[R4R] Regarding "On the Need for Further Clarification on Restarting Voting Periods"

1. What law, government policy, or action (taken by a government official) do you request that the Court review?
Previous court ruling number 43, On the Need for Further Clarification on Restarting Voting Periods.

2. What portions of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Legal Code, or other legal document do you believe has been violated by the above? How so?

Section 4.3 Clause 17 of the Legal Code:

The Election Commission will have the power to make rules for the supervision of elections. Where no rules exist, the Election Commissioners supervising a given election may use their discretion.

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The above referenced court ruling provides “Election Guidelines” to assist the Election Commission (herein ‘EC’) in how to act in various situations. While a helpful clarification to assist the EC at the time of ruling, amendments to the legal code have rendered this court-provided guideline unnecessary. Specifically, this ruling was issued before current Section 4.3 of the Legal Code “The Election Commission” existed, which contains nearly all the relevant law regarding the EC and its members.

The above referenced clause from Section 4.3 of the Legal Code explicitly allows the EC to create its own rules to aid in the facilitation of elections while also providing the EC with wide discretion should their rules not explicitly cover any potential scenario. Given this clause, the EC is explicitly authorized to and entirely capable of handling any of the scenarios described in the court-provided guidelines, thus rendering the court-provided guidelines obsolete.

3. Are there any prior rulings of the Court that support your request for review? Which ones, and how?
Previous court ruling number 41, On the Physical Representation of Outdated Rulings on Requests for Review, establishes the ability for Requests for Review (R4R) rulings to result in the overruling of previous court rulings, as is being proposed in this R4R.

Previous court ruling number 77, On the Reconsideration of the Time at Which Oaths Become Binding serves as an example of the court striking down only a portion of a previous ruling.

4. Please establish your standing by detailing how you, personally, have been adversely affected. If you are requesting a review of a governmental action, you must include how any rights or freedoms of yours have been violated.
Standing derived by my position as Court Examiner, defined in Legal Code Section 3.6, Clause 34: "The Court Examiner will have standing in all cases of judicial review brought before the Court."

5. Is there a compelling regional interest in resolving your request? If so, explain why it is in the interest of the region as whole for your request to be decided now.
This request aims to address a portion of a ruling that was created to assist the EC before laws had been enacted to properly equip the EC with the power to create its own rules to facilitate elections. Given the EC now has the ability to create its own rules and act on its own discretion, the provided guidelines are obsolete and serve no purpose, thus warranting their removal. It is in the region’s best interest for obsolete portions of rulings to be removed so as to ensure standing precedent is clear in modern application.

6. Do you have any further information you wish to submit to the Court with your request?
N/A

This request for review is accepted and I will serve as moderating Justice.

As it is a Court Ruling being questioned there are not inherently any directly respondent parts of the government, I would however suggest responses from members of the Election Commission beyond the general request for interested parties to submit briefs.

The time for brief submission will be five days, absent any reason to extend it.

I concur with the examiner, and would add that the Court’s recent ruling On Resolving Ambiguity in the Absence of Subordinate Rules for Government Bodies affirmed the right of government bodies to define and apply their own rules, and would be directly applicable to this case. The RA changed the law in a way that filled in gaps that the Court previously encountered and sought to navigate with its own guidelines. As with other cases where the Court had to patch over policy, the RA has handled that for them and therefore the Court should consider the relevant portion of the ruling to be defunct.

As 5 days have elapsed by my count, the time for submission of briefs will now be considered closed and the Court will now deliberat.

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

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

The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of prior rulings by the Court "On Recognizing Outdated Rulings,""On the Reconsideration of the Time at Which Oaths Become Binding," and "On Resolving Ambiguity in the Absence of Subordinate Rules for Government Bodies"

The Court opines the following:

On Standing
The petitioner is the Court Examiner, and enjoys universal standing for all questions before this Court.

The Prior Ruling
The Court has been asked to review its old ruling “On the Need for Further Clarification on Restarting Voting Periods,” in light of the region’s subsequent codification of further Election Commission law in the Legal Code. The given ruling also includes a section that has not been challenged and deals with how abstentions are counted in elections.

Holding
As the Regional Assembly has seen fit to specifically legislate the bounds of Election Commission activity and in consideration of the Court’s own prior ruling “On Resolving Ambiguity in the Absence of Subordinate Rules for Government Bodies” and rendered the guidelines portion of the prior ruling obsolete, that portion will be struck out. The abstention portion of the ruling remains in force, while the struck out guidelines will remain present for historical interest.

I thank the court for their time in this manner.