As we are once again bringing up an issue that was addressed by the Term 1 Court, I feel I should once again post my feelings about this issue, as well as the facts about the JR. The initial Judicial Review, DGIVJR1 was never conclusively completed as the Majority Opinion was of an illegal nature and could not be acted upon in a manner which it called for, therefore it was ruled invalid. The Minority Opinion, however did not call for any such illegal actions. To bring light upon this subject, from the initial Judicial Review, I have posted the Minority Opinion below:
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I have the Minority Opinion in this Judicial Review. My Associates have gone together on the Majority Opinion, but I could not in all conscience sign their document. I totally disagree with the content of their opinion and the findings that surfaced because of their research.
To start, I will state some of the findings that Moderator Donovan Zoi has asked for. As far as what pertinent legislation was ratified at the commencement of the first elections (12/27/03 2359GMT), only Articles F and G of the Constitution were. As far as what legislation was ratified at the commencement of the Special Election for the Chief Justice (1/3/04 1538GMT), there were CoL Section E (Judiciary), CoS Section X (Elections), CoS Section Y (Elections), as well as the aforementioned Articles. So in a way, regardless of the timing of either election, the Constitution supported the elections of the Judiciary with Article F specifically claiming there will be a Justice Department and Article G generally claiming all elected positions shall have a fixed term.
Article G wound up in its final form ~ 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.
after going through many twists and turns of debate and discussion. Some people demanded that the legislation be changed from of stating that elected officials would serve one-month terms, to its present form of also stating that vacant positions would be filled by appointment. All of this is very well documented in the Article G discussion thread and the first poll for Article G, which had no mention of appointments anywhere in the options, just in the debate posted below. donsig, who was totally against appointments, was the driving force behind getting appointments included in Article G, threatening to claim any appointment unconstitutional if they were not mentioned in it. Article Gs final form, by the way was meant to address any Leader position that became vacant mid Term. At that time, a replacement would be appointed for the remainder of the Term. Article G, in its new form would come into play when a Leader position was truly vacant, as in someone leaving the position or no one running for the position. Donsig is using play on words here claiming the Chief Justice position for Term 1 DG IV was vacant, when in fact there were two fully qualified individuals awaiting determination of the true victor. Thus the position was not vacant, but over-crowded. It was very plain to see at the time, as everyone knew the situation. Therefore Article G does not apply to this situation.
Another problem that arose at the time was the mess caused by the Election Office in posting inappropriate Nomination threads for Term 1 DG IV. Because they were all put up haphazardly, a rush to correct the situation, without following the legislation that was being written for the Elections, ensued to the dismay of anyone who was paying attention at the time. I was one of those people. The whole thing was a fiasco, and when the smoke cleared, the legislation covering the Judicial Department had been ratified. Therefore, because of the tie in the Chief Justice race, any new special election covering the Judicial Department would have to abide by the new legislation or be illegal. As time was of the essence, because elections had finished and Creation Day was right around the corner, a makeshift Nomination period was drawn up to allow donsig to self nominate as well as allow others to drop out of the race, if they so desired. All candidates for the Judicial Department were included in the election poll, just as the newly ratified Section Y of the Code of Standards stated. Therefore this poll was not illegal, but fully sanctified by Law. The first set of polls for the Judiciary were much more inappropriate, as were all of the Nomination threads.
In summary, we can see that Article G is totally inappropriate for the purpose that donsig wants to use it. Not only because it was meant to cover mid Term vacancies, but because there was no vacancy in the Chief Justice position. We can also pre-empt any further thought that the special election for the Chief Justice position was illegal, because it followed the newly ratified CoS code written specifically for it. Thank you for taking the time necessary to read this lengthy opinion.
