The Judicial Log

[Shaitan]

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.

Please do not use this thread for discussion.

 

[Shaitan]

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:

Point 1   Leaders in Executive, Judiciary and Provincial Government (office
          vacant mid-term or not filled during elections)
        a Deputy is promoted to Leader. If there is no Deputy then:
          (1) Appointed by President.
          (2) Leader is confirmed by a Confirmation Council Vote. Simple
              majority required.
Point 2   Departmental Deputies (office vacant mid-term or not filled during
          elections)
        a Designated Chat Representative is promoted to Deputy. If there is
          no Designated Chat Representative then:
          (1) Department Leader appoints a deputy.
          (2) Deputy is confirmed by a poll of the citizenry. Simple majority
              required.

 

[Shaitan]

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.

 

[Shaitan]

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)

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.