Your honour, in entering this recommendation to the court we are conscious that my client has entered a guilty plea on the understanding, offered by the prosecution and confirmed by the justices, that the sentence to be imposed by the court involves a loss of potential voting rights for a finite period.
The defence would recommend that the period is kept short, and that enforcement of this suspension is not delayed, as the Attorney General has recommended.
Your honour, New Kenya is an impressionable nation who did a foolish thing. He was foolish to suppose that he could win an election in TNP, and doubly foolish to seek to involve Pierconium in his fantasies.
However, he is keen to remain part of TNP – when he appointed me his counsel it was in the hope that this would be possible – and keen to be a productive member of our society. In short, he is precisely what our regional government is seeking at the moment to encourage. It would be a shame if an overly harsh sentence were to discourage his rehabilitation.
Furthermore, delaying the enforcement indefinitely means that whenever New Kenya applies for citizenship, be it in a few months or fifty years, he will be unable to vote for three months because of something he did as a foolish youngling. In effect, this discourages him from ever being rehabilitated or applying for citizenship ever again. This flies in the face of our regional policy of encouraging participation and involvement.
The defence recommends that an appropriate punishment for the crime would be a token suspension of voting privilege for one month, with no delayed enforcement. This sends out the message that he is guilty, while also emphasising the trivial nature of his offence, which in the opinion of the defence should not have been brought to court in the first place.
(if you want to stop reading here, that is fine. But I would like to outline why the specific offence New Kenya was accused of is trivial).
Your Honour, New Kenya never offered a serious threat to our region. It would be harsh indeed to punish him severely when far more damaging threats to our region have gone uncharged or unpunished. I refer to the likes of Upper Kirby or Galapagos Islands. The Security Council certainly never considered him a serious threat to the region; the tone of the discussions showed that as does the fact that even during the trial most of the SC, including the delegate and Vice-Delegate continued to endorse New Kenya. The Army, the Executive Government and the Security Council never considered him a threat, and we believe the sentence should reflect this.
The defence also contends that the details of the charge that New Kenya has pleaded guilty to should warrant a very low sentence. Conspiracy to commit Gross Misconduct is defined in our legal code as
planning, attempting, or helping to commit … the violation of an individual's legally mandated sworn oath, either willfully or through negligence.
The "oath" specifically referenced by the prosecution in the indictment is that New Kenya took on joining the NPA in January 2016:
I, _________ request to join The North Pacific Army. I pledge to serve our regions security and military interests, both at home and abroad. I pledge to obey all military rules and laws, as well as the laws of The North Pacific in my service in the military. I pledge to respect the chain of command and my fellow officers at all times. I pledge my loyalty to the North Pacific Region, our people, and our government.
Let us examine this oath in detail, and see what part of the oath my client is guilty of conspiring to break?
I pledge to serve our regions security and military interests, both at home and abroad.
Your honour, to this New Kenya is clearly guilty. He did not serve our regional security or military interests. The guilty plea reflects this.
However, in sentencing I would urge you not only to reflect what New Kenya did, but what he did not do. In his foolishness, he offered what he could not deliver; but in doing that he divulged no regional or military secrets. He did not directly jeopardise the delegacy or our constitution. It is doubtful that he could have done so, even had Pierconium decided to aid him.
I pledge to obey all military rules and laws, as well as the laws of The North Pacific in my service in the military.
No actual evidence was offered that New Kenya broke any military rules of TNP. The only law he was ultimately charged with breaking is that of conspiracy.
. I pledge to respect the chain of command and my fellow officers at all times.
NK did not break the chain of command of the NPA in his actions. He neither followed nor broke a direct order.
. I pledge my loyalty to the North Pacific Region, our people, and our government.
Your honour, here the defence is willing to concede New Kenya’s guilt and the appropriateness of sentencing him. New Kenya’s approach to Pierconium was certainly not loyal to the Constitutional Government.
But if the court is willing to see lack of "loyalty" as the basis for a severity of punishment then there are thousands of instances that might find themselves in court. Because many of us have sounded off about the Constitutional government, and could be considered “disloyal”. I myself was barred access to the NPA for a while because of fears that I was not loyal enough. It did not land me in court … but after this trial, it could do.
Your honour, if we start to interpret "gross misconduct" as a matter of "Loyalty", and if we further interpret "loyalty" as "talking to or about people" then the protections to free speech accorded us by the bill of rights are severely strained.
Your honour, the contention of the defence is that the only part of his NPA oath that New Kenya can be considered to have broken is that he was not loyal to TNP and did not serve our region’s security. The danger to our region was minimal and the "threat" laughable. We would maintain that in order to preserve the Bill of Rights declaration that punishment should be proportionate to the crime, a lenient or token punishment should be handed down.
