Request for Review: Ability of the Speaker to ignore voting rules

[Mall]

In Lord Ravenclaw's SC admission vote in the RA, located here, the following was stated by the Speaker:

You may vote in this thread by posting "aye" "nay" or "abstain" in black, normal sized text without embellishments. All other votes will not be counted. Votes cast by any other means than a post in this thread will not be counted. A simple majority is needed to pass.

The meaning of the above is clear enough "All" votes which are not "aye", "nay", or "abstain" will not be counted. The quotation marks clearly delineate what must be posted, aye nay abstain are the only three options. As such, "Aye", "Nay", and "Abstain" are invalid since the capitalization is an embellishment and the rules set forth by the Speaker leave no wiggle room for interpretation. Unfortunately for proponents of the bill, only two votes were legally cast under those rules: my "nay" vote and Sillystring's "aye" vote. As such, the proposal failed due to lack of quorum, or alternatively because a simple majority was not reached. The Speaker, however, chose to count votes which were invalid under the rules laid out in the voting thread.

As such my request for review is quite simple: can the Speaker unilaterally, without notice or comment of any type, choose to blatantly ignore the rules and procedures that the Speaker themselves laid out for that vote?

Precedent can be found here, where the Court implied in its Ruling that Rules, once adopted by the Speaker, must be enforced, and done so in an even and fair way. In this case they were not enforced, and thus it would seemingly violate precedent.

It should be noted that if the answer is no then that entire vote must be discredited and Lord Ravenclaw removed from the Security Council until they are legally admitted. It also goes without saying that any posts which are edited to "become" valid after the closing of the voting period must necessarily be discounted. So to the rascals out there who are thinking of going in and editing their votes, that won't make a difference.

Standing: Since I am a member of the RA who is inherently negatively impacted by a Speaker going rogue against their own rules I have standing in all such requests for review. In this specific case I am a valid voter who is having his vote count for the same as an invalid voter, so I have standing. Additionally this admission to the Security Council impacts all RA members, so I have standing.

 

[Zyvetskistaahn]

If I may Your Honours, I would submit that this request for review must be rejected. The petitioner has made no claim to standing, in terms of how his rights are personally affected, which is required by the Constitution before this Court can consider judicial review of any matter, and for that reason alone his request must be rejected. Further, however, I submit that the claims of the petitioner are false, in that the Standing Procedures adopted by the Speaker on this point are clear: "Citizens may vote "aye," "nay," or "abstain," or similar.", is how the Standing Procedures read and clearly permits variants such as "Aye", "AYE", "aye.", "Aye." etc, and as the longstanding practice of the Speaker's Office in over a hundred votes over the past five years demonstrates, that is what the Speaker accepts.

 

[Mall]

If I may Your Honours, I would submit that this request for review must be rejected. The petitioner has made no claim to standing, in terms of how his rights are personally affected, which is required by the Constitution before this Court can consider judicial review of any matter, and for that reason alone his request must be rejected. Further, however, I submit that the claims of the petitioner are false, in that the Standing Procedures adopted by the Speaker on this point are clear: "Citizens may vote "aye," "nay," or "abstain," or similar.", is how the Standing Procedures read and clearly permits variants such as "Aye", "AYE", "aye.", "Aye." etc, and as the longstanding practice of the Speaker's Office in over a hundred votes over the past five years demonstrates, that is what the Speaker accepts.

Your Honors while I am quite certain the standing element was so blindingly obvious that it was unnecessary to spell it out for you, I have nonetheless made it clear in my Request why I have standing.

Additionally Your Honors I would simply like to note that it is disappointing to see the Deputy Speaker appeal to a heavily edited version of what the Speaker's rules for that vote actually are, a version which has no basis in the actual laws of the region which do not explain how the voting procedure actually works in this regard.

 

[Crushing Our Enemies]

I reject this request for review because it does not follow the official template. The CRaP requires that if an official template is provided, it must be used.

 

[Carebia]

I reject this request for review because it does not follow the official template. The CRaP requires that if an official template is provided, it must be used.

COE, I have absolutely no means of any disrespect for you or your position, yet I believe you have no jurisdiction to reject Mall's request. To begin with, if I am correct you have recused yourself as justice ,and Supreme Justice at that. Also I believe you should not be bias against the people you serve, seeing that during campaign you responded to Mall with this, and I quote "I will not dignify this question with a response, since you did not properly continue the split-quote-pyramid without hanging quote tags. Amateur." So it seems you are repeating this action, the first time you did not respond to his question because of "quote tags", and now again rejecting his request because "...it does not follow the official template". I am NOT defending Mall ('till hell freezes over), but at the same time I am not standing for injustice. Yes, I do understand he should have used the template, but is that really the only reason why you rejected him.

 

[Darcania]

COE is not the Chief Justice (also the position of "Supreme Justice" does not exist, but it sounds like a great superhero name), nor did he recuse himself from the office of Justice (he only recused himself from a specific R4R where he had a conflict of interest, which is not this R4R). As well, simple back and forth interaction is not conflict of interest, or else Justices would not be able to do anything, as Justices still interact with the Citizenry outside of the duties of their office. I am not a Justice, nor am I acting as the AG in this; I, as a Citizen, simply dislike the implications and conspiracy theories you are so casually throwing around.

 

[Barbarossistan]

Given Mall's usual attention to detail I'm sure he expected nothing short of this result for failing to observe proper formalities and will find himself capable of refiling in proper format

 

[Carebia]

COE is not the Chief Justice (also the position of "Supreme Justice" does not exist, but it sounds like a great superhero name), nor did he recuse himself from the office of Justice (he only recused himself from a specific R4R where he had a conflict of interest, which is not this R4R). As well, simple back and forth interaction is not conflict of interest, or else Justices would not be able to do anything, as Justices still interact with the Citizenry outside of the duties of their office. I am not a Justice, nor am I acting as the AG in this; I, as a Citizen, simply dislike the implications and conspiracy theories you are so casually throwing around.

I am sorry to hear how you feel about my prior response and I apologize to others who feel the same, but to fair I was not throwing around conspiracies. For when I talked about the recusal, I was simply uniformed, and I deeply apologize for my arrogance. Yet, when I was talking about the bias I simply used quotes, his own words. Yet do you not feel the slightest feeling that they just do not "like" each other. If so, does that not seem bias, and yes I know justices are entitled to their opinion on whether they accept or reject a request but... UGH! FORGET IT! It is just too confusing.... Look, in a nutshell I was not trying to disrespect COE(as I said in the prior message) I was simply ignorant and confused and I am sorry to anyone who found it offending that I was throwing "accusations" against him.

 

[Crushing Our Enemies]

For the record, Mall and I have great regard for one another, both in-character and out. The request was denied for the stated reason only, and no other. Since this is devolving into off-topic banter, and the request has been disposed of, I am locking this thread. Further discussion may be had in the public gallery.