create a second class citizen. By denying a waiver you are interpreting the law in the later effect as there is no security threat pending. By failing to allow upstanding, historical leaders and citizens of this game participate based on a flawed thought process we are telling members of this region that based purely on the idea of longevity that they are eligible for a higher class of citizenship.

We must preserve the spirit of this law and take into affect the circumstances that have changed and been altered. For this election, until this provision is amended, the court must waive this stipulation.
 
Gracius Maximus:
HEM:
I state to my honorable colleague that we have rules in this region that operate within a set and defined system. When the system is distorted and no longer work, we can not allow ourselves to be dictated by rules that are now, also, obsolete.

I speak not just as myself, but as an advocate for even veterans who are returning to a region in disrepair. Should a broken system work against them by imposing counter productive rules that penalize even some of the most productive members? Surely the intent of this law was never to penalize members for the region as a whole, being inactive.
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The possible validity of your point is immaterial to the issue at hand.

Whether the current system is sufficiently broken or not to hinder an individuals action may very well warrant drastic change, but the Court is not the body to do so.
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This body protects the integrity of the law. If we do not allow a waiver for this election the integrity of the law will be damaged, creating a second class citizen that is penalized for no reason other than longevity which was not the intention of this law.
 
My point still remains.

A construct of the government that was created and empowered by the Constitution can not overrule the Constitution. It can overrule a law passed by the Regional Assembly as unconstitutional or a process established by a Cabinet position as unconstitutional but it can not ignore direct and exact wording within the Constitution itself simply to fit current conditions.

And even if it choose to do so, it would be in violation of standing precedent where this exact issue was already addressed previously and the Court acknowledged that it had no such authority and that the authority for such an action rested solely with the Regional Assembly.

You make good arguments for why the Constitution should be changed, but the process is in error.

The Court is not a legislative body. Interpretation is not the same as evasion.
 
Also, are there no active admins? I was accepted into the RA but still can not post. I would like to be able to comment on the election thread.
 
All laws, including the Constitution, are written with intent behind them. The intent of the designers of our Constitution was not to create a massive disenfranchisement. The intent was to keep the region safe. We should understand this intent of the law, and interpret the law dully. As there is no security threat, we would best be serving the law by waiving it this election season to avoid erroneously executing it.
 
HEM:
All laws, including the Constitution, are written with intent behind them. The intent of the designers of our Constitution was not to create a massive disenfranchisement. The intent was to keep the region safe. We should understand this intent of the law, and interpret the law dully. As there is no security threat, we would best be serving the law by waiving it this election season to avoid erroneously executing it.
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Indeed.

Which is why clauses for the amendment of the Constitution are included within it.

Those clauses are the means by which the Constitution can be changed, not by fiat from a construct within the Constitution.

In this instance, if the Court bypasses the Constitution and ignores existing precedent to show favoritism towards a specific nation then it not only goes against the overall intent of the Constitution, to allow for fair and equal treatment to all nations, but it establishes a new precedent in which other, less savory nations might be able to utilize the same loophole and thereby cast the region into far more danger as a consequence.

If the Imperator's Fortress State, of which The Minister is sovereign lord, were to seek the same dispensation, considering it has long held place within The North Pacific, even before the petitioner's namesake, would you consider that a just reason to ignore the Constitution?

I would certainly hope not.
 
Gracius Maximus:
If the Imperator's Fortress State, of which The Minister is sovereign lord, were to seek the same dispensation, considering it has long held place within The North Pacific, even before the petitioner's namesake, would you consider that a just reason to ignore the Constitution?

I would certainly hope not.
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The short answer is yes.

There ought to be some remedy available to nations who find themselves in circumstances similar to my own. I believe it is wrong to exclude nations solely because their paperwork wasn't all in order in a more timely fashion.

GM's RA nation should be able to seek a remedy as well. I wouldn't be afraid to let him have a go at it.
 
Well that was a lot of stuff and I thought all this time that I could read and understand English.

With there being a lack of activity wouldn't it be better to just let anyone stand who appears to have good intent? Or have you already done that and I missed it?

Maybe I'll just go back to trying to work out if I'm a savory nation or not :D
 
i recommend that the waving of the 30 day requirement should be done away with it will open it to more members and it will benefit us in the long run
 
FALCONKATS:
i recommend that the waving of the 30 day requirement should be done away with it will open it to more members and it will benefit us in the long run
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Is that a personal opinion or an official position of the Court based on legal fact and precedent?

If the latter, could you indulge us with perhaps a bit more insight into your legal reasoning considering everything that has been presented that clearly indicates the Court is not the proper venue for such an issue to be addressed at all?

OOC: And this is why discourse and roleplay is continuing to falter and die in NS and why players like myself, who enjoy the game, return time and time again in attempts to pick things up or keep them going only to see those efforts run headlong into the wall of "well, I think it should be this way so without any sort of clarification or reason or attempt to justify I will just interject my opinion".
 
I have had very limited internet access over the last two weeks because of a cross-country move and trying to manage a lot of demands on my energy.

In the mention of the Tresville incident, it is my recollection that the issue turned on how to view the requirement of "30 days." Whether it was a cumulative 30 days , or consecutive 30 days.

I'd have to go back and look at what was going on in the RA and the COurt at that time, but my memory was that whilw there was never any formal change made as a consequence, the consensus was that where member nation had met the requirement previously, but had a CTE (rather than a move out of TNP) interruption, then the requirement would be treated as a cumulative one rather than a consecutive one.

It's a split of the difference down the middle.

The basic legal question though is whether this is a requirement of 30 consecutive days or 30 cumulative days; and on this the Constitution is silent. The Bill of Rights does not directly address this question, but it does offer a context of principles to be balanced in arriving at an answer.

I would ask that interested persons submit their positions on this specific question, and pointing to those aspects of the Bill of Rights that they think are pertient to the Court's decision.

In the meantime, there is nothing stopping the Regional Assembly from voting on a proposition to address the question.

I expect to have a wireless router installed tomorrow, and a restored net presence.
 
Is there any possibility the Court could provide any advice to the Elections Commissioner before the end of the nomination period at 1:59am Monday, May 17th? I am hopeful that although I released a statement regarding my interpretation of constitutional documents as applied to this case, I would like to see the petition to the court answered promptly preferably prior to the end of the nomination period.

I would, however, like to thank Chief Justice Grosseschnauzer for his statements so far, and I look forward to future commentary and/or rulings.
 
i believe it should be waived because as was stated before why penalize nation that are coming in having to wait 30 days before there voice could be heard. as like was also stated if only one person is nominated for a position is that in election.
 
I am not quite sure if I'm allowed to post in here, but I would like to throw in my 2 cents. Feel free to move or delete this post if I've erred.

The issue, Honorable Justice Falconkats, is not with a nation's being heard, but with their ability to stand in elections.

The inability of a new nation to stand for election until the 30 day period is up does not prevent them from voicing their opinion on bills and voting.

As it stands, the role of the Court is to interpret the Law, and the Law says "30 days." In my most humble opinion, the only role your opinion should play is what that 30 days means, as Grosses pointed out above.

If the 30 day period should be waived or done away with, then it is up to the Regional Assembly to do it, not the Court.

Either way, the Court's opinion is irrelevant now to this election as the nomination period is over.

In my opinion,

Grimalkin
 
It creates a second class citizen who cannot express his views in the form of running for office. It takes a platform and a podium away from certain citizens based only on longevity.

It's a travesty, pure and simple.
 
Then the Regional Assembly needs to correct the matter. It is not an issue for the Courts.





As an aside, I do support the removal of the clause, but through the proper, constitutional channels.
 
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