Your honour, in rebuttal of the arguments presented by the Chair I submit the following;
 

(11-04-2019, 07:12 PM)Nakari Wrote: 1. It is ambiguous whether a simple majority or a 60% supermajority is needed.

The Legislative Procedure Act requires a simple majority to amend a general law, so it follows that a simple majority is needed here.

The Criminal Code requires a 60% supermajority in order to repeal a prohibition. By repealing the relevant portions of the Criminal Code, the prohibition is also repealed. Therefore it follows that a 60% supermajority must be needed here.

Belschaft argues that if the Assembly didn't want the Criminal Code altered, they would have designated it as constitutional law. The Assembly, however, clearly didn't want the list of prohibited regions altered without 60% supermajority, else they would have not mandated a 60% supermajority.

Claiming that the LPA has precedence over this makes it pointless for the Assembly to have put that threshold in place, and this goes contrary to what I believe is a common sense reading of the law.

 In addition, in some cases (mentioned below), amendments to general laws are voted on with the requirement of a supermajority. Therefore, I believe the LPA and the Criminal Code contradict, and the way forwards is ambiguous.

The Chair has attempted to divine the intent of the Assembly, arguing that as the Assembly did not wish individual prohibited region designations to be repealed by a simple majority then it logically follows that the Assembly also did not wish for the the Prohibited Regions and Organisations article to be amended or repealed by a simple majority. This logic appears sound, but contrary to the Chair's arguments the Assembly has chosen to make it's intent in this matter clear. It has been demonstrated that the Assembly has established a clear and simple mechanism to decide which laws and acts require a super-majority to alter via marking them as constitutional. If the decision to mark a law as constitutional is a clear indicator that the Assembly wishes a matter to require a super-majority, then the decision of the Assembly to not mark a law as constitutional is a clear indicator that the Assembly wishes a matter to require a simple majority.

In addition to this, the Chair fails to acknowledge that repealing a prohibition and repealing the law that establishes prohibitions are fundamentally different acts. Whilst it may seem counter intuitive for the later to require a lower threshold than the former, this is nevertheless as the Assembly chose to establish the law. It could be argued that the Assembly was wrong to make this decision, but nevertheless it is the decision the Assembly made.

Finally, it must be considered that the LPA is a constitutional law, and thus has legal precedence and supremacy over the Criminal Code. As such, should the two laws contradict as claimed by the Chair then the Court is required to reconcile them in a manner that follows the requirements of the LPA, the superior law.
 

(11-04-2019, 07:12 PM)Nakari Wrote: 2. When there is ambiguity over what voting threshold should be used, the highest is used.

This didn't occur to me as an issue of arbitrarily raising the voting threshold via Chair discretion, as the closest equivalent to me seems to be omnibus votes where both general and constitutional law are both amended. For instance, the following votes amend various arrangements of general, constitutional, and Charter law, and in each case, the higher threshold is used:

https://tspforums.xyz/thread-5715.html
https://tspforums.xyz/thread-6409.html
https://tspforums.xyz/thread-6347.html

It would be obviously contradictory to use the lower threshold in those cases, as it would allow a simple majority to alter laws that the Assembly has decided need a supermajority. And it would be silly to argue that it is unfair to force the associated general law amendment to achieve a supermajority when the LPA says general law amendments require only a simple majority.

In the same way: the Assembly decided a supermajority was needed to alter who is prohibited, so it would seem contradictory to allow a simple majority to change that, even if a simple majority would be enough to alter the rest of the law under the LPA.

Essentially - I believe the law is unclear on this matter, and when the law is unclear, the precedent of omnibus bills shows that we play it safe by using the higher threshold. Both a 60% and 50% threshold are mandated, and so the 60% is followed, not out of arbitrary Chair discretion but out of consideration of similar precedent and consideration of what I believe to be a common sense reading of the law.

Whilst it has already been demonstrated that there is no ambiguity in this matter, even if such ambiguity existed the votes cited as precedent by the Chair do not support their chosen course of action. Each of the three votes were on amendments to multiple laws, at least one of which was a constitutional matter designated as such by the marking requirements of the LPA. The vote in question here was an amendment to a single law that is not marked as constitutional. As such the matter is not substantively similar to those where the precedent was established and as such it cannot be considered to apply.

In addition, it must be considered that even if there was ambiguity in this matter the Chair is not empowered to interpret the law or otherwise reconcile contradictions as they have sought to do. This is not a power granted to the Chair in Article 2 of of the LPA, and resolving ambiguities and contradictions in law is a power reserved to the Court; if the Chair felt this matter unclear, they were required to refer the matter to the Court. As such, even if the Chair's arguments in this matter are deemed correct the action taken would remain outside the legal powers of the office and thus must be considered to be null and void.