Punk D’s reasoning for supporting the majority courts decision
Initial Thoughts
This is going to be an extensive response, so at the end I’ll put in a tl:dr. But I make this so that the citizens of The North Pacific can know that both Abbey and I thoroughly reviewed this situation and stand behind the ruling.
First, when I initially read this request I believed that the case for Roman to be placed on the ballot was a pretty good one. Upon an initial read of the laws Funk cited, my gut said this was a ‘no brainer’.
Thus for me, there had to be
compelling evidence that allowed the Election Commission to place such a stipulation and that stipulation be legal. In essence, the burden lay with the Election Commission because Romanoffia demonstrated clear intent to run for office via his campaign thread. As some residents stated, ‘common sense’ dictated that Roman expressed his desire to run for office.
Unfortunately, the court is not a body interested in ‘common sense’ but legal sense.
Legal basis which supports the EC’s ability to “oversee” and “supervise” elections
Below are the sections of the Constitution, Legal Code, and Bill of Rights I looked at when coming to support the ruling our Chief posted earlier today. Honestly, the Bill of Rights is the key to this ruling because the Consitution and Legal Code are not specific on the subject in question.
Constitution Article 6:
4. Government bodies may create rules for their own governance subordinate to this constitution and the laws.
5. No law or government policy may contradict this constitution.
6. Procedures to fill vacancies in elected offices may be established by law.
The important parts of this citation are within 4 and 6. Government bodies may create rules for their own governance subordinate to the constitution and laws. The Election Commission is not a named “government body” within the constitution, but are named within the Legal Code which is what “established by law” in clause 6 refers to when it talks about filling vacancies in office. So, we have an establishment that government bodies may create rules and that the EC is a governmental body as created via the Legal Code. Article 5 states that no law or governmental policy – which I interpret as to include “rules” referred to in clause 4.
This allows the EC to create rules so long as they do not contradict the Constitution. Article 1 (not quote here) states nations are guaranteed rights under the Bill of Rights so government rules/policies cannot contradict that as well.
Legal Code Ch. 4.2:
5. "Candidates" are those citizens who declare themselves, or have accepted a nomination by another Assembly member preceding the close of nominations, as a candidate for an office to be chosen at that election. Candidates may only stand for one office during a given Election Cycle.
6. "Election Commissioner" is an individual designated to supervise a given election. No one who may be a candidate in an election may serve as an Election Commissioner during it.
The Legal Code defines candidate as one who declares him/herself (self-nomination) or accepts the nomination of another. It also states that the Election Commissioner is charged with supervising an election and also bars that person from standing as a candidate in the election they are overseeing. The Legal Code does not define “how” EC’s are to supervise the election process in this statute.
Legal Code Ch. 4.3:
9. In General and Judicial elections, Election Commissioners will be appointed by the Delegate to oversee the nomination and election processes at least one week before the month in which the election begins.
In this section of the Legal Code the EC’s are charged with overseeing General and Judicial elections, thus they have the authority to oversee the election in the request for review.
And here’s where my initial gut feeling started to turn due to what is written in the law. EC’s are charged with supervising and overseeing elections. Alright, what does supervising and overseeing mean? It usually means to administer, manage, and/or monitor a person, work, or process.
In this instance the EC established rules per the posting within
Lord Ravenclaw’s initial nomination thread posting which stated:
Candidates can nominate themselves or be nominated by another person. Nominations do not require a second to be valid.
Candidates must be regional assembly members who have held membership for at least 15 days.
This thread is for nominations only, please campaign within the Election Subforum in the Agora.
This post will be edited to reflect nominated and accepted candidates for each office.
The EC submitted a brief which mentioned historical precedence. I rejected that notion because the authority under which the EC is given the ability to ‘supervise/oversee’ elections is via delegate appointment prior to each election cycle. Thus, rules from a prior EC do not and should not carry from one EC to the next unless the subsequent EC announces such rules will be in place. Each EC has a responsibility to establish rules as the Legal Code and Constitution are not specific in how to supervise or oversee elections. Rules have only one requirement that they not contradict the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or Laws.
In this election, the EC stated that the thread in question was for nominations only and that nominations included self-nominations (aka declaring themselves candidates per LC ch. 4.2) or be nominated by another person (ibid. LC 4.2). The EC established this rule and under that rule, Romanoffia was not a candidate because he didn’t nominate (again read: declare himself a candidate) within the specified thread the EC established as the thread for “nominations only”. I reviewed the claims Romanoffia made that he did make a post and also saw that the admins responded that no such post was made.
Since Romanoffia created a campaign thread he seemed to indicate intent to be a candidate on the ballot but since he did not follow the rule established by the EC he was left off the ballot. The question now is, is this legal? Per the Constitution and LC I found that the EC did not perform the execution of its duties in an illegal manner. However, I needed to look at parts of the Bill of Rights to see if in the execution of its duties Romanoffia’s rights were abused in some manner.
Bill of Rights excerpts:
5. All Nations of The North Pacific have the right to be protected against the abuse of powers by any official of a government authority of the region. Any Nation of The North Pacific has the right to request the recall of any official of a government authority of the region in accordance with the Constitution, that is deemed to have participated in such acts.
9. Each Nation in The North Pacific is guaranteed the organization and operation of the governmental authorities of the region on fundamental principles of democracy, accountability, and transparency. No action by the governmental authorities of the region shall deny to any Nation of The North Pacific, due process of law, including prior notice and the opportunity to be heard, nor deny to any Nation of The North Pacific the equal and fair treatment and protection of the provisions of the Constitution.
10. Each Nation entitled to a vote in any manner under the fundamental laws of the region is entitled to the equal treatment and protection of that Nation's right to vote.
11. No governmental authority of the region has the power to suspend or disregard the Constitution or the Legal Code.
Re 5 – The EC is not abusing its powers in creating rules. The question is, does the rule of only accepting nominations and declarations within the specified thread constitute an abuse of power? I do not believe it does since the posting of the same is in a place prominent for potential candidates to see and it is open for a number of the requisite number of days as established by law.
Re 9 – Every nation is guaranteed that governmental authorities – which the EC is a member of – follow the principles of democracy, accountability and transparency. The EC was very transparent in its post about nominations. The EC clearly established rules that allowed all qualified candidates to be placed on the ballot should they so choose to become a candidate.
Re 10 – I looked at this from an equal treatment and protection angle. Was Romanoffia unfairly singled out by the rules the EC created? Did any other candidate get on the ballot via a method not specified by the EC? No, no candidate did. Only candidates that followed the procedure are on the EC ballot.
Re – 11 I found that the rules established by the EC were congruent with the stipulations found within the Legal Code in their power to oversee and supervise elections. I found that they did not suspend any part of the Constitution or Legal Code. The key part of this finding was in reference to candidates declaring themselves. While the place where candidates can declare themselves is not defined within the Legal Code, for that matter, the place to nominate candidates is not defined, the EC is charged by the Legal Code to oversee and supervise such a process. The elections commission did so by creating the nomination thread and this was not out of step with the LC or Constitution.
With all of this as a back drop, my legal opinion is that the EC have administered this election in keeping with the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Legal Code and have not violated any law.
TL
R Version
The EC has the right to establish rules. It did and Romanoffia did not follow those rules. Those rules do not equate to an abuse of power and the EC placed candidates on the ballot that followed the specified rules. Although, I suggest reading the full version.
Will get to detailed answers to COE and GBM asap.
