[Private] [R4R] Judicial RON

We have a case.

I would take it, as would Pallaith (per Discord). Do any of you want to be moderating Justice?
From a quick scan I believe it's an easy case because the ruling has been superceded by legislation. That would void the ruling as precedent anyway. So unless I'm missing something, that would be my approach to it: Strike down the ruling, and make a general comment about Court rulings and subsequent legislation (I know of at least one other ruling where it also applies).

Attempted Socialism:

We have a case.

[R4R] Regarding "On Candidate Eligibility in Reopened Nomination Periods"

1. What law, government policy, or action (taken by a government official) do you request that the Court review? Previous court ruling number 33, On Candidate Eligibility in Reopened Nomination Periods. 2. What portions of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Legal Code, or other legal document do...

forum.thenorthpacific.org

I would take it, as would Pallaith (per Discord). Do any of you want to be moderating Justice?
From a quick scan I believe it's an easy case because the ruling has been superceded by legislation. That would void the ruling as precedent anyway. So unless I'm missing something, that would be my approach to it: Strike down the ruling, and make a general comment about Court rulings and subsequent legislation (I know of at least one other ruling where it also applies).

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Just as a reminder, any Justice can accept a R4R, I believe that we’ve started to take it as a general practice that we always discuss even whether or not to take them when most of the time it should be a simple matter. If there’s a complexity to the request or a doubt as to whether or not it can be accepted then discussion is appropriate, but situations like this, if a justice is ready and able they should accept or deny it.

I’m going to be stuck on my phone for a while so it’s better that you accept it and moderate this one.

We can probably have this one wrapped up by the end of the week. The thing about legislation superseding court rulings is that we cannot strike old decisions unilaterally - we have to respond to R4Rs. This is how this was done with the first case of its kind, overturning the original Attorney General ruling, and with the recent jurisdiction case. It may also be that we find a challenged ruling isn’t quite superseded by existing law, or that there’s a belief that it is when that actually isn’t the case. I suspect in most such cases however it will be rather clear, since often legislation is changed in response to these rulings and designed specifically to answer them.

As far as the decision you’re outlining, I believe there’s room for commentary on handling outdated rulings but I wouldn’t try to nip them all in the bud with this one, because each case is different. So strike down the ruling and affirm the way to handle these old rulings, but I’m not sure on the rest without seeing precisely what approach you would take.

Pallaith:

Just as a reminder, any Justice can accept a R4R, I believe that we’ve started to take it as a general practice that we always discuss even whether or not to take them when most of the time it should be a simple matter. If there’s a complexity to the request or a doubt as to whether or not it can be accepted then discussion is appropriate, but situations like this, if a justice is ready and able they should accept or deny it.

I’m going to be stuck on my phone for a while so it’s better that you accept it and moderate this one.

We can probably have this one wrapped up by the end of the week. The thing about legislation superseding court rulings is that we cannot strike old decisions unilaterally - we have to respond to R4Rs. This is how this was done with the first case of its kind, overturning the original Attorney General ruling, and with the recent jurisdiction case. It may also be that we find a challenged ruling isn’t quite superseded by existing law, or that there’s a belief that it is when that actually isn’t the case. I suspect in most such cases however it will be rather clear, since often legislation is changed in response to these rulings and designed specifically to answer them.

As far as the decision you’re outlining, I believe there’s room for commentary on handling outdated rulings but I wouldn’t try to nip them all in the bud with this one, because each case is different. So strike down the ruling and affirm the way to handle these old rulings, but I’m not sure on the rest without seeing precisely what approach you would take.

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I'm back to my PC in an hour or two, will get going on it then unless Elu takes it before.
I wouldn't want to strike down more than just the one, but I would probably outline that Court rulings that are superceded by legislation would generally be voided where that legislation is in conflict with the ruling. So a more general comment and instruction on how to approach any future case that resembles this one.

I jotted down a few preliminary thoughts about the process of voiding rulings (Rather than overturning them). It overlaps with the ruling cited in the R4R, but expands somewhat on the considerations and process:

I'll get back to this but I think it's important that we review the other implications of the old ruling and let them stand if appropriate.

I agree the term overturn wouldn’t be appropriate in these cases. That should be reserved for decisions that the Court believes were wrongly decided. Voiding makes more sense because they are simply disabled by existing law that replaced their original legal underpinnings.

The Court didn’t use any particular term when they dispatched the original AG ruling, and the name of the case makes it clear that they were considering the matter in terms of how to handle defunct rulings on the record rather than a general principle for how to handle voiding outdated decisions. And then of course, the Court recently revisited an old case on jurisdiction and ultimately clarified that ruling rather than overturn or void it. So I see us as kind of forging a new path here, and for that reason see value in the decision addressing these principles more broadly. My preference would be for it to be one section of the decision, probably at the end, which can serve as a signpost for future decisions of its kind.

Elu’s concern about leaving parts of the decision that should stand is fine, every case is different and it is possible to void a ruling and still acknowledge that part of it was proper and should remain so. When we overturned the sedition ruling, we confirmed the holding was correct, but the reasoning and the argument to get to that result was not. And in my view, whenever the Court does this, whenever it declares an old ruling is overturned or voided in whole or part, the decision in which that happens becomes the last word on that topic - so you may see the particulars of old cases make their way into tangentially related cases and their ultimate fate rests in that new decision. That’s how I believe we can have results where the original holding is fine and still exists as precedent - because the precedent case is now the one that overturned the old case.

I would welcome AS offering a first draft of the opinion, I don’t think this needs to be overly complicated and would only caution an attempt to move toward brevity and clarity, especially in addressing general principles (your notes are helpful and well made but seem a bit dense for the case at hand in my opinion).

Eluvatar:

I'll get back to this but I think it's important that we review the other implications of the old ruling and let them stand if appropriate.

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This is what I tried to say, for example here:

If the substance of the ruling is affected and in material terms, the Court should give deference to the Regional Assembly’s lawmaking powers and consider voiding the ruling, but if a ruling is only partially superseded, then it is generally voided only in part.

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If it doesn't come across that way then I'll rework it.

Pallaith:

I agree the term overturn wouldn’t be appropriate in these cases. That should be reserved for decisions that the Court believes were wrongly decided. Voiding makes more sense because they are simply disabled by existing law that replaced their original legal underpinnings.

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I agree, and I hope that was clear from my notes.

Pallaith:

My preference would be for it to be one section of the decision, probably at the end, which can serve as a signpost for future decisions of its kind.

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I was thinking along those lines when writing the notes. I would use them as a basis for that signpost. The ruling itself can be very short; essentially 'this ruling was correct at the time, but has been voided by superseding legislation', with the necessary references to the law.

I prefer defunct to void.

Eluvatar:

I prefer defunct to void.

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I’ll start by amending our description of that first case with that word.

Defunct works for me too. I'll come back with a first draft of the ruling soon, probably during the weekend.

I do believe the brief window has closed on this one @Attempted Socialism so deliberation should officially start. As the moderating justice you should be sure to post to that effect.

Yeah, I have been doing other things this week but I have time today, so will also see if I can get the draft opinion done.

Sorry for the delay. Here's the draft.

@Pallaith as the other rulings are also on rulings that are superseded (By legislation or adopted procedures by the relevant body) I would suggest that we either post the other rulings after this one (And refer back to this one in those rulings) or adopt the language from my note on defunct rulings to those other rulings.


The Court took into consideration the inquiry filed here by TlomzKrano.

The Court took into consideration the legal brief filed here by Comfed.

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Constitution of The North Pacific:

[[excerpts]]

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The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Legal Code of The North Pacific:

Section 4.4: Overall Election Law
20. Citizens will be provided three days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin two days after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days.
21. Candidates may withdraw from the ballot anytime during an election.
22. Private votes may be sent by private message to a forum account designated for that purpose by the Election Commission. In such an event, the Election Commissioners supervising the election will promptly announce that a vote has been cast privately and who that vote was cast for. The Election Commissioners may not announce any other details about the vote.
23. The option to reopen nominations will appear on the ballot as a separate question for each race.
24. Should a majority vote to reopen nominations for a given race, a further two days will be provided for candidacy declarations.
25. Candidates for that race whose names appeared on the first ballot will retain their candidacy unless they choose to withdraw.
26. A second round of voting for that race will begin immediately after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the new ballot.
27. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the ballot for any runoff vote.
28. If during any voting round for a given race a candidate becomes invalid, then all votes for that candidate will be removed from voters' preferential ranking. The Election Commission will remove the candidate from the list of candidates and notify all citizens who have voted before the candidate became invalid.
29. If at any point in counting the votes for two or more candidates are tied for one position, the candidate who has the least votes at the latest stage of counting where there is a difference in votes will be eliminated. If this does not break a tie, a runoff vote will be held between the tied candidates.

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The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the challenged ruling:

The Court opines the following:

The provisions made in the Legal Code for the reopening of nominations apply only to general elections - that is, those for delegate, vice delegate, and speaker - and special elections for any office. As the election referred to by the petitioner is a judicial election, it does not fall under this law.

The request for an injunction is denied.

The Election Commissioners are instructed to tally the results of the Attorney General race from the first round of voting and to either certify them or hold a run-off vote as necessary.

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The Court opines the following:

On Standing
The Petitioner is the Court Examiner and enjoys universal standing in all cases of review before this Court. The Petitioner thus has proper standing.

On Rulings Superseded by Legislation – Defunct Rulings
This Court is often asked to rule on laws that are ambiguous. That is the nature of a Court with the power of judicial review. Those rulings have the force of law, but they are not laws themselves. This case is only about the specific request for review and the challenged ruling, but this Court finds it productive to weigh in on the general matter of rulings on matters where the law is subsequently changed as a corrective to that ruling. If the citizenry believes that a ruling was in error the proper corrective to that is an appeal. If, instead, the citizenry – through the Court’s ruling – is made aware of a flaw in the Legal Code, the proper corrective is to clarify the citizenry’s intent with the law through new legislation. As such it should be expected that Court rulings give rise to legislation that is meant to supersede Court rulings.
Any requested review of past rulings that may have been superseded by legislation should establish three facts. First, was the ruling correct at the time? Second, were changes made to the legislation underlying that ruling? Third, did those changes address the ruling in part or in full?
If the ruling was correct at the time, the Court did not err in judgement and as such, the material outcome of the case is unchanged. If an action was ordered, denied, or reversed by the Court, that specific action remained ordered, denied, or reversed.
If the Regional Assembly changed the underlying legislation, any part of the ruling that relies on that legislation is also, necessarily, subject to change. This can range from the innocuous – for instance changes to the numbering of clauses – to making the precedent defunct – as we shall see is the case here – depending on the degree to which the changes addressed the ruling. That is the nature of the third fact to be established.

After establishing the three facts, the Court should evaluate any impact on ruling. If the ruling was correct then but would be incorrect now, the ruling is defunct: The Court should be careful not to phrase this as overturning the ruling, but instead that the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. If the ruling would be unchanged the Court should uphold the ruling and explain in the ruling that it was not correctly superseded by legislation. In between those extremes the Court should carefully evaluate to what degree the ruling would be affected by the new legislation. If the substance of the ruling is affected and in material terms, the Court should give deference to the Regional Assembly’s lawmaking powers and consider the ruling defunct, but if a ruling is only partially superseded, then it is defunct only in that part, and the Court must let the remainder of the original ruling stand.

On the Challenged Ruling
The challenged ruling was delivered according to the law in force at the time. The provisions for reopening nominations was for general elections and special elections, with no such provision for the judicial election.

On Superseding Legislation
The Regional Assembly introduced, debated, and voted on legislation that the Delegate signed into law. This new legislation, as quoted from the Legal Code above, rewrote the relevant parts of the law to make clear the intent to make some general rules apply to all elections, and included in this the ability of voters to vote for reopening nominations. This legislation was intended to specifically address the outcome of the Court's review, and did so in full.

Holding
The Court finds that, while the challenged ruling was correct at the time, the law that gave rise to that ruling has been changed since, and in a way that would make the ruling incorrect now. As such the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent.

Yeah I think I could tweak the other drafts with this case in mind. Given how we’re trying to imagine a general principle, and the examiner relied on decision 41 as much as he did for these reviews, I wonder if we should include it in our discussion here? It’s the earliest example of this sort of thing happening and it doesn’t establish a set of rules or tests to do this sort of thing. Similarly, Vivanco’s R4R on jurisdiction was the same sort of thing, and an example of us upholding an old ruling that was believed to be superseded.

Good thoughts. The jurisdiction ruling was updated and that's reasonably within the scope of the third part of the test I lay out: The original ruling wasn't wrong, just insufficient by today's standards, so a later ruling superseded.

Alright, @Pallaith and @Eluvatar , I made a few changes to the draft, mostly adding the ruling that the Court Examiner cited, and using it to elaborate on how to apply the test:

This idea, although not the specific language, was in place in the ruling, On the Physical Representation of Outdated Rulings on Requests for Review, cited above. This Court thus elaborates on that prior ruling, and codifies a specific language to distinguish between a ruling that was in error – that is, a ruling that is overturned by a subsequent ruling – and a ruling that was correct at the time, but where the law has since been changed – that is, a ruling that is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Lastly, while the Court had not yet established the specific language, the ruling On the Reconsideration of the Jurisdiction of the Criminal Code was an example of a ruling that was also not wrongly decided at the time, but which had not been fully superseded – albeit by developments over time rather than new legislation – and thus the Court revised the ruling without overturning it. That is the process the Court intends for rulings that are only superseded in part.

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I'd love to get the ruling out soon-ish.


The Court took into consideration the inquiry filed here by TlomzKrano.

The Court took into consideration the legal brief filed here by Comfed.

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Legal Code of The North Pacific:

Section 4.4: Overall Election Law
20. Citizens will be provided three days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin two days after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days.
21. Candidates may withdraw from the ballot anytime during an election.
22. Private votes may be sent by private message to a forum account designated for that purpose by the Election Commission. In such an event, the Election Commissioners supervising the election will promptly announce that a vote has been cast privately and who that vote was cast for. The Election Commissioners may not announce any other details about the vote.
23. The option to reopen nominations will appear on the ballot as a separate question for each race.
24. Should a majority vote to reopen nominations for a given race, a further two days will be provided for candidacy declarations.
25. Candidates for that race whose names appeared on the first ballot will retain their candidacy unless they choose to withdraw.
26. A second round of voting for that race will begin immediately after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the new ballot.
27. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the ballot for any runoff vote.
28. If during any voting round for a given race a candidate becomes invalid, then all votes for that candidate will be removed from voters' preferential ranking. The Election Commission will remove the candidate from the list of candidates and notify all citizens who have voted before the candidate became invalid.
29. If at any point in counting the votes for two or more candidates are tied for one position, the candidate who has the least votes at the latest stage of counting where there is a difference in votes will be eliminated. If this does not break a tie, a runoff vote will be held between the tied candidates.

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The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the challenged ruling:

The Court opines the following:

The provisions made in the Legal Code for the reopening of nominations apply only to general elections - that is, those for delegate, vice delegate, and speaker - and special elections for any office. As the election referred to by the petitioner is a judicial election, it does not fall under this law.

The request for an injunction is denied.

The Election Commissioners are instructed to tally the results of the Attorney General race from the first round of voting and to either certify them or hold a run-off vote as necessary.

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The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the ruling On the Physical Representation of Outdated Rulings on Requests for Review:

2. Should Opinion 1 be modified with strikethrough tags as it has been superseded by the current Legal Code Chapter 6, Section 7?

It seems clear to the court that Opinion 1 was written when the law required the Attorney General's Office to bring all cases to trial. The current law is clear in that, in clause 38 of Chapter 6, Section 7 of the Legal Code, "The Attorney General may, at their discretion, manage the prosecution of any criminal case requested." This allows for the Office of AG to decide not to prosecute. As such Opinion 1 is contrary to, and superseded by, the current Legal Code.

The Court, therefore, opines the following:

Opinion Number 1, In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Tim on the Attorney General Refusing to bring Trials to the Court, is hereby modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes. As such, the Court's Ruling issued on September 15, 2012 no longer has the force of law.

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The Court opines the following:

On Standing
The Petitioner is the Court Examiner and enjoys universal standing in all cases of review before this Court. The Petitioner thus has proper standing.

On Rulings Superseded by Legislation – Defunct Rulings
This Court is often asked to rule on laws that are ambiguous. That is the nature of a Court with the power of judicial review. Those rulings have the force of law, but they are not laws themselves. This case is only about the specific request for review and the challenged ruling, but this Court finds it productive to weigh in on the general matter of rulings on matters where the law is subsequently changed as a corrective to that ruling. If the citizenry believes that a ruling was in error the proper corrective to that is an appeal. If, instead, the citizenry – through the Court’s ruling – is made aware of a flaw in the Legal Code, the proper corrective is to clarify the citizenry’s intent with the law through new legislation. As such it should be expected that Court rulings give rise to legislation that is meant to supersede Court rulings. This is also not the first time that the Court is asked to weigh in on a previous ruling that has since been superseded. It is, however, the first time that the Court sets out to make a test for superseded rulings, and clearly spell out what the status of a superseded ruling is.
Any requested review of past rulings that may have been superseded by legislation should establish three facts. First, was the ruling correct at the time? Second, were changes made to the legislation underlying that ruling? Third, did those changes address the ruling in part or in full?
If the ruling was correct at the time, the Court did not err in judgement and as such, the material outcome of the case is unchanged. If an action was ordered, denied, or reversed by the Court, that specific action remained ordered, denied, or reversed.
If the Regional Assembly changed the underlying legislation, any part of the ruling that relies on that legislation is also, necessarily, subject to change. This can range from the innocuous – for instance changes to the numbering of clauses – to making the precedent defunct – as we shall see is the case here – depending on the degree to which the changes addressed the ruling. That is the nature of the third fact to be established.

After establishing the three facts, the Court should evaluate any impact on ruling. If the ruling was correct then but would be incorrect now, the ruling is defunct: The Court should be careful not to phrase this as overturning the ruling, but instead that the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. If the ruling would be unchanged the Court should uphold the ruling and explain in the ruling that it was not correctly superseded by legislation. In between those extremes the Court should carefully evaluate to what degree the ruling would be affected by the new legislation. If the substance of the ruling is affected and in material terms, the Court should give deference to the Regional Assembly’s lawmaking powers and consider the ruling defunct, but if a ruling is only partially superseded, then it is defunct only in that part, and the Court must let the remainder of the original ruling stand, or overturn it for other reasons.
This idea, although not the specific language, was in place in the ruling, On the Physical Representation of Outdated Rulings on Requests for Review, cited above. This Court thus elaborates on that prior ruling, and codifies a specific language to distinguish between a ruling that was in error – that is, a ruling that is overturned by a subsequent ruling – and a ruling that was correct at the time, but where the law has since been changed – that is, a ruling that is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Lastly, while the Court had not yet established the specific language, the ruling On the Reconsideration of the Jurisdiction of the Criminal Code was an example of a ruling that was also not wrongly decided at the time, but which had not been fully superseded – albeit by developments over time rather than new legislation – and thus the Court revised the ruling without overturning it. That is the process the Court intends for rulings that are only superseded in part.

On the Challenged Ruling
The challenged ruling was delivered according to the law in force at the time. The provisions for reopening nominations was for general elections and special elections, with no such provision for the judicial election.

On Superseding Legislation
The Regional Assembly introduced, debated, and voted on legislation that the Delegate signed into law. This new legislation, as quoted from the Legal Code above, rewrote the relevant parts of the law to make clear the intent to make some general rules apply to all elections, and included in this the ability of voters to vote for reopening nominations. This legislation was intended to specifically address the outcome of the Court's review, and did so in full.

Holding
The Court finds that, while the challenged ruling was correct at the time, the law that gave rise to that ruling has been changed since, and in a way that would make the ruling incorrect now. As such the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent.

I would probably break up that first big paragraph so it’s easier to read. How you went about this seems fine to me and I like that we have a guiding principle for future such cases. I want to give it a fresh look tomorrow though. I guess what it makes me curious about now is how you believe that should play into the draft opinion I’ve provided for the term limit decision. Do we in your view need to explicitly reference the test and this case in every subsequent ruling of this kind?

I also noted you zeroed in on the specific sections of the rulings rather than simply cite them, and identified the holding in a separate section. These are stylistic choices and show how our opinion writing styles differ, but I wonder to what extent we want to allow such differences to continue to be a thing given we’re looking at a potential boatload of cases. I believe standardization is preferable and I noted that the Court has somewhat adopted the same style for a while now, including with how you set this one up. This probably needs a new thread but I think we should probably look at getting on the same page as far as this sort of thing goes.

I'll make a few line breaks. I am aware that my writing style, inherited from Continental philosophy, leans towards fairly long and cumbersome sentences, so if there are specific places you want to break up a sentence for clarity, I'm all ears.

Pallaith:

I guess what it makes me curious about now is how you believe that should play into the draft opinion I’ve provided for the term limit decision. Do we in your view need to explicitly reference the test and this case in every subsequent ruling of this kind?

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I would say yes, but no longer than what I do here as a general rule. If a ruling has been superseded and is defunct, that's probably going to be easy because the RA usually makes that legislation against the backdrop of some ruling (Like, for instance, your law on treaties, or the examples we are working with here). So I would basically do it like with the Court Examiner's standing line: Recognise that a ruling was correct at the time, subsequent legislation was duly passed, and the ruling is now defunct. It's only if a ruling is defunct only in part that we'd need to spend more than 5-6 lines on it.

Pallaith:

I also noted you zeroed in on the specific sections of the rulings rather than simply cite them, and identified the holding in a separate section. These are stylistic choices and show how our opinion writing styles differ, but I wonder to what extent we want to allow such differences to continue to be a thing given we’re looking at a potential boatload of cases. I believe standardization is preferable and I noted that the Court has somewhat adopted the same style for a while now, including with how you set this one up. This probably needs a new thread but I think we should probably look at getting on the same page as far as this sort of thing goes.

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Just to clarify, you mean both the subheaders (With 'holding' being equivalent to 'conclusion') and the way I refer to the earlier rulings in the opinion itself?
I'm for standardisation, but it shouldn't become a straightjacket either. If you have thoughts on the style that are specific to this draft I can make edits, but a general style guide for the Court should have another thread, yes.

I like the substance but if I have time I'd also like to try my hand at revising it

In the spirit of new case titles, I suggest you refer to this one in the thread as "In regards to the judicial inquiry filed by TlomzKrano on Defunct Rulings" and then the official title on the record will be On Defunct Rulings. I have already adopted that case title in my draft opinion for delegate term limits. You will also have to make sure the other cases are referred to by their current titles - ruling 41 is one of the ones that was renamed.

This isn't a big deal, but after working on my opinion draft in the other case, I simply identified the names of all of the cases we looked at. In some cases the decisions are so short that they can fit in a quote box, as we can see in this opinion, but in other cases you have to narrow it down to one area, as we also see in this opinion. There is obvious value in being able to reference the old opinion right in the opinion you're reading, but it can require a lot of parsing of that opinion, and formatting in the opinion post, to get it right. I am of the opinion that if a portion is relevant and necessary to understanding the opinion, it should be quoted in the opinion itself and otherwise the link to the decision is sufficient. What do you think?

Once this case is precedent I figure we don't really need to worry about citing ruling 41 in similar cases of this nature, save for one aspect that I thought of. That ruling established strikethrough text for outdated rulings, which we currently use whether the case was overturned or rendered defunct. Should we establish a different way to mark old cases that are defunct rather than overturned, or is that irrelevant? They can always consult the opinion that overturned or rendered it defunct to know why that old language is crossed out, but I figured the main difference is that theoretically defunct language can suddenly be made un-defunct and the old opinion's logic still hold, but an overturned case would need to be reconsidered entirely since it was wrong even according to the law at the time. This is super unimportant, and probably doesn't even need to be addressed in the opinion itself - it can probably be handled by the style guide. What do you think?

I don't think we need to worry about defunct rulings becoming relevant. We can always get an R4R to un-strike them if necessary.

I took the liberty of editing the opinion to conform to existing style and ruling titles, along with the suggested tweaks I mentioned. I am fine with this opinion as written, and if @Eluvatar is as well, I think we can get this one published.

Ruling of the Court of The North Pacific​

The Court took into consideration the inquiry filed here by TlomzKrano.

The Court took into consideration the legal brief filed here by Comfed.

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Legal Code of The North Pacific:

Section 4.4: Overall Election Law
20. Citizens will be provided three days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin two days after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days.
21. Candidates may withdraw from the ballot anytime during an election.
22. Private votes may be sent by private message to a forum account designated for that purpose by the Election Commission. In such an event, the Election Commissioners supervising the election will promptly announce that a vote has been cast privately and who that vote was cast for. The Election Commissioners may not announce any other details about the vote.
23. The option to reopen nominations will appear on the ballot as a separate question for each race.
24. Should a majority vote to reopen nominations for a given race, a further two days will be provided for candidacy declarations.
25. Candidates for that race whose names appeared on the first ballot will retain their candidacy unless they choose to withdraw.
26. A second round of voting for that race will begin immediately after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the new ballot.
27. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the ballot for any runoff vote.
28. If during any voting round for a given race a candidate becomes invalid, then all votes for that candidate will be removed from voters' preferential ranking. The Election Commission will remove the candidate from the list of candidates and notify all citizens who have voted before the candidate became invalid.
29. If at any point in counting the votes for two or more candidates are tied for one position, the candidate who has the least votes at the latest stage of counting where there is a difference in votes will be eliminated. If this does not break a tie, a runoff vote will be held between the tied candidates.

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The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the challenged ruling:

The Court opines the following:

The provisions made in the Legal Code for the reopening of nominations apply only to general elections - that is, those for delegate, vice delegate, and speaker - and special elections for any office. As the election referred to by the petitioner is a judicial election, it does not fall under this law.

The request for an injunction is denied.

The Election Commissioners are instructed to tally the results of the Attorney General race from the first round of voting and to either certify them or hold a run-off vote as necessary.

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The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the prior ruling by the Court On Recognizing Outdated Rulings:

2. Should Opinion 1 be modified with strikethrough tags as it has been superseded by the current Legal Code Chapter 6, Section 7?

It seems clear to the court that Opinion 1 was written when the law required the Attorney General's Office to bring all cases to trial. The current law is clear in that, in clause 38 of Chapter 6, Section 7 of the Legal Code, "The Attorney General may, at their discretion, manage the prosecution of any criminal case requested." This allows for the Office of AG to decide not to prosecute. As such Opinion 1 is contrary to, and superseded by, the current Legal Code.

The Court, therefore, opines the following:

Opinion Number 1, In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Tim on the Attorney General Refusing to bring Trials to the Court, is hereby modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes. As such, the Court's Ruling issued on September 15, 2012 no longer has the force of law.

Click to expand...

The Court opines the following:

On Standing
The Petitioner is the Court Examiner and enjoys universal standing in all cases of review before this Court. The Petitioner thus has proper standing.

On Rulings Superseded by Legislation – Defunct Rulings
This Court is often asked to rule on laws that are ambiguous. That is the nature of a Court with the power of judicial review. Those rulings have the force of law, but they are not laws themselves. This case is only about the specific request for review and the challenged ruling, but this Court finds it productive to weigh in on the general matter of rulings on matters where the law is subsequently changed as a corrective to that ruling. If the citizenry believes that a ruling was in error the proper corrective to that is an appeal. If, instead, the citizenry – through the Court’s ruling – is made aware of a flaw in the Legal Code, the proper corrective is to clarify the citizenry’s intent with the law through new legislation. As such it should be expected that Court rulings give rise to legislation that is meant to supersede Court rulings. This is also not the first time that the Court is asked to weigh in on a previous ruling that has since been superseded. It is, however, the first time that the Court sets out to make a test for superseded rulings, and clearly spell out what the status of a superseded ruling is.

Any requested review of past rulings that may have been superseded by legislation should establish three facts. First, was the ruling correct at the time? Second, were changes made to the legislation underlying that ruling? Third, did those changes address the ruling in part or in full? If the ruling was correct at the time, the Court did not err in judgement and as such, the material outcome of the case is unchanged. If an action was ordered, denied, or reversed by the Court, that specific action remained ordered, denied, or reversed. If the Regional Assembly changed the underlying legislation, any part of the ruling that relies on that legislation is also, necessarily, subject to change. This can range from the innocuous – for instance changes to the numbering of clauses – to making the precedent defunct – as we shall see is the case here – depending on the degree to which the changes addressed the ruling. That is the nature of the third fact to be established.

After establishing the three facts, the Court should evaluate any impact on ruling. If the ruling was correct then but would be incorrect now, the ruling is defunct: the Court should be careful not to phrase this as overturning the ruling, but instead that the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. If the ruling would be unchanged the Court should uphold the ruling and explain in the ruling that it was not correctly superseded by legislation. In between those extremes the Court should carefully evaluate to what degree the ruling would be affected by the new legislation. If the substance of the ruling is affected and in material terms, the Court should give deference to the Regional Assembly’s lawmaking powers and consider the ruling defunct, but if a ruling is only partially superseded, then it is defunct only in that part, and the Court must let the remainder of the original ruling stand, or overturn it for other reasons.

This idea, although not the specific language, was in place in the ruling, On Recognizing Outdated Rulings, cited above. This Court thus elaborates on that prior ruling, and codifies a specific language to distinguish between a ruling that was in error – that is, a ruling that is overturned by a subsequent ruling – and a ruling that was correct at the time, but where the law has since been changed – that is, a ruling that is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Lastly, while the Court had not yet established the specific language, the ruling On the Reconsideration of the Jurisdiction of the Criminal Code was an example of a ruling that was also not wrongly decided at the time, but which had not been fully superseded – albeit by developments over time rather than new legislation – and thus the Court revised the ruling without overturning it. That is the process the Court intends for rulings that are only superseded in part.

On the Challenged Ruling
The challenged ruling was delivered according to the law in force at the time. The provisions for reopening nominations was for general elections and special elections, with no such provision for the judicial election.

On Superseding Legislation
The Regional Assembly introduced, debated, and voted on legislation that the Delegate signed into law. This new legislation, as quoted from the Legal Code above, rewrote the relevant parts of the law to make clear the intent to make some general rules apply to all elections, and included in this the ability of voters to vote for reopening nominations. This legislation was intended to specifically address the outcome of the Court's review, and did so in full.

Holding
The Court finds that, while the challenged ruling was correct at the time, the law that gave rise to that ruling has been changed since, and in a way that would make the ruling incorrect now. As such the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent.

@Eluvatar have you had a chance to read the draft, as edited by Pallaith above?

Taking my own liberties...



The Court took into consideration the inquiry filed here by TlomzKrano.

The Court took into consideration the legal brief filed here by Comfed.

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Legal Code of The North Pacific:

Section 4.4: Overall Election Law
20. Citizens will be provided three days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin two days after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days.
21. Candidates may withdraw from the ballot anytime during an election.
22. Private votes may be sent by private message to a forum account designated for that purpose by the Election Commission. In such an event, the Election Commissioners supervising the election will promptly announce that a vote has been cast privately and who that vote was cast for. The Election Commissioners may not announce any other details about the vote.
23. The option to reopen nominations will appear on the ballot as a separate question for each race.
24. Should a majority vote to reopen nominations for a given race, a further two days will be provided for candidacy declarations.
25. Candidates for that race whose names appeared on the first ballot will retain their candidacy unless they choose to withdraw.
26. A second round of voting for that race will begin immediately after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the new ballot.
27. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the ballot for any runoff vote.
28. If during any voting round for a given race a candidate becomes invalid, then all votes for that candidate will be removed from voters' preferential ranking. The Election Commission will remove the candidate from the list of candidates and notify all citizens who have voted before the candidate became invalid.
29. If at any point in counting the votes for two or more candidates are tied for one position, the candidate who has the least votes at the latest stage of counting where there is a difference in votes will be eliminated. If this does not break a tie, a runoff vote will be held between the tied candidates.

Click to expand...

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the challenged ruling:

The Court opines the following:

The provisions made in the Legal Code for the reopening of nominations apply only to general elections - that is, those for delegate, vice delegate, and speaker - and special elections for any office. As the election referred to by the petitioner is a judicial election, it does not fall under this law.

The request for an injunction is denied.

The Election Commissioners are instructed to tally the results of the Attorney General race from the first round of voting and to either certify them or hold a run-off vote as necessary.

Click to expand...

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the prior ruling by the Court On Recognizing Outdated Rulings:

2. Should Opinion 1 be modified with strikethrough tags as it has been superseded by the current Legal Code Chapter 6, Section 7?

It seems clear to the court that Opinion 1 was written when the law required the Attorney General's Office to bring all cases to trial. The current law is clear in that, in clause 38 of Chapter 6, Section 7 of the Legal Code, "The Attorney General may, at their discretion, manage the prosecution of any criminal case requested." This allows for the Office of AG to decide not to prosecute. As such Opinion 1 is contrary to, and superseded by, the current Legal Code.

The Court, therefore, opines the following:

Opinion Number 1, In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Tim on the Attorney General Refusing to bring Trials to the Court, is hereby modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes. As such, the Court's Ruling issued on September 15, 2012 no longer has the force of law.

Click to expand...

The Court opines the following:

On Standing
The Petitioner is the Court Examiner and enjoys universal standing in all cases of review before this Court. The Petitioner thus has proper standing.

On Rulings Superseded by Legislation – Defunct Rulings
This Court is often asked to rule on laws that are ambiguous. That is the nature of a Court with the power of judicial review. Those rulings have the force of law, but they are not laws themselves. This case is only about the specific request for review and the challenged ruling, but this Court finds it necessary to weigh in on the general matter of rulings on matters where the law is subsequently changed as a corrective to that ruling to reach the best ruling in this case. When a ruling may be in error the most direct corrective to that is an appeal. If, instead, the citizenry – through the Court’s ruling – is made aware of a flaw in the Legal Code, the proper corrective is to clarify the citizenry’s intent with the law through new legislation. As such it should be expected that Court rulings give rise to legislation that is meant to supersede Court rulings. This is also not the first time that the Court is asked to weigh in on a previous ruling that has since been superseded. It is, however, the first time that the Court sets out to make a test for superseded rulings, and clearly spell out what the status of a superseded ruling is.

Any requested review of past rulings that may have been superseded by legislation should establish three facts. First, was the ruling correct at the time? Second, were changes made to the legislation underlying that ruling? Third, did those changes address the ruling in part or in full? If the ruling was correct at the time, the Court did not err in judgement and as such, the material outcome of the case is unchanged. If an action was ordered, denied, or reversed by the Court, that specific action remained ordered, denied, or reversed. If the Regional Assembly changed the underlying legislation, any part of the ruling that relies on that legislation is also, necessarily, subject to change. But it is not enough for a legislative change to be something innocuous such as a renumbering of clauses, corrected spelling, or reworded or reorganized clauses that do not change the original meaning or intent of the law. The law must now have additional provisions, or have removed provisions that existed originally, or different ones than existed at the time of the original ruling, such that the Court has to consider the altered form of the law that did not exist at the time of the decision.

After establishing the these facts, the Court should evaluate any impact on ruling. If the ruling was correct then but would be incorrect now, the ruling is defunct: the Court should be careful not to phrase this as overturning the ruling, but instead that the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. If the ruling would be unchanged the Court should uphold the ruling and explain in the ruling that it was not correctly superseded by legislation. In between those extremes the Court should carefully evaluate to what degree the ruling would be affected by the new legislation. If the substance of the ruling is significantly affected, the Court should give deference to the Regional Assembly’s lawmaking powers and consider the ruling defunct, but if a ruling is only partially superseded, then it is defunct only in that part, and the Court must let the remainder of the original ruling stand (or overturn it for other reasons).

This idea, although not the specific language, was in place in the ruling, On Recognizing Outdated Rulings, cited above. This Court thus elaborates on that prior ruling, and codifies a specific language to distinguish between a ruling that was in error – that is, a ruling that is overturned by a subsequent ruling – and a ruling that was correct at the time, but where the law has since been changed – that is, a ruling that is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Lastly, while the Court had not yet established the specific language, the ruling On the Reconsideration of the Jurisdiction of the Criminal Code was an example of a ruling that was also not wrongly decided at the time, but which had not been fully superseded – albeit by developments over time rather than new legislation – and thus the Court revised the ruling without overturning it. That is the process the Court intends for rulings that are only superseded in part.

On the Challenged Ruling
The challenged ruling was delivered according to the law in force at the time. The provisions for reopening nominations was for general elections and special elections, with no such provision for the judicial election.

On Superseding Legislation
The Regional Assembly introduced, debated, and voted on legislation that the Delegate signed into law. This new legislation, as quoted from the Legal Code above, rewrote the relevant parts of the law to make clear the intent to make some general rules apply to all elections, and included in this the ability of voters to vote for reopening nominations. This legislation was intended to specifically address the outcome of the Court's review, and did so in full.

Holding
The Court finds that, while the challenged ruling was correct at the time, the law that gave rise to that ruling has been changed since, and in a way that would make the ruling incorrect now. As such the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Therefore, Opinion Number 33, On Candidate Eligibility in Reopened Nomination Periods, is hereby modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes.

---

I think there's room for further improvement here: it's a little verbose and some of the extra language can, I think, lead to unnecessary distractions (somebody could decide, for instance, that we want the legal texts referred to in rulings every time the legal code's clauses are renumbered...) but overall I am in complete agreement with the opinion. I can try to give this another go in a couple days.

I have a note on the last line, regarding the strike through lines. That language mirrors the language in ruling 41, which was the first to actually establish doing such a thing with defunct rulings. This is the first time we’re doing that since that case, so we’re basically establishing a pattern by including this language. I suppose this also differentiates such strikeouts from those done as part of a ruling being overturned?

I’m not sure what you mean though about the legal texts being referenced in the ruling, is this a hypothetical I’m not understanding or was it meant to respond to something in AS’s draft opinion?

@Eluvatar

The changes I can spot (Last line about strikeouts, the reference to an appeal) are fine by me. If you made other edits they are either purely to readability or I missed them. The line about e.g. numbering being innocuous is meant to signal that we know that some changes are irrelevant in legal terms; if the numbers are changed but the law remains the same, the ruling can't be challenged on those grounds.

Attempted Socialism:

The changes I can spot (Last line about strikeouts, the reference to an appeal) are fine by me. If you made other edits they are either purely to readability or I missed them. The line about e.g. numbering being innocuous is meant to signal that we know that some changes are irrelevant in legal terms; if the numbers are changed but the law remains the same, the ruling can't be challenged on those grounds.

Click to expand...

Unless you want to add language to that effect in the ruling (which I do not believe is necessary), and assuming @Eluvatar is fine with the ruling going out in this state, I think we can publish once he gives the okay.

Maybe it was unclearly phrased, but I added language to that effect in the first draft and it is still there. My comment was towards Elu's about whether the line can be misunderstood by the casual observer.

Attempted Socialism:

Maybe it was unclearly phrased, but I added language to that effect in the first draft and it is still there. My comment was towards Elu's about whether the line can be misunderstood by the casual observer.

Click to expand...

Ah now I get it. And I agree, that example should not be used, it does imply that renumbering clauses would be considered here, better to rephrase I think.

Do you have suggestions? I can just excise the inserted line but I would prefer to have some line that elaborates on what we think when we say innocuous. That some minor changes simply aren't worth a R4R, because the change isn't actually changing the legal foundation of a ruling.

I think the problem I’m having here is interpreting the third question of your test. It looks like the paragraph the law change language is in addresses the first two questions, while the subsequent paragraph addresses the third, but that’s not how you seem to be explaining things. Is the third question simply meant to be concerned with if the law was intended to be changed to address a ruling? Or is it meant to determine how much a ruling is affected by law change? Because if it’s the latter, your third test question is also the same as the actual analysis the Court is meant to do after determining the answers to the three questions.

I have some proposed language for the ruling that assumes the third question of the test is meant to examine if the law change was meant to impact a Court ruling. If that wasn’t what you meant by the third question, then you should reword the hits question, or reframe the paragraphs so that the first one only talks about the first two questions and the next one talks about the third. I have italicized the text related to the third question. If my understanding of your question is wrong, then I would suggest additional tweaks, and I wouldn’t use that italicized portion. Let me know either way, but here’s what I suggest for that last section of the paragraph:

It is not enough for a legislative change to be something innocuous such as a renumbering of clauses, corrected spelling, or reworded or reorganized clauses that do not change the original meaning or intent of the law. The law must now have additional provisions, or have removed provisions that existed originally, or different ones than existed at the time of the original ruling, such that the Court has to consider the altered form of the law that did not exist at the time of the decision. And then that new law must be compared against the ruling, to see if it directly relates to the Court’s original ruling, and to what extent.

I think the proper question is not whether a law change was meant to affect a ruling, but whether it affects what that ruling asks people to do, which is what I think Pallaith is getting at.

Eluvatar:

I think the proper question is not whether a law change was meant to affect a ruling, but whether it affects what that ruling asks people to do, which is what I think Pallaith is getting at.

Click to expand...

Basically, I want to know if his three question test is actually a two question test, or if he explicitly wants the Court to examine situations where the law is trying to address a situation a court ruling was addressing. We need clarity on that because this ruling has to get out first.

No, it is a three part test.
1) was the ruling correct at the time?
2) were changes made to the legislation underlying that ruling?
3) did those changes address the ruling in part or in full?
If the answers to the first two are yes, but the third is "not at all", we get to something like the example of changing numbers or other innocuous stuff. Things that would not have changed the ruling at the time. However, if the third is "yes, changed in full" we get to something like this, where the ruling is defunct. And if it's "yes, in part" then we have to analyse how much of the ruling is affected, and, if we new legislation was drafted specifically to address a ruling, whether there is reason to defer to the RA's lawmaking powers.
If we want a binary question that leads to the later analysis of how much the law affects the ruling, then we can reword the second part to "were substantive changes made to the underlying law?", which then gives the more granular evaluation of how much the law was changed, how that would impact the ruling, whether any part of the ruling would still stand, etc.

Okay. So then my problem is in your draft you seem to imply that you dealt with all three questions before going deeper, but I think you only cover the first two questions in that first paragraph. So my suggestion is to apply the language I proposed without the italicized section, and make it clearer that question 3 is covered in the subsequent paragraph.

I have edited the decision with my additional paragraph and the edits. I think it reads clearer now. I am good with it as written, so if this works for you guys too, I think we’re good to go.

Just so there's no miscommunication, I'm reposting the draft as it currently stands.


The Court took into consideration the inquiry filed here by TlomzKrano.

The Court took into consideration the legal brief filed here by Comfed.

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Legal Code of The North Pacific:

Section 4.4: Overall Election Law
20. Citizens will be provided three days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin two days after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days.
21. Candidates may withdraw from the ballot anytime during an election.
22. Private votes may be sent by private message to a forum account designated for that purpose by the Election Commission. In such an event, the Election Commissioners supervising the election will promptly announce that a vote has been cast privately and who that vote was cast for. The Election Commissioners may not announce any other details about the vote.
23. The option to reopen nominations will appear on the ballot as a separate question for each race.
24. Should a majority vote to reopen nominations for a given race, a further two days will be provided for candidacy declarations.
25. Candidates for that race whose names appeared on the first ballot will retain their candidacy unless they choose to withdraw.
26. A second round of voting for that race will begin immediately after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the new ballot.
27. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the ballot for any runoff vote.
28. If during any voting round for a given race a candidate becomes invalid, then all votes for that candidate will be removed from voters' preferential ranking. The Election Commission will remove the candidate from the list of candidates and notify all citizens who have voted before the candidate became invalid.
29. If at any point in counting the votes for two or more candidates are tied for one position, the candidate who has the least votes at the latest stage of counting where there is a difference in votes will be eliminated. If this does not break a tie, a runoff vote will be held between the tied candidates.

Click to expand...

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the challenged ruling:

The Court opines the following:

The provisions made in the Legal Code for the reopening of nominations apply only to general elections - that is, those for delegate, vice delegate, and speaker - and special elections for any office. As the election referred to by the petitioner is a judicial election, it does not fall under this law.

The request for an injunction is denied.

The Election Commissioners are instructed to tally the results of the Attorney General race from the first round of voting and to either certify them or hold a run-off vote as necessary.

Click to expand...

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the prior ruling by the Court On Recognizing Outdated Rulings:

2. Should Opinion 1 be modified with strikethrough tags as it has been superseded by the current Legal Code Chapter 6, Section 7?

It seems clear to the court that Opinion 1 was written when the law required the Attorney General's Office to bring all cases to trial. The current law is clear in that, in clause 38 of Chapter 6, Section 7 of the Legal Code, "The Attorney General may, at their discretion, manage the prosecution of any criminal case requested." This allows for the Office of AG to decide not to prosecute. As such Opinion 1 is contrary to, and superseded by, the current Legal Code.

The Court, therefore, opines the following:

Opinion Number 1, In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Tim on the Attorney General Refusing to bring Trials to the Court, is hereby modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes. As such, the Court's Ruling issued on September 15, 2012 no longer has the force of law.

Click to expand...

The Court opines the following:

On Standing
The Petitioner is the Court Examiner and enjoys universal standing in all cases of review before this Court. The Petitioner thus has proper standing.

On Rulings Superseded by Legislation – Defunct Rulings
This Court is often asked to rule on laws that are ambiguous. That is the nature of a Court with the power of judicial review. Those rulings have the force of law, but they are not laws themselves. This case is only about the specific request for review and the challenged ruling, but this Court finds it necessary to weigh in on the general matter of rulings on matters where the law is subsequently changed as a corrective to that ruling to reach the best ruling in this case. When a ruling may be in error the most direct corrective to that is an appeal. If, instead, the citizenry – through the Court’s ruling – is made aware of a flaw in the Legal Code, the proper corrective is to clarify the citizenry’s intent with the law through new legislation. As such it should be expected that Court rulings give rise to legislation that is meant to supersede Court rulings. This is also not the first time that the Court is asked to weigh in on a previous ruling that has since been superseded. It is, however, the first time that the Court sets out to make a test for superseded rulings, and clearly spell out what the status of a superseded ruling is.

Any requested review of past rulings that may have been superseded by legislation should establish three facts. First, was the ruling correct at the time? Second, were changes made to the legislation underlying that ruling? Third, did those changes address the ruling in part or in full? If the ruling was correct at the time, the Court did not err in judgement and as such, the material outcome of the case is unchanged. If an action was ordered, denied, or reversed by the Court, that specific action remained ordered, denied, or reversed. If the Regional Assembly changed the underlying legislation, any part of the ruling that relies on that legislation is also, necessarily, subject to change. But it is not enough for a legislative change to be something innocuous such as a renumbering of clauses, corrected spelling, or reworded or reorganized clauses that do not change the original meaning or intent of the law. The law must now have additional provisions, or have removed provisions that existed originally, or different ones than existed at the time of the original ruling, such that the Court has to consider the altered form of the law that did not exist at the time of the decision.

After establishing the these facts, the Court should evaluate any impact on ruling. If the ruling was correct then but would be incorrect now, the ruling is defunct: the Court should be careful not to phrase this as overturning the ruling, but instead that the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. If the ruling would be unchanged the Court should uphold the ruling and explain in the ruling that it was not correctly superseded by legislation. In between those extremes the Court should carefully evaluate to what degree the ruling would be affected by the new legislation. If the substance of the ruling is significantly affected, the Court should give deference to the Regional Assembly’s lawmaking powers and consider the ruling defunct, but if a ruling is only partially superseded, then it is defunct only in that part, and the Court must let the remainder of the original ruling stand (or overturn it for other reasons).

This idea, although not the specific language, was in place in the ruling, On Recognizing Outdated Rulings, cited above. This Court thus elaborates on that prior ruling, and codifies a specific language to distinguish between a ruling that was in error – that is, a ruling that is overturned by a subsequent ruling – and a ruling that was correct at the time, but where the law has since been changed – that is, a ruling that is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Lastly, while the Court had not yet established the specific language, the ruling On the Reconsideration of the Jurisdiction of the Criminal Code was an example of a ruling that was also not wrongly decided at the time, but which had not been fully superseded – albeit by developments over time rather than new legislation – and thus the Court revised the ruling without overturning it. That is the process the Court intends for rulings that are only superseded in part.

On the Challenged Ruling
The challenged ruling was delivered according to the law in force at the time. The provisions for reopening nominations was for general elections and special elections, with no such provision for the judicial election.

On Superseding Legislation
The Regional Assembly introduced, debated, and voted on legislation that the Delegate signed into law. This new legislation, as quoted from the Legal Code above, rewrote the relevant parts of the law to make clear the intent to make some general rules apply to all elections, and included in this the ability of voters to vote for reopening nominations. This legislation was intended to specifically address the outcome of the Court's review, and did so in full.

Holding
The Court finds that, while the challenged ruling was correct at the time, the law that gave rise to that ruling has been changed since, and in a way that would make the ruling incorrect now. As such the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Therefore, Opinion Number 33, On Candidate Eligibility in Reopened Nomination Periods, is hereby modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes.

I took some more liberties


The Court took into consideration the inquiry filed here by TlomzKrano.

The Court took into consideration the legal brief filed here by Comfed.

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Legal Code of The North Pacific:

Section 4.4: Overall Election Law
20. Citizens will be provided three days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin two days after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days.
21. Candidates may withdraw from the ballot anytime during an election.
22. Private votes may be sent by private message to a forum account designated for that purpose by the Election Commission. In such an event, the Election Commissioners supervising the election will promptly announce that a vote has been cast privately and who that vote was cast for. The Election Commissioners may not announce any other details about the vote.
23. The option to reopen nominations will appear on the ballot as a separate question for each race.
24. Should a majority vote to reopen nominations for a given race, a further two days will be provided for candidacy declarations.
25. Candidates for that race whose names appeared on the first ballot will retain their candidacy unless they choose to withdraw.
26. A second round of voting for that race will begin immediately after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the new ballot.
27. The option to reopen nominations will not appear on the ballot for any runoff vote.
28. If during any voting round for a given race a candidate becomes invalid, then all votes for that candidate will be removed from voters' preferential ranking. The Election Commission will remove the candidate from the list of candidates and notify all citizens who have voted before the candidate became invalid.
29. If at any point in counting the votes for two or more candidates are tied for one position, the candidate who has the least votes at the latest stage of counting where there is a difference in votes will be eliminated. If this does not break a tie, a runoff vote will be held between the tied candidates.

Click to expand...

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the challenged ruling:

The Court opines the following:

The provisions made in the Legal Code for the reopening of nominations apply only to general elections - that is, those for delegate, vice delegate, and speaker - and special elections for any office. As the election referred to by the petitioner is a judicial election, it does not fall under this law.

The request for an injunction is denied.

The Election Commissioners are instructed to tally the results of the Attorney General race from the first round of voting and to either certify them or hold a run-off vote as necessary.

Click to expand...

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the prior ruling by the Court On Recognizing Outdated Rulings:

2. Should Opinion 1 be modified with strikethrough tags as it has been superseded by the current Legal Code Chapter 6, Section 7?

It seems clear to the court that Opinion 1 was written when the law required the Attorney General's Office to bring all cases to trial. The current law is clear in that, in clause 38 of Chapter 6, Section 7 of the Legal Code, "The Attorney General may, at their discretion, manage the prosecution of any criminal case requested." This allows for the Office of AG to decide not to prosecute. As such Opinion 1 is contrary to, and superseded by, the current Legal Code.

The Court, therefore, opines the following:

Opinion Number 1, In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Tim on the Attorney General Refusing to bring Trials to the Court, is hereby modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes. As such, the Court's Ruling issued on September 15, 2012 no longer has the force of law.

Click to expand...

The Court opines the following:

On Standing
The Petitioner is the Court Examiner and enjoys universal standing in all cases of review before this Court. The Petitioner thus has proper standing.

On Rulings Superseded by Legislation – Defunct Rulings
This Court is often asked to rule on laws that are ambiguous. That is the nature of a Court with the power of judicial review. Those rulings have the force of law, but they are not laws themselves. This case is about the specific request for review and the challenged ruling, but to best reach its ruling the Court finds it necessary to weigh in on the general matter of past rulings on matters where the law is subsequently changed (perhaps as corrective to the past ruling) to reach the best ruling in this case. When a ruling may be in error the most direct corrective to that is an appeal. If, instead, the citizenry – through the Court’s ruling – is made aware of a flaw in the Legal Code, the proper corrective is to clarify the citizenry’s intent with the law through new legislation. As such it should be expected that Court rulings give rise to legislation that is meant to supersede Court rulings. This is also not the first time that the Court is asked to weigh in on a previous ruling that has since been superseded. It is, however, the first time that the Court sets out to make a test for superseded rulings, and clearly spell out what the status of a superseded ruling is.

Any requested review of past rulings that may have been superseded by legislation should establish three facts. First, was the ruling correct at the time? Second, were changes made to the legislation underlying that ruling? Third, did those changes affect the ruling in part or in full? If the ruling was correct at the time, the Court did not err in judgement and as such, the material outcome of the case is unchanged. If an action was ordered, denied, or reversed by the Court, that specific action remained ordered, denied, or reversed. If the Regional Assembly changed the underlying legislation, any part of the ruling that relies on that legislation is also, necessarily, subject to change. But it is not enough for a legislative change to be something innocuous such as a renumbering of clauses, corrected spelling, or reworded or reorganized clauses that do not change the original meaning or intent of the law. The law must now have additional provisions, or have removed provisions that existed originally, or different ones than existed at the time of the original ruling, such that the Court has to consider a different law than existed at the time of the decision.

After establishing these facts, the Court should evaluate any impact on a ruling. If the ruling was correct then but would be incorrect now, the ruling is defunct: the Court should be careful not to phrase this as overturning the ruling, but instead that the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. If the ruling would be unchanged the Court should uphold the ruling and explain in the ruling that it was not effectively superseded by legislation. In between those extremes the Court should carefully evaluate to what degree the ruling would be affected by the new legislation. If the substance of the ruling is significantly affected, the Court should give deference to the Regional Assembly’s lawmaking powers and consider the ruling defunct, but if a ruling is only partially superseded, then it is defunct only in that part, and the Court must let the remainder of the original ruling stand (or overturn it for other reasons).

This idea, although not the specific language, was embedded in the ruling, On Recognizing Outdated Rulings, cited above. This Court thus elaborates on that prior ruling, and codifies a specific language to distinguish between a ruling that was in error – that is, a ruling that is overturned by a subsequent ruling – and a ruling that was correct at the time, but where the law has since been changed – that is, a ruling that is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Lastly, while the Court had not yet established the specific language, the ruling On the Reconsideration of the Jurisdiction of the Criminal Code was an example of a ruling that was also not wrongly decided at the time, but which had not been fully superseded – albeit by developments over time rather than new legislation – and thus the Court revised the ruling without overturning it. That is the process the Court intends for rulings that are only superseded in part.

On the Challenged Ruling
The challenged ruling was delivered according to the law in force at the time. The provisions for reopening nominations was for general elections and special elections, with no such provision for the judicial election.

On Superseding Legislation
The Regional Assembly introduced, debated, and voted on legislation that the Delegate signed into law. This new legislation, as quoted from the Legal Code above, rewrote the relevant parts of the law to make clear the intent to make some general rules apply to all elections, and included in this the ability of voters to vote for reopening nominations. This legislation was intended to specifically address the outcome of the Court's review, and did so in full.

Holding
The Court finds that, while the challenged ruling was correct at the time, the law that gave rise to that ruling has been changed since, and in a way that would make the ruling incorrect now. As such the ruling is superseded by subsequent legislation and is defunct as precedent. Therefore, Opinion Number 33, On Candidate Eligibility in Reopened Nomination Periods, is hereby modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes.

I am good with this.

The ruling is posted, yay!