Ruling of the Court of The North Pacific
In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Picairn on Sanctioning Foreign Affiliation
Opinion drafted by Chief Justice Pallaith, joined by Justices Skaraborg and Chipoli
The Court took into consideration the inquiry filed
here by Picairn.
The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Bill of Rights of The North Pacific.
2. Each Nation's rights to free speech, free press, and the free expression of religion shall not be infringed, and shall be encouraged, by the governmental authorities of the region and its territories. Each Nation has the right to assemble, and to petition the governmental authorities of the region and its territories, including the WA Delegate, for the redress of grievances. The governmental authorities of the region and its territories shall act only in the best interests of the Region and its territories, as permitted and limited under the Constitution.
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6. No Nation shall be held to answer for a crime in a manner not prescribed by the Constitution or the Legal Code. No Nation shall be subjected to being twice put in jeopardy for the same offense. No Nation shall ever be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against itself.
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7. When charged with criminal acts, Nations of The North Pacific and its territories shall have a fair, impartial, and public trial before a neutral and impartial judicial officer. In any criminal proceeding, a Nation is presumed innocent unless guilt is proven to the fact finder by reasonably certain evidence. A Nation may be represented by any counsel of the Nation's choosing. No Nation convicted of a crime shall be subject to a punishment disproportionate to that crime.
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9. Each Nation in The North Pacific and its territories is guaranteed the organization and operation of the governmental authorities of the region and its territories on fundamental principles of democracy, accountability, and transparency. No action by the governmental authorities of the region and its territories shall deny to any Nation of The North Pacific and its territories, due process of law, including prior notice and the opportunity to be heard, nor deny to any Nation of The North Pacific and its territories the equal and fair treatment and protection of the provisions of the Constitution. No governmental authority shall have power to adopt or impose an ex post facto law or a bill of attainder as to any act for purposes of criminal proceedings.
The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Constitution of The North Pacific.
Article 3. The Delegate and Vice Delegate
3. The Delegate may negotiate treaties with foreign powers or propose the repeal of existing treaties. No treaty will come into effect or be repealed unless approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the Regional Assembly.
4. The Delegate may propose a declaration of war on foreign powers to the Regional Assembly. If it is approved by a two-thirds majority vote, a state of war will exist until it is repealed by a majority vote of the Regional Assembly.
The Court took into consideration the relevant portions of the Legal Code of The North Pacific.
Chapter 6: Regional Assembly Statutes
Section 6.1: Citizenship Applications
5. Forum administration will have 7 days to evaluate the citizenship applicant and verify that they are not using a proxy or evading a judicially-imposed penalty. The Vice Delegate will have 7 days to perform a security evaluation and pass or fail the applicant. The Vice Delegate must consult the Security Council if there is reasonable concern as to whether an applicant should be admitted.
6. The Vice Delegate will automatically fail any applicant who identifies as fascist or has engaged in the promotion of fascism.
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8. The Speaker will reject applicants who fail an evaluation by the Vice Delegate, or are confirmed by forum administration to be using more than one forum account or using a proxy.
9. The Speaker will reject applicants who fail an evaluation by forum administration and would not be subject to re-evaluation by the Vice Delegate.
10. If an applicant is rejected for failing an evaluation by the Vice Delegate, the Regional Assembly shall immediately debate the rejection and will hold a majority vote on whether to uphold it. The vote must begin two days after the rejection occurs.
11. The Regional Assembly may overturn a previous decision to uphold the rejection of an applicant by majority vote.
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Chapter 7: Executive Government
Section 7.7: Diplomacy
54. The Delegate may choose to designate a region or organization to be prohibited from creating in-game embassies and forum embassies, hosting cultural events together or other formal collaborations with The North Pacific with a majority of the Regional Assembly confirming such.
55. These prohibitions may be repealed with a majority vote of the Regional Assembly.
56. Regions exempted by the Regional Assembly from the restrictions on the North Pacific Army will automatically have the diplomatic restrictions imposed on them.
57. The Delegate may establish agreements with other regions that are not treaties.
58. "Treaty" is defined as a formal agreement made between The North Pacific and one or more regions which binds all signatories to the terms in that agreement until it is formally revoked consistent with those terms; which is presented to and approved by all signatories' governments consistent with their own law's procedure for treaties; and which is mutually understood to be inseverable through any action but the aforementioned terms and regional laws.
The Court took into consideration the Delegate’s directive concerning sanctions agreed upon by the members of the Modern Gameplay Compact.
The following regions/organizations are hereby sanctioned: The Brotherhood of Malice, The Black Hawks, The Communist Bloc, Sparkalia, Osiris and all regions which:
i. Constitute their territories or possessions;
ii. Are operated by their members and contribute to their military or support their cause;
iii. Have a treaty with them;
iv. Constitute the territories or possessions of regions mentioned in items ii or iii.
Members of the sanctioned regions/organizations are prohibited from:
a. participating in any events hosted by the signatory regions/organizations;
b. being members of coalitions, factions, etc., led by the signatory regions/organizations in NS events;
c. being included in/platformed by media or promotional events/endeavors produced by the signatory regions/organizations;
d. serving in a leading/command role in joint military operations hosted by the signatory regions/organizations
The signatory regions/organizations are prohibited from:
a. participating in any events hosted by members of the sanctioned regions/organizations or in any events hosted by regions/organizations in which members of the sanctioned region/organizations participate;
b. participating in coalitions/factions/etc led by members of the sanctioned regions/organizations or in which members of the sanctioned regions/organizations participate;
c. participating in any media or promotional events/endeavors produced by members of the sanctioned regions/organizations or in which members of the sanctioned regions/organizations are included/platformed;
d. participating in military operations hosted/led by members of the sanctioned regions/organizations, provided those operations are not exclusively anti-fascist in nature.
The signatory regions/organizations will:
a. oppose and vote against World Assembly resolutions authored or co-authored by members of the sanctioned regions/organizations;
b. support and vote for resolutions repealing resolutions authored or co-authored by members of the sanctioned regions/organizations (but may use discretion if the author or co-author of such a resolution is impacted by sanction a. or abstain if the author or co-author is at war with the signatory);
c. oppose and vote against World Assembly resolutions nominating members of the sanctioned regions/organizations for commendation/condemnation;
d. support and vote for resolutions repealing resolutions nominating members of the sanctioned regions/organizations for commendation/condemnation (but may use discretion if the author or co-author of such a resolution is impacted by sanction a. or abstain if the author or co-author is at war with the signatory);
e. support and vote for resolutions liberating regions occupied by members of the sanctioned regions/organizations (but may use discretion if the author or co-author of such a resolution is impacted by sanction a. or abstain if the author or co-author is at war with the signatory).
The Court took into consideration prior rulings by the Court
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here.
The Court opines the following:
On Standing
The petitioner is the Court Examiner, and enjoys universal standing for all questions before this Court. There is no question of proper standing in this case.
On the Court’s Prior Ruling
The Court Examiner requests that this Court consider our prior decision regarding the imposition of the Delegate’s use of sanctions on nations affiliated with informal enemies of the region (as opposed to enemies officially designed by an act of war), their relation to treaties, and how those sanctions impact residents of The North Pacific and interact with the Bill of Rights. The examiner makes a very compelling and comprehensive case criticizing this ruling, and there is good reason for this scrutiny, as the decision in question, while clearly intended to safeguard resident rights and the Regional Assembly’s ability to hold the Delegate accountable, nevertheless comes to bafflingly incorrect conclusions and relies on assumptions and assertions that have no connection to the facts of the case. This decision also impacted an earlier ruling,
On the Restriction of Citizenship Due to Illegal Affiliation, by partially overturning the basis of that decision, which was itself poorly constructed and virtually incoherent after the subsequent modification. Given their relation, and the fact that reconsidering one will require reconsidering the other, the Court has re-evaluated both decisions. We will set aside for the time being
On the Restriction of Citizenship Due to Illegal Affiliation as it is not defunct in any way.
On the Definition of Treaties and the Delegate’s Authority to Sanction Residents is defunct in its definition of what a treaty is, as the Regional Assembly, in response to this ruling, saw fit to substitute the Court’s definition for its own. To the extent the Court contemplated the existence of diplomatic agreements that are not treaties, the Regional Assembly has established this ground as well, rendering any lack of consideration for such agreements in the prior ruling defunct as well.
The original briefs for the previous review and subsequent commentary cover the flaws of the ruling quite extensively and in greater detail, but because this ruling and the ways in which it went wrong may be instructive for future court opinions, we must dissect it here. The Court, as previously mentioned, defined a treaty as an agreement with four qualities: recognition between the regions of the lawful governments, statements on the terms of the treaty, signed by the executive authority of each region, and formal adoption by the legal methods of signatories. Whenever the Court endeavors to apply a test or a definition it crafts and expects to be controlling until Regional Assembly intervention, it should
actually apply that test or definition correctly. Failing to apply all prongs of a multi-prong test or properly connect concepts or principles to the matter at hand, as the Court did in this instance, can quickly cause a ruling to spiral outside its appropriate bounds and leave a trail of bad breadcrumbs that could form the basis of future wrong decisions.
The Court’s own definition of a treaty would not have applied to the sanctions under review, as they did not recognize the signatories as the lawful governments of their respective regions, and no such language existed in them. The Court cited an actual treaty, the Modern Gameplay Compact, as evidence that the sanctions contained this language, ostensibly because the sanctions were a collaboration among the signatories of the Modern Gameplay Compact. The Court acknowledged that the sanctions lacked penalties for non-compliance, which countered the part of the definition requiring the agreement to be binding. The Court asserted that the Delegate should include language in the sanctions, a diplomatic agreement intended to articulate cooperative action desired by all parties, stating that its provisions were non-binding on the government and could be revoked at any time. This assertion goes beyond judicial review, and puts the Court in the role of dictating executive policy, and in the area of foreign affairs to boot. This is worse than simply legislating from the bench, as was done with the treaty definition, and constitutes severe overreach. The Court must refrain from any effort to dictate executive policy and step into an area that has always been clearly the purview of the Delegate.
This was also not one of the four prongs of the definition of a treaty – the one the Court had in mind here was the necessity of the executive signing the document, which was not required for the sanctions, and they did not even consider the matter of legal adoption of the terms, which was also obviously not required for the sanctions. After nevertheless concluding the sanctions were a treaty, the Court decided to apply the sanctions to the Modern Gameplay Compact treaty language and deem it an enforcement action of that treaty. Strictly speaking, the question that was supposed to be before the Court was whether the sanctions were a treaty. If the sanctions were something else entirely, there would be no reason to apply the test, even if the sanctions actually checked off the boxes. The Court instead spent a great deal of time wrongly applying its new test, coming to an apparent conclusion and then coming to a different one. We reiterate that the Court ought to engage in better practices when putting together opinions to avoid virtual dicta from being applied to future cases when that content has no application to the case within which it exists. It matters how a conclusion is reached, and avoiding situations where the right result is reached through the wrong means is essential as any portion of our rulings can serve as precedent for future ones, and a seemingly unrelated matter can rely upon our language to form conclusions about very different areas of policy. In order to prevent such an occurrence with this ruling, we must be mindful of the errors in argumentation and application of law and other principles.
Another important aspect of our rulings is that legal concepts and ideas are properly applied to the cases we review. Declaring something is unconstitutional must rest on a clear identifying principle or explicit provision. We have overturned cases in the past that barred the door to further legislative remedy or government action without being based on any actual legal principle or constitutional clause, and unfortunately this ruling repeats that error. The Court in this case deemed the sanctions to be unconstitutional on the grounds that they deny residents prior notice and due process. The sanctions themselves were also mischaracterized as being extrajudicial punishment, despite not asserting or charging anyone with a crime, and offering no penal consequences, but this characterization served as the basis for the Court to misuse the other legal concepts in its analysis. The sole aspect of the sanctions the Court ultimately struck down was prohibiting impacted residents from attending events hosted by The North Pacific, notably not a punishment for any crime listed in the region’s criminal code. They also asserted that the prohibited association in the sanctions violates the Constitution’s freedom of assembly, by virtue of association being a form of assembly, thereby transforming what the freedom of assembly is into something novel and unprecedented. As a result of this, they overturned the central argument in
On the Restriction of Citizenship Due to Illegal Affiliation, which relied on the fact that association is not constitutionally protected. The law has not changed in any way related to this aspect of the Court’s ruling, it was just completely misinterpreted and misapplied to this scenario. As this matter was not properly considered at the time, we must do so again now.
On Sanctioning Foreign Affiliation
When the original question of the sanctions was posed by the Court Examiner, the only application of the Bill of Rights cited was Clause 2, concerned with the various basic freedoms, but when this ruling was released, the Court was ultimately concerned with Clauses 6, 7, and 9 as well. In contrast, the Examiner seemed more concerned with the question of whether the sanctions were a treaty, with the Bill of Rights applications almost seeming to be an afterthought. Initial briefing in the case had the same focus, only touching on Bill of Rights concerns toward the end. Given the question of treaty status has been settled by subsequent law which renders the first half of the decision defunct, and that we have now clearly outlined how the original conclusion was incorrect regardless, the matter of treaties is settled. The remainder of our review is concerned instead with the application of the Bill of Rights.
The Court expressed very clear preference for a new and broader reading of Clause 2 of the Bill of Rights when it came to the freedom of assembly:
The right of association is a part of both the right of Assembly and the right of Free Speech. Effective advocacy of both public and private points of view is undeniably enhanced by group association as this Court has recognized by remarking upon the close nexus between the freedom of Speech and Assembly. It is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, religious or cultural matters, and the executive action which may have the effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the strictest scrutiny.
A cursory look at that clause will show that the right of assembly in the Bill of Rights is not concerned with association, but with petitioning the government, effectively, with protest:
Each Nation has the right to assemble, and to petition the governmental authorities of the region and its territories, including the WA Delegate, for the redress of grievances.
In recent years this Court has made an effort to shy away from unnecessarily writing new policy or filling in gaps in the law whenever possible. This, however, is even worse, as it is effectively rewriting the Constitution without an amendment, and then making the bar to amend it again nearly impossible by invoking the Bill of Rights. The sanctions have nothing to do with protest, redress of grievances, or even assembly in the most basic sense. The Brotherhood of Malice or The Black Hawks are not protest groups trying to change regional policy, they are hostile military organizations that have invaded our allies and even our own region. A resident of The North Pacific who is also an enlisted member of their ranks did not join a political party, a church, or a social club. Our Constitution does not create a right for residents to freely join outside groups, militaries, or regions and then become immune to being questioned or scrutinized by our government. By applying this concept of assembly to the sanctions, the Court underestimated and downplayed the compelling interest the government had in enforcing this policy (an aspect they stated was important to deciding if such laws or policies could stand, but that went unexamined in this decision).
Even if we were to take this claim at face value, however, and accept an application of the right to assembly in the matter of evaluating affiliations, the Delegate did not prohibit affiliation through the sanctions. As we have stated on numerous occasions, including in
On the Delegate's Authority to Staff the Executive Branch and
On the Regulation of the Regional Message Board, and even to some extent in
On the Restriction of Citizenship Due to Illegal Affiliation, the right to free speech does not preclude
consequences for that speech. Given the nexus between speech and assembly asserted in this case, the affiliation would similarly not be immune to potential consequences. But we need not extend this principle to another hypothetical right in this case, as nations choosing to associate with certain groups can obviously be seen as an extension of their free speech. We could scrutinize quite closely what sorts of limits the government would attempt to put on affiliations within The North Pacific, and indeed such activity would warrant a close look, but that is not what is at issue here. The sanctions impose consequences for affiliation with enemies of the region, groups that are outside the region, but even these consequences do not hold a candle to the consequences for being convicted of a crime under our Legal Code, which can even result in a ban from the region. At the time of this case the enemies were not formally at war with The North Pacific, whereas now they are. The Court did acknowledge that a state of war would change its calculus, and implied that any of these consequences would undoubtedly be acceptable even under their strictest scrutiny. That fact alone renders much of this handwringing unnecessary, but war or no war, constitutional concerns are the core of this decision, and we have to consider how far they will extend into the future.
The Court went on to establish another four-pronged test to scrutinize government actions that may infringe on speech, association, and assembly, evaluating whether a compelling government interest exists; whether the action is the least restrictive means to achieve that interest; whether impacted individuals had prior notice; and whether there is a means for due process and recourse. The test is well-framed, but the Court makes the same error it did in the treaty question by improperly applying this test to the circumstances at issue. The Court’s dismay at the alleged absence of prior notice and due process is misplaced. The Reject Fascism Act, they said, included giving individuals prior notice they would be barred from citizenship, and due process through the Vice Delegate appeal process and the Court. These exact same things apply to the sanctions. The prior notice the Court observes in the Reject Fascism Act, we assume, must be the existence of the Legal Code provision instructing the Vice Delegate to reject fascists. It cannot be the notice the Speaker gives when their application is rejected, as that would obviously be too late for them to have advance notice. Arguably, the sanctions are even more prominent than a single clause in our Legal Code, and were prominently announced on the NS forum and in a delegate directive. They also have quite a presence internationally, and are publicly discussed quite frequently. The same cannot be said for the fascism rejection clause in our Legal Code, but that seemed to be sufficient notice for the Court in this case. As for due process, the Court can be approached just as easily about the sanctions as they could be in cases of citizenship applications being rejected (indeed, the fact this case was brought in the first place required some sort of notice for the question to even be asked). The process for having sanctions ceased is also arguably simpler than the Vice Delegate process, which requires a debate and vote of the Regional Assembly after the Speaker formally rejects an applicant following a failed Vice Delegate check. Impacted nations need only renounce their affiliation with the sanctioned organization, and then no sanctions would apply. The Court was quite concerned with the concept of a “no fly list” and a series of questions with how affiliated and how long the sanctions would apply. There is no need for a protracted or formal process for adjudicating such things, because the sanctions only require an alliance with the impacted organizations or direct membership in them, as clearly outlined in the sanctions.
Of course, Clauses 6, 7, and 9 of the Bill of Rights wouldn’t apply either given the sanctions do not prosecute, charge, convict, or punish (in a legal sense) residents. Executive actions cannot prosecute individuals nor confer legal or criminal punishment upon them. The Delegate cannot make law or impact the criminal record of any resident. Applying sanctions to residents is not the same as prosecuting them for a crime let alone convicting them of one. All of the penal code provisions as currently constituted are outside of the Delegate’s jurisdiction and none of these can be applied by any executive action. There would be no trial given the lack of the necessary components for one. Given this, we also cannot take seriously the notion that the sanctions constitute an extrajudicial punishment. And considering the sanctions apply to
foreign organizations and said organizations are military organizations that committed or aided and supported organizations that did commit acts of war against our allies or ourselves, they cannot be said to be targeted at undesirable organized political or social groups within The North Pacific, let alone ones that are specifically seeking to have grievances heard by its government. No matter what angle is considered, the Court was wildly unreasonable and misguided in its argument in this case. In the end, the Court only succeeded in restricting one aspect of the sanctions, given that most of them were well within the purview of the Delegate’s authority. And this makes sense, since, again, the Delegate cannot impose a crime by fiat or utilize the standard criminal punishments present in the Legal Code.
The Court concluded its strange argument by denying the government the one thing it could:
The Government cannot exclude residents whom it disagrees with from events that are open to the region and/or the public, absent a court sentence, due process, or legal prohibition. Such an action would violate the residents right to assemble and their right to free speech.
According to the Court in this case, the sacred and jealously guarded concept of citizenship can be potentially denied to residents affiliated with fascism because of the exact same circumstances that exist for sanctioned residents, but attendance at a regional festival is so sacrosanct that it is not only off-limits to the Delegate to deny, it is among the precious rights given by the Bill of Rights. It is easier to deny someone citizenship than to deny them an invitation to a party. This is nonsense. The government has an absolute right to control its own hosted events and activities. Free speech does not extend to being permitted to attend government hosted events, and there is no constitutional right to participation in any cultural or game event. Collaborative events or large cultural celebrations that draw in players from other regions, especially ones that involve sharing hosting duties with other regions, will naturally have a foreign policy dimension, and the Court has been mindful before of how foreign policy intersects with speech, as in our ruling
On the Delegate's Authority to Staff the Executive Branch. The government has an interest in crafting policy that advances the region’s interests, is consistent with its values, and can help shape the wider world around it in a way that is beneficial to The North Pacific and its foreign policy goals. Access to these events is one way to leave a mark internationally and to encourage policy and actions that will further advance the region’s agenda. Such exclusion is not about the Delegate having some vague disagreement with the sanctioned residents, as if the government is barring entry to events because of a simple difference in opinion. The sanctions, once again, target foreign actors antagonizing the region, not people who have different political opinions than the Delegate.
We can appreciate how that distinction exists in this particular case but as a general principle, the concept of sanctions might be concerning were they to be applied explicitly in a domestic way, over some smaller matter of regional politics. Such a scenario
would be concerning, but we are already prepared to address such scenarios. Once again, our ruling
On the Delegate's Authority to Staff the Executive Branch is controlling here. The Delegate may be able to exclude nations from the executive staff, but as we said then, the Delegate must have a good reason for doing so. Membership in the executive staff may not be constitutionally protected or even codified in law, but the Delegate is still expected not to be capricious and arbitrary in excluding residents from participating in it, given its significant role in the region’s culture and activity. The same would be true when it comes to cultural events or festivals. If the government is going to deny residents the ability to participate in its own events, it must operate under the same principles that protect members of the executive staff. Even under the Court’s four-pronged test outlined in the ruling under review, the exclusion contemplated by the sanctions ought to have passed muster, despite that Court’s mistaken application of the Bill of Rights’ right to assemble.
On the Restriction of Citizenship Due to Illegal Affiliation
The case under review effectively gutted the primary argument of our ruling
On the Restriction of Citizenship Due to Illegal Affiliation. We feel this may not have been the case had that ruling not suffered its own setbacks caused by poor argumentation. We have seen before the consequences of rulings that aim to be short or pithy at the expense of robust legal foundations. As with this case, the government was challenged for purported violations of core components of the Bill of Rights, in this case freedom of speech and equal protection. The Court’s opinion at the time relied on the simple fact that
affiliation was under assault by the law, not speech, and because affiliation was not constitutionally protected, there was no Bill of Rights violation. It also asserted that Clause 9 was not violated:
…a law can not violate Clause 9 because it only guarantees that the government will apply the laws to any “nations of The North Pacific” in an “equal and fair” manner, it would only be a violation of Clause 9 to selectively enforce the laws as they are written.
We are surprised this survived the additional scrutiny of the sanctions case, as this assertion is plainly false, and is currently the only surviving component of the Court upholding that law. The Court in
On the Definition of Treaties and the Delegate’s Authority to Sanction Residents would have allowed the decision despite disagreeing with this principle because they considered the compelling government interest, the fact it was the least restrictive means to accomplish the goal, the fact prior notice was given, and the fact the impacted nations had due process. In our view, the Court should have fully overturned this decision given that not only were its conclusions entirely different and antithetical to the ruling they reconsidered, but the remaining part of the ruling was itself incorrect.
The Court in
On the Definition of Treaties and the Delegate's Authority to Sanction Residents would have done better to consult the briefs it was given in this case, which outlined much stronger and coherent arguments for the law’s constitutionality. The reason that the Reject Fascism Act was constitutional is not because it targets affiliation and affiliation is not protected by Clause 2. Affiliation, as we have outlined already, is related to a region’s speech rights, and speech is protected. The Court was wrong to distinguish it from speech. When speech is abridged, it is only for good reason, and largely along the same lines as the Court’s ruling in
On the Definition of Treaties and the Delegate’s Authority to Sanction Residents.
The Reject Fascism Act instituted a new dimension of the Vice Delegate’s security check, a process that has two consistent paths, one when accepted and one when rejected, and which the Court has previously ruled may impose restrictions on some applicants. For over a decade this process has included a check that by its very nature requires treating some applicants differently from others. In considering an applicant’s speech or conduct, whether in the region or outside of it, the law empowering the Vice Delegate to reject an applicant imposes a potential consequence of that behavior (that they may be rejected from citizenship) but does not bar the behavior itself. The nations are free to speak and believe whatever they want, the government does not prohibit them from doing so. To rule that this law violated Clause 2 of the Bill of Rights, the Court would have ruled that even consequences for speech would violate a nation’s free speech rights. This would do serious damage to the government’s ability to respond to offenses from appointees by removing them for cause, it would make it harder for officials to regulate the spaces in which they work and conduct regional business, it would restrict the moderation of the regional message board. The final part of Clause 2 is just as relevant as the rest of it: “The governmental authorities of the region shall act only in the best interests of the Region, as permitted and limited under the Constitution.” In ruling that this law cannot stand, the Court would have set a new standard for free speech in this region, one that would greatly enhance its viability and make it near absolute, at the expense of any reasonable attempt to curtail its excesses for the betterment of the region. It would diminish the government’s ability to act in the region’s best interest. We previously overturned
On the Constitutionality of Prohibiting Sedition for instituting an absolute prohibition on limiting speech that did precisely this.
More concerning, if that law violated Clause 9 of the Bill of Rights, it must also follow that the Vice Delegate’s security check also violates Clause 9. This would leave the region with no viable way to consider regional security when admitting new citizens into its community. If the chief security official of the region cannot flag potentially dangerous individuals because doing so discriminates against them in a fashion incompatible with the Bill of Rights, then what recourse are we left with? This would have a severe impact on the safety and security of the region, as it would make it impossible for applicants to be properly vetted when attempting to obtain citizenship and could ultimately harm and threaten the rights of all nations in the region should the worst happen. Particularly unsavory and dangerous individuals would be allowed easy access to The North Pacific’s government and legislative powers.
For these reasons, the Reject Fascism Act would have been, and remains, a constitutional addition to our Legal Code. This has not changed since the law was reviewed, and would have been compelling reasoning when the original ruling was made. The Court opted for a flimsy, alternative approach to upholding the law, one that relied on a fundamentally flawed argument.
We hereby overturn the ruling On the Restriction of Citizenship Due to Illegal Affiliation in its entirety. Once again, the right conclusion was reached, but for the wrong reasons.
On Duality
Though quite common in years past, serious invocations of duality in the world of NationStates are now practically non-existent. And yet it is particularly important for us to consider the concept in today’s case, given it is at the heart of the tension in how the sanctions are applied within The North Pacific. In our ruling
On Alterations to the Citizenship Oath, we held that “Any player bound by the laws of The North Pacific is not released from their legal obligations solely by acting under name or capacity.” The Delegate effectively acted on this notion by repeatedly invoking the idea of “collateral damage” to describe the potential impact the sanctions would have on residents. On paper the sanctions do not impact residents of The North Pacific at all, but due to the nature of NationStates, it is common for players to control nations spanning many regions, and while rare, there were residents in The North Pacific who also maintained residency in sanctioned regions. Our law is incredibly permissive and confers enormous rights to our residents, especially compared to other regions. They do not care what other regions a resident may also patronize, all rights and privileges are conferred upon them. As we have shown, those rights and privileges are not absolute, but they could not be shut off arbitrarily just because of the identity of the other region. Some other cause would need to be shown for those rights to be curtailed. Most notably, as the Court expressed in the original ruling, a state of war could curtail those rights.
In our ruling
On the Delegate's Authority to Staff the Executive Branch we considered how far freedom of speech extends outside of The North Pacific, concluding that it did not apply to nations outside of the region, even if those nations also happen to have resident nations in the region. It is fair to say that residents who also happen to be residents in sanctioned regions are likely not acting in the capacity of their sanctioned identity within The North Pacific’s borders, saving any such activity for their other identity outside the region’s jurisdiction. As we have identified, their affiliation with these sanctioned organizations is explicitly outside of the region, and in this capacity, they are akin to a foreign actor, an outsider. Consequently, we find it reasonable to discount such affiliation as protected by this region’s laws. Just as a resident’s freedom of speech would not extend to matters outside this region’s jurisdiction, any resident’s activity or behavior in their capacity as a member of an outside organization would not fall under the protections of our Constitution. But their presence here does create certain obligations, and citizenship even more. Acts carried out under their alternative identity that would be actionable within The North Pacific may still be actionable for the duration of their residency. For example, if as a member of the sanctioned region they participated in an attack on an allied region, even if they did not so do as their North Pacific identity, they could still be charged with treason under our laws. After all, if a resident can rely on its constitutional rights simply by existing within The North Pacific, the government should be able to rely on their obligations as a member of The North Pacific when determining if punitive or legal action should be taken.
The rights and privileges of The North Pacific are not a shield or a loophole for bad actors to abuse and utilize as cover while taking action against the region or its allies. The government can, within reason, curtail freedom of speech by placing reasonable limits on it for compelling reasons, and therefore association can also be restricted or a cause for action. To be clear, it is not the view of this Court that any government policy or action has forbidden nations from being affiliated with any particular group. In both cases reviewed, the government created consequences for residents affiliated with particular organizations or political identities, and these consequences met the standard of our Bill of Rights. And when that affiliation crosses borders, and the government seeks to take action against one aspect of a resident’s identity completely separate from their identity as a member of this region, they must still balance that resident’s rights in this region against the lack of such rights in their capacity as a resident of a foreign region. In our view, such affiliation is not cause to disregard the resident’s constitutional rights, but it would be an obvious factor in determining if the government has a compelling case for curtailing that resident’s rights.
Holding
We hereby overturn the ruling On the Definition of Treaties and the Delegate's Authority to Sanction Residents in its entirety. Association is not an extension of the Constitution’s right to assembly, and the right to assemble is concerned with petitioning and organizing to appeal to the government. The government may restrict attendance in cultural events or festivals it hosts with reasonable cause consistent with our prior rulings. Residents who also maintain residency in other regions may be held liable or prosecuted for actions committed under their other regional identity as if they committed them as their North Pacific regional identity. Affiliation with foreign organizations or regions may be a factor in determining if the government has a compelling interest in restricting the rights of dual residents.
