The Judicial Log

This thread will contain the results of Judicial Review for clarification/explanation of our existing Articles, Laws and Standards.

These Log entries may be referred to whenever the situation or rule described comes into play. They may not be used as a basis in further Judicial Reviews.

This thread is not for discussions.

This Review deals with a situation where a Leader is also a Deputy and is due for promotion to a second Leader position due to the retirement of that department's Leader.


Judicial Review Thread

Judiciary's Ruling
The subject may keep his current positions (ref CON H, If subject does not resign the current Leader position he may not accept a second one). The President will then need to appoint a new Leader to fill the vacancy caused by retirement (ref COL H-1-a-(1), President appoints leaders for vacant offices). Subject may also resign his current Leader position and be promoted to Leader of the second department (ref COL H-1-a, Deputy is promoted to Leader if the Leader position is vacant). Subject would then appoint a new Deputy for his new Department (ref COL H-2-a-(1), Department Leader appoints Deputy if there is no Designated Chat Rep) and the President would appoint a new Leader to the subject's original position if necessary (ref COL H-1-a-(1), same as above).

Referenced rules (CON = Constitution, COL = Code of Laws)
CON, Article H: No person shall hold multiple positions of leadership (President, Department Leader, Judiciary, Provincial Governor) simultaneously.
COL, Section H, Points 1 and 2:

Article G:
All offices will be filled via election with terms lasting one calendar month.

Clarificaitons
Judge Advocate: Article G is intended as a guarentee of a election cycle within the timeline outlined in that article. Further this is a guarentee to the office itself, not to the holder of that office.

Chief Justice: Article G defines the cycle of elections and pertains only to the offices, not the positions of the leaders. It does not include or imply a guarantee or contract of employment.

Dissenting Opinion
Public Defender: The 1 calendar month term specified in the Article is akin to a contract, and that contract is with the citizens of Phoenatica. Therefore only the decision of the citizenry as a whole should be able to unseat a leader against their will, via the investigative process laid out in the COS.

Concensus opinion:
The Turn Chat Instruction Thread is not an open posting environment. Posts are restricted to those specified in the Code of Standards.

Public Defendant's Review:
Ok, I've perused the Constitution, and it looks to me that only officials are legally entitled to post in turn chat threads.
Article A (as referenced above by Bill_in_PDX) is not a problem, as the also aforementioned CoL Sec A (when looked at in context), is in fact defining the meaning of the terms used in Article A of the Const. In addition to this, I reference CoS Section B, Point 3:

B. Chat Turn Instruction Thread
3. Post organisation

B. First Post:
1. Time and date when the chat will be held
2. Save game which will be used

C. Following Posts:
1. Chat turn instructions from the officials, one post per department and province

D. Next Post:
1. Used for uploading the intermittent saves during the chat.

E. Last Posts:
1. Turn Summary
2. Chat-Log
3. Screenshots (if needed)

Click to expand...

Here we see it specified that posts in the thread should be from officials, and that there should be only one post per department and province
This means if you're not an official, and you don't have the mandate to make that one post for a dept or province, you shouldn't be posting in the thread.

Chief Justice's Review:
I agree with the Public Defendant's Review verbatim. Additionally, Free speech is a blanket right (and arguably the most important one). However, in certain cases it is weighed against a specific mandate and can be out trumped. In this case the specific mandate is that of the DP and leaders to carry out their assigned duties (also given in the Constitution). Freedom of speech loses in this case as specifically putting false, incorrect or unmandated instructions in the turn chat thread directly conflicts with the mandate of the leaders and DP. As there are other venues for the statements there is no overriding need to post such items in the reserved thread.

For a real life corolary to the concept of measuring look at our court system. The press has a generalized freedom to view and report. A judge can stifle that right when the information is prejudicial to the fair trial of a case.

For a corolary to the location item look at our freedom of speech. There is no problem if you are in the middle of the Adirondacks with nobody around and you scream "Terrorists! Run!" Do the same thing in a crowded building lobby and you will be arrested (unless there really were terrorists, of course).

Judge Advocate's Review:
I agree with the honorable (honourable to some of you) Public Defender, in that I think the intention of turn chat threads was to be a clean sheet of instructions for those who can post same.

Therefore citizen involvement would not be appropriate in that single thread, whereas they are encouraged to debate endlessly in their Province threads.

On the surface of it, there are two things to check. First, the COS, Section B deals directly with the Turn Chat Thread itself. However, while that section implies that only actual instructions should be posted from leaders, there is not any verbage that restricts the thread to only leaders.

Then we get to the sticky issue of Constitution, Article A, which guarentees free speech to us all, and COL, Section A, Point 3, which says:

a) Citizens may post their comments in forum threads wherever appropriate

"Appropriate" is an important word in that sentence. It would seem to give us the leeway to provide a Judicial interpretation of the turn chat standards which would allow restricting the posts to those with legal instructions only.

Judicial Review #4
Section H, Point 8, Item B

Judge Advocate's Review
Sentencing Poll

In accordance with Section E, Point 2.a., of the Phoenatican Code of Laws, I submit the Judge Advocate review of this Standard.

Issue: The CoS calls for posting of a poll with "multiple choices" when sentencing is held. This review is needed to determine if that phrase requires a multiple select poll or multiple choice.

The Standard reads:

Point 8 If the suspect is found guilty through the trial poll, a sentencing poll is held.
a The sentencing poll will remain up for 72 hours
b The polls for Constitution and Code of Laws violations will be set to allow multiple choices.

The follow on points then list specifically what those choices are to be, based upon the violation the offender has been found guilty of.

Finding: This office finds that the requirement outlined in subsection b is calling for a multiple choice poll with only a single select vote.

Explaination: This format matches the intent of Sentencing, that being selecting the punishment mandated by the people.

Multiple simultaneous sentencing options are not logical in this case, as they may conflict with each other, or simple add up to a higher sentence than is originally intended by voters.

Bill
Judge Advocate of Phoenatica

Public Defender's Review
I concur with the Judge Advocate's review above. I'm pretty certain the idea was to offer a multiplicity of choices from which the citizens must pick one. An actual "multiple choice" poll would not appear to make sense, given the intent of a sentencing poll.

Chief Justice's Review
The Office of Chief Justice agrees with the other two offices. The idea was to make offer multiple choices, from which the citizens were to chose one.

Judicial Review #5
Section G, Point 6, Item A, paragraph 2
Section G, Point 6, Item C

Chief Justice's Review
My thought is that, being a new game in term one, that these two standards mean that first of all, everybody may run for two positions, and that anyone can run for president.

Notes: I wanted to call for this review to avoid any confusion that may occur in the upcoming elections

Public Defender's Review
Simply put, I completely agree with Octavian X's above review. It's a new game, nobody has a position in it yet, so thus nobody can be considered to be an incumbent.

Judge Advocate's Review
In accordance with Section E, Point 2.a., of the Phoenatican Code of Laws, I submit the Judge Advocate review of this Law.

Finding: This office finds that the term 1 laws described in this section do apply to the start of a new game, and therefore should be in effect for the next election cycle.

Explaination: The clear intent of this section is to start new each game, therefore the law applies as if it were day one.

Bill
Judge Advocate of Phoenatica

Judicial Review #6
Code of Standards, Section C

Naming Rights

This debate centered around the terminology used in this Standard as related to the right to name a second city. In the end, by a 2-1 vote, the Judiciary ruled that all citizens must be afforded the right to name a city before any citizen is allowed to name a second city.

The Public Defender's opinion states the opinion of the court well:

Originally posted by Danke (Public Defender)
(Chief Justice), I actually disagree that this only refers to citizens in the CoC or who have citizen honors, as I believe you said in an earlier post. The Code of Standards (C:6) says:

"Naming rights must pass through all citizens before a citizen is given a second naming right in the chain (from Article 1). That is, if you've already named a city you do not get to name another one because you moved positions in the Chain of Command. "

I think all citizens means *all* citizens. While I think that we can skip inactive players who don't respond, I do think that we need to run through the CoC, honorees, and the entire Citizen Registry before someone gets a second shot.

The Chief Justice noted that there were not laws in place that supported a heirarchy of selection for city naming in the general populace not already in the Chain of Command. Therefore the Judiciary did not have the authority to impose such a requirement on the nation.

However, the Acting Judge Advocate concurred with the opinion of the Public Defender, the lack of specific instruction in this instance is less important on the scale of justice than the concept of equal representation for all Fanatikans.

Bill
Chief Justice

Judicial Review #7
Code of Laws, Section B
Gameplay Restrictions

This review centered around the terminology of CoL.B.1, and whether previous save games were placed under the same restrictions that a current save game was.

The Chief Justice and Public Defendant agreed that previous save games are not exempt from our gameplay restriction laws, however, our Judge Advocate disagreed and believed the wording of the laws meant only for the current saved game to apply.

As such, it is the Judiciary Department's ruling that all saved games in the current game are subject to the restrictions of CoL.B, and that any actions that would be illegal in the current save game are also illegal in previous save games.

Clarification
Chief Justice Review
I must disagree with the opinion of our Judge Advocate here. It is too difficult for the Judiciary Department to determine just how far playing ahead from an old save is too far. I interpret the phrase 'playing game' as 'the game the user has opened from the save file,' and indeed, I don't really see how it could be interpreted differently.
One reason it must be interpreted this way is illustrated in the following example. If we have a turn spread over two TC's, someone could play the previous save and have it be considered legal. The suggestion that a player can't play past the current turn is difficult to enforce, difficult to prove, and opens the door for easy abuse. Having the Judiciary Department determine which types of playing ahead in the game is safe would be opinionated at best, and totally arbitrary at worst. The only safe way to interpret the law is to stop all playing of all previous save games. I say that previous save games follow the same restrictions as current games.

Public Defender Review
Absolutely not. The rule could possibly be clearer but it specifically does not mention that the playing ban is only for the current save. That rule covers all saves. Note the terminology:
It is unlawful to play through actions, move troops, make deals or take any other action that would change the state of the playing game from that of the saved game.
Playing Game is the game you are running. Saved Game is the save that you loaded. Whether you loaded the current save or the 4000bc save you cannot take actions that change it from the save that you loaded.

Dissenting Opinion
Judge Advocate Review
In my opinion, playing the saved games is legal as the law says playing game which to me means the most current save game. I believe that anyone who plays a previous saved game can do so, but only to a certain extent because a person can get a previous game and a copy of the instruction thread and chat log and easily replicate a saved game.

Judicial Review #8
Code of Standards Section C
Naming Rights

This question brought up was whether or not governors could rename their cities en masse at the beginning of each turn or whether they could only rename one city at the beginning of each term.

All of the Judiciary agreed that a governor could rename as many cities as he wanted, as long as it was during the first week of the new term.

The official ruling of the Judiciary is that a governor can rename as many cities as he wants as long as the official renaming poll is posted within the first week of the term in accordance with CoS, Section C.

Clarification
Chief Justice Review

The rules on this poll seem to pretty clear as to what Feodor can do. There is no limit to how many cities a governor can rename, as long as it is done in the first week.

Public Defender Review

The way the Standard listed above reads, a Governor may seek to rename any city within their borders during their first week of any Term. Therefore, I see nothing wrong with the legality of the poll in question.

Judge Advocate Review

I concur with the findings of the Chief Justice and the Public Defender. Our laws place no restrictions on the number of cities a newly elected governor may rename, as long as it is done within his first 7 days in office and is put up for poll.