Judicial Review - Term 1 - Request 1

[Cyc]

As noted in the second post of the Term 1 Judicial thread donsig has requested a Judicial Review. donsig's formal question is stated below:

"I would like to ask our Judiciary to make a ruling on the validity of the special election for the chief justice."

The law involved in donsig's request would be Article G of the Fanatican Constitution, as stated below by donsig:

"...But, in an effort to resolve this matter quickly, I will state that I believe the special election was in violation of article G of the constitution..."
_______________________________________________

As stated in CoS Section X.1.II.D, "Justices are to post questions, but not conclusions." This would be fact finding questions, such as how, why, when type questions. I ask the Associate Justices not to ask questions that draw conclusions in there very asking.

This public discussion will remain open until the Chief Justice declares arguements over. Until that time please discuss your feelings on the subject matter only. If you are going to reference a law, please post the law in your comment verbatim.

 

[donsig]

Article G of our constitution states:

Article G: All elected positions shall have a fixed term. All vacant
elected positions shall be filled by appointment of a citizen to fulfill the remainder of the term.

The election for Chief Justice ended in a tie, thus neither candidate recieved a majority or plurality of the vote and the office was vacant. Our laws give no provision for a special election and the constitution clearly states that vacant offices are to be filled via appointment.

Not only was the special election used to install Cyc as Chief Justice, it was used to oust Peri as an associate Justice after he was duly and legally elected to the judiciary!

I ask my fellow citizens to join me in denouncing the special election as unconstitutional. I ask that we recognize Peri and bootstoots as our elected associate justices and ask our President to appoint an appropriate Chief Justice as called for by our constitution.

 

[Cyc]

As a side note by the Chief Justice, I feel I must make this comment to clarify the situation before anything gets too deep or anyone assumes the wrong thing. In donsig's secong post for this Request, he ended with the following statement:

"I do reserve the right to cite other legal violations regarding this election should it prove that parts of the CoL and/or CoS were in effect at the time."

I'm afraid I must inform you, donsig, that not even the Judiciary can reserve that right. Once a Request for Judicial Review is accepted, changing it in any way or shifting the purpose of the JR midway through it's process, is not supported by any legislation. If you want to do this, you will have to request another Judicial Review.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Cyc

I'm afraid I must inform you, donsig, that not even the Judiciary can reserve that right. Once a Request for Judicial Review is accepted, changing it in any way or shifting the purpose of the JR midway through it's process, is not supported by any legislation. If you want to do this, you will have to request another Judicial Review.

I was merely reserving the right to ask for additional judicial reviews if it becomes evident that laws other than article G were not followed.

 

[ravensfire]

donsig,

The article you base this review on covers vacant offices. The election did, in fact, have 2 candidates who tied for the office. Does a tie of all candidates for an office mean a vacant office?

-- Ravensfire, Associate Justice

 

[DaveShack]

I have a general question for judiciary members and wanna-be's. If this question is inappropriate I will happily withdraw it, but I think it needs to be asked.

In RL legal interpretations (in particular constitutional review), the intent of the framers has significant, and sometimes even an overriding importance, relative to the actual text of the law. I could give a very good example from U.S. Amendment 1, but it would stray too far into off-topic subjects.

Does a finding of fact in a judicial review depend solely on the objective text of the law (dictionary definitions), or does the subjective meaning of those words to the framers, at the time of framing, come into consideration? If a subjective interpretation is allowed, then we have a wealth of information in the discussion about this article. We also have the luxury of having the framers (ourelves) present.

I will wait to post further evidence on this direction of inquiry until there are some comments on the legality of using that type of information.

 

[DaveShack]

I have a question about the impact of Constitutional Article J

Article J:    Elected officials must plan and act according to
the will of the people.

If Article G were found to hold the special election as unconstitutional, and require an appointment, would not Article J force the President to take the results of the poll as the will of the people, and appoint the same CJ anyway?

 

[DaveShack]

I hope having so many consecutive posts isn't a problem -- they are all independent ideas, and it's not my fault nobody else is jumping in there between them.

Here's another point about this review. The legal point offered as justification for this review is that "vacant" positions must be filled by appointment.

The election must complete prior to the office being considered vacant. Any other interpretation would open the door for the president to appoint officials for all the offices for which the poll has not closed, if the presidential poll closes first. An election is not just the poll, it is the entire process from nominations all the way through any runoff, if needed.

Since the entire judiciary election was invalid, the "special election" was not actually "special" at all. It was, and is, the only valid election for this term, for the judicial branch. A runoff election would only have been valid if the initial election was valid. We even did it the proper way and reopened nominations, resulting in the complaintent for this review being added to the ballot.

 

[Cyc]

You make a very good point in your last post, DaveShack. I was considering that very question myself earlier (not for posting, mind you. just talking to myself).

Originally posted by DaveShack

Does a finding of fact in a judicial review depend solely on the objective text of the law (dictionary definitions), or does the subjective meaning of those words to the framers, at the time of framing, come into consideration? If a subjective interpretation is allowed, then we have a wealth of information in the discussion about this article. We also have the luxury of having the framers (ourelves) present.

I will wait to post further evidence on this direction of inquiry until there are some comments on the legality of using that type of information.

This is the type of post that drew me to the game in the first mentioning of it, DS. It has been so long since I have seen one of these. Actually, I know posts like this are around, they just like to hide from me. We have many thinker/writers in this game.

3 people can look at a painting and each will give you a different opinion of what its about, in fact, because they can show you the colors and the lines and the use of light, they can prove their opinion is correct. But if you ask the painter what it's about, he'll tell you something totally different. In fact, the real painting is underneath that one and it has the original thought clearly stated in it. He had painted over it trying to improve the real message he wanted to express. This type of situation happens to writers a lot, too. Sometimes writing laws in a hurry can be troublesome at best.

Anyway, back to your question. First of all, there are parts of this game I like to emphasis as in real life. Honor, Integrity, etc.. But the truth of the matter is this is just a game. We do this in our spare time. The fathers of the Constitution of the United States of America knew they were giving birth to a nation in the real world. Oh, to have been there, eh? Anyway...the use of interpretation in defining Fanatica's Constitution, as opposed to defining America's Constitution is basically the same. It's just that in Fanatica's Constitution it takes about 10 minutes (slightly more after a couple of beers), whereas America's Constitution could take you an entire lifetime. So where do we draw the line?

Ok, back to your question. In this particular situation where laws for a nation were written in such haste because of roadblocks and other time consuming anomalies, I would have to say that interpreting the writer's intent would be the main factor, with the actual facts found in the writings thrown in to make it look pretty, plus it would have to have a note pinned to its shirt that explains the details. But that's just a personal observation.

In the Term 1 Judicial thread, I tried to lay out the Judiciary's obligation to Fanatica in administering our nation's laws. Fact is, because of deadlines and schedules, courtesies and profit-taking, things rarely go the way we thought they would in the end. So we do the best we can with what we've got. How does all this relate to your question? I guess when you get down to the nitty-gritty and you find a square peg in your hand, but there's only one round hole left, you need to find a way to trim the edges to get the job done.

So we have to go by what the Constitution says, and we have to write the supporting books with those words in mind. We have setup these three books to give us restrictive guidelines on how to play the game. The Constitution is very vague, while as you whittle your way down to the end of the CoS, it becomes very detailed. My friend donsig is relying on an Article of the Constitution to light the way to Justice. This is very difficult to do. Especially if the real message is painted underneath what we see in that Article. Who's going to tells us what it really means? I think we can all kind of figure that one out. But then again, everyone has there own opinion.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by DaveShack
I have a question about the impact of Constitutional Article J

Article J:    Elected officials must plan and act according to
the will of the people.

If Article G were found to hold the special election as unconstitutional, and require an appointment, would not Article J force the President to take the results of the poll as the will of the people, and appoint the same CJ anyway?

Curious, wouldn't that reasoning affect appointing the deputy of choice? Then imagine the fun situation of a refusal poll being posted and the appointee being refused. Oh the fun!

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

To all,

Should a law not yet on the book, but in the ratification process, have an impact on a situation?

-- Ravensfire

 

[Peri]

Originally posted by ravensfire
To all,

Should a law not yet on the book, but in the ratification process, have an impact on a situation?

-- Ravensfire

No. Fanatica must only be governed by the laws we have in existence not by ones we may or may not have in the future.

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by DaveShack
Does a finding of fact in a judicial review depend solely on the objective text of the law (dictionary definitions), or does the subjective meaning of those words to the framers, at the time of framing, come into consideration? If a subjective interpretation is allowed, then we have a wealth of information in the discussion about this article. We also have the luxury of having the framers (ourelves) present.

My opinion is that reviews should be based on an objective interpretation of the text. First, intentions can sometimes be difficult to determine. So if this approach is used and the original intent is not clear, you end up with the Judiciary applying their intent to the interpretation. Second, our language is robust enough to allow for accuratately writing the intent of those that wrote the laws. If they wanted a certain idea or position to be shown in the law, there is ample opportunity to write the text to relfect that. We must assume that the text of the law is as the writers intended and thus use only the text of the law in our interpretations.

Originally posted by ravensfire
Should a law not yet on the book, but in the ratification process, have an impact on a situation?

To do so would bring ex post facto lawmaking to our game and this should not be allowed.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Cyc
My friend donsig is relying on an Article of the Constitution to light the way to Justice. This is very difficult to do. Especially if the real message is painted underneath what we see in that Article. Who's going to tells us what it really means? I think we can all kind of figure that one out. But then again, everyone has there own opinion.

The first thing to address here is the *intent of the framers* which is akin to the *will of the people*. Let's realize from the git-go that the *intent of the framers* like the *will of the people* is not always unanimous. Add to that the interpretations that Cyc writes about and we see the very reason we need laws to begin with. If we all agreed on everything we wouldn't need laws or a constitution for there would be no disputes. The laws are there to settle disputes and we must settle them according to what we have written and not according to what we *tried to write*. When what we have written has failed us we cannot choose to simply ignore what was written for if we ignore some of it now them what is to prevent someone from ignoring another part later?

If we cannot agree on that them I see little hope for any of our laws.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by DaveShack
I have a question about the impact of Constitutional Article J

Article J:    Elected officials must plan and act according to
the will of the people.

If Article G were found to hold the special election as unconstitutional, and require an appointment, would not Article J force the President to take the results of the poll as the will of the people, and appoint the same CJ anyway?

What is the *will of the people* regarding who should serve on the judiciary? Is the *will of the people* embodied in the special election which placed Cyc, ravensfire and bootstoots on the judiciary or is the *will of the people* shown in the original election that placed Peri and bootstoots there?

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Peri


No. Fanatica must only be governed by the laws we have in existence not by ones we may or may not have in the future.

Under that concept then, we have elections controlled by an office that has no apparent legal authority or standing conducting the elections. I note that the election polls went up on the 27th. The Election portion of the Code of Laws was posted for ratification on the 28th, and closed on the 1st.

Does that invalidate all elections conducted?

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

To return to the exact question at hand, although some of the divergences may have some bearing, the issue appears to be about the definition of vacant.

Again, I repeat my question. To be absolutely sure donsig, do you feel that a tie between the candidates for an election represents a vacant office? Would it matter if all candidates were tied, only only a sub-set of the candidates?

-- Ravensfire

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by ravensfire
To return to the exact question at hand, although some of the divergences may have some bearing, the issue appears to be about the definition of vacant.

Again, I repeat my question. To be absolutely sure donsig, do you feel that a tie between the candidates for an election represents a vacant office? Would it matter if all candidates were tied, only only a sub-set of the candidates?

-- Ravensfire

I do not make my definition of a *vacant office* contingent upon the existance of a tied election. It seems to me that an office is vacant if no one is serving in that office. Whether an office is vacant is not similar to deciding if a glass is half empty or half full. It's more like being pregnant - you are or you aren't. How you got that way is immaterial to whether you are or you aren't.

The fact is that this term started without a chief justice. In other words the office of chief justice was vacant. The intent of the framers was that vacant offices would be filled by appointment. That was totally disregarded and an ad hoc special election was devised which not only circumvented the appointment process but invalidated the previous election for associate juctices!

 

[Cyc]

I'm going to have to agree with Ravensfire that a large portion of this matter appears to be about the definition of vacant. But I would also bring back in the notion of the vagueness or ambiguity of the Articles of the Constitution. The first point, which begs detail, and the second point, which begs leniency, need to be combined with interpretation of intent to come up with a well rounded solution.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Cyc
I'm going to have to agree with Ravensfire that a large portion of this matter appears to be about the definition of vacant. But I would also bring back in the notion of the vagueness or ambiguity of the Articles of the Constitution. The first point, which begs detail, and the second point, which begs leniency, need to be combined with interpretation of intent to come up with a well rounded solution.

Do we have some law that prevents members of the judiciary (who are citizens) from participating in this discussion? It's all well and good for ravensfire and Cyc to point out that this review revolves around some definition of *vacant* but isn't that obvious? Are either of these two able (or willing?) to expound upon their definition of *vacant*?

Yourdictionary.com

Vacant: Without an incumbent or occupant; unfilled: a vacant position.