[R4R] Regarding "On the Ability of the Speaker to Retract Citizenship"

1. What law, government policy, or action (taken by a government official) do you request that the Court review?
Court ruling number 68 (2022), On the Ability of the Speaker to Retract Citizenship.

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?
Chapter 6 of the Legal Code, specifically Section 6.2, Clause 18:

18. The Speaker will promptly remove any citizens to whom they granted citizenship in error, if the error is discovered within 7 days of granting their citizenship.

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The ruling cited a lack of provisions, at the time, in the Legal Code that allowed the Speaker’s Office to remove citizenship granted in error, which has since been rectified by subsequent legislation of the Regional Assembly.

3. Are there any prior rulings of the Court that support your request for review? Which ones, and how?
Court ruling number 41 (2015), On Recognizing Outdated Rulings, establishes the precedent for acknowledging obsolete rulings to be no longer in effect, as a result of subsequent legislation superseding the language that they relied on at the time. This was further reinforced by Court ruling number 72 (2023), On Defunct Rulings, which establishes the ability for the Court to render previous Court rulings defunct as precedent due to subsequent legislation superseding them when targeted by an R4R.

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 derives from my position as Court Examiner, as defined in Section 3.6, Clause 25 of the Legal Code: “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 a whole for your request to be decided now.
In this particular case, the Court ruled that the retraction of citizenship granted in error by the Speaker’s Office was unlawful because there were no legal provisions permitting them to do so at the time. This omission in the Legal Code was corrected by the subsequent passage of the Accelerated Admission Act by the Regional Assembly, which included a clause requiring the Speaker’s Office to remove any citizen to whom they granted citizenship in error, if it is discovered within 7 days of granting their citizenship. This clause has remained in effect as part of Section 6.2. ever since, which makes the ruling contradictory to the laws of the region. It is therefore in the region’s interests that this ruling, or the relevant portion thereof, be rendered defunct to eliminate confusion and enhance consistency in our legal system.

6. Do you have any further information you wish to submit to the Court with your request?
No.

The Court accepts this request for review, and I will serve as the Moderating Justice. The Court does not recognize a respondent.

At this time, the Court will accept briefs from any party that may be interested for a period of five days following this post.

The period for submitting briefs has passed. The court will now deliberate.

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

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

Section 6.2: Administration and Loss of Citizenship
18. "The Speaker will promptly remove any citizens to whom they granted citizenship in error, if the error is discovered within 7 days of granting their citizenship."

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The Court took into consideration prior rulings by the Court, here, here, and here.

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The Court opines the following:

On Standing
The Petitioner is the Court Examiner, who enjoys universal standing in all cases of judicial review before this Court. The Petitioner therefore has proper standing.

On the Initial Ruling
At the time On the Ability of the Speaker to Retract Citizenship was decided, the Legal Code did not contain any basis for authorizing the Speaker's Office to remove citizenship that had been granted in error. The Court therefore concluded that while the granting of citizenship had been unlawful, the subsequent retraction of that citizenship was likewise unlawful because no legal mechanism existed permitting the Speaker to undo the mistake. The Court finds that the law was accurately interpreted as it existed at the time.

On Subsequent Legislation
The Regional Assembly proceeded to amend the Legal Code, where the Court previously found that the Legal Code provided no authority for the Speaker to retract citizenship granted in error, to provide the Speaker's Office with the authority and the obligation to remove citizenship granted in error, provided the error is discovered within seven days. These amendments directly address the deficiencies identified by the Court previously. As such, the portions of the opinion discussing the Speaker's inability to retract citizenship granted in error can no longer be considered reflective of the law currently in force. Likewise, those portions of the opinion analyzing the fourteen day processing period have been superseded by subsequent legislation.

However, the Court does not find that the opinion has been rendered obsolete in its entirety. Several portions of the opinion remain unaffected by these legislative changes. The Court's discussion of standing has not been affected by the changes to regional law. Likewise, the Court's determination that the original grant of citizenship was unlawful under the law at that point in time remains accurate. The portions of the opinion that discussed the interpretation of the citizenship process, were unaffected by the changes to the legal code. The Court agrees that these portions should remain active, while only the ones that were directly superseded by the amendments to the Legal Code should be rendered defunct. This approach is consistent with the principles established by the Court in On Recognizing Outdated Rulings and in On Defunct Rulings. The precedent was set that a ruling that correctly interpreted the law at the time it was decided does not become erroneous when that law is changed. Instead, the superseded portions become defunct while the unaffected reasoning continues to stand.

Holding
The Court finds that, in its ruling in On the Ability of the Speaker to Retract Citizenship, it correctly interpreted the Legal Code as it existed at the time it was decided.

We also find that the following portions of our prior ruling On the Ability of the Speaker to Retract Citizenship are now altered due to being defunct as precedent:

Bearing this in mind, it can be seen clearly that the Speaker has the legal authority to remove citizenships so long as they fully meet any of the criteria set in Section 6.2.18-20. As was argued, removing citizenship after granting citizenship in error is not among the aforementioned provisions.

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There was an interpretation presented to the Court involving Section 6.1.16. This section of the Legal Code states that the Speaker's Office has 14 days to accept or reject an application. If an application does not receive a formal acceptance or rejection after the 14 day period, citizenship is granted automatically. The interpretation presented to the Court argued that the 14 day period does not end after citizenship is granted or rejected. Instead, it is argued that the 14 day period continues from beginning to end allowing the Speaker's Office to use any remaining time in the period to correct any mistakes like granting citizenship in error. This cannot be the case. There is no way to grasp this interpretation from the law or regional custom. In the ruling On Promptness and the Time at which Regional Assembly Membership Begins and Ends an applicant is not accepted or rejected until the Speaker's Office declares it. The exception to this being the 14 day period in which case citizenship is automatically granted if the Speaker’s Office does not give an official acceptance or rejection at all. We take this to mean that a citizen’s application becomes final in two ways: (1) When the Speaker's Office gives an official notice of acceptance or rejection, and (2) if the 14 day period expires without an official response from the Speaker’s Office. As the Court took into account common practice at the time of the Promptness ruling, we shall do the same. Common practice shows that the official declaration of acceptance or rejection from the Speaker’s Office is considered final. Once an official acceptance or rejection is handed down by the Speaker's Office, the application is considered fully processed. The Speaker’s Office does not have the legal room to alter an application's status after the official declaration has been given. Therefore, the law, court precedent, and common practice currently do not make room for the possibility that this presented interpretation can exist.

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As it was unlawful to grant citizenship to The Land of Broken Dreams and unlawful to retract it, and the Speaker’s Office cannot legally undo these unlawful actions, it now falls to the Court to decide a solution to the issue at hand.

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Therefore, the defunct portion of the ruling will be modified with strikethrough tags, acknowledging its obsolescence while preserving it for historical purposes.