Your Honor,

I will briefly address (really this time) counsel's comments below.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote:

(08-04-2018, 07:47 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote:  

• Does the Cabinet consider the West Pacific to be a partner?
  

 

No. The militaries of the South Pacific and the West Pacific have, on occasion, worked together on interregional operations, but for the most part, the two regions don't interact much.    

This simply highlights that item C is irrelevant. If TWP is not an ally or partner of TSP, whatever reasons it did or did not have for proscribing TBH are irrelevant to the question of whether the Cabinet's proscription of Petitioner met the required standard under TSP law.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote:

(08-04-2018, 07:47 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote:  

• You are requested to clarify, for the record of this case, the exact reasons why the West Pacific and the East Pacific blacklisted The Black Hawks, with reference to the role that Ever Wandering Souls had in these blacklistings.
  

 

The Black Hawks had issued this statement in response to the blacklistings, which includes a log of a conversation between officials of The Black Hawks and the two regions.

In reference to the East Pacific, the above log establishes that Petitioner was bullying TEP's Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding a Hawk-led military occupation that was liberated with the help of the East Pacific Sovereign Army. According to Delegate Queen Yuno, Petitioner 'threatened a "nonthreat"', while Minister of Foreign Affairs Greyghost clearly says "we don't be bullied".      

The Cabinet's interpretation of these logs is a stretch at best:

• As noted by counsel, the quote is "we won't be bullied." The pronoun "we" is plural (unless one is the Queen of England). The quote does not support a conclusion that an individual was bullied. Let alone the specified individual.
  
• A statement that a group won't be bullied does not prove that the group was actually bullied. At most, the quote supports the conclusion that one person believed bullying took place. Without the underlying messages that are being discussed, it is impossible to determine whether actual bullying took place.
  
• The quote is ambiguous as to who was doing the alleged bullying. Was it Petitioner's personal actions or the action of TBH as a whole? Without more context, this is impossible to determine.
  

In short, the logs do not support the conclusion the Cabinet draws from them.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote: In reference to The West Pacific, the log mentioned above has Big Bad Badger, former Delegate of The West Pacific, saying that Petitioner was accusing The West Pacific of not being professional about a military situation; The West Pacific disagreed with that assessment and therefore stepped back its involvement with The Black Hawks. There is also this item from the NSGP Discord server:

[9:12 PM] Davelands: @glen-rhodes In http://tspforums.xyz/thread-6362.html
Please change "Is the singular reason why TWP proscribed his entire region,... " to "Is a reason why TWP temporarily proscribed his entire region,... " That would more correctly explain our position regarding Souls.

While the above quote doesn't state why, it clearly establishes that Petitioner had a role in the blacklistings.

I will address the specific details of this below, but for now I will just note again that TWP's reasons for proscribing TBH are irrelevant to the legal question of whether Petitioner's proscription in TSP was compliant with TSP law.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote:

(08-04-2018, 07:47 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote:  

• There is a very clear difference between "blackmail" and "bullying". Does the Cabinet intend to amend the reasoning for its proscriptions after the fact, as was just attempted with the phrasing of Item D?
  

 

The proscriptions will be reissued with more detailed reasoning and any errors amended, pending the outcome of this appeal.      

The Cabinet's report demonstrates that a belief that blackmail had occurred was a factor in the decision to proscribe Petitioner. The fact that the Cabinet now concedes this was a factual error is reason alone to reverse that decision. A conclusion based on statements of facts established to be false cannot be considered sound.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote: In response to Counsel Mall's assertions on August 3:

(08-03-2018, 10:19 AM)Mall Wrote: How is a conversation between Ever Wandering Souls and Imki confidential and thus not subject to open disclosure to this court if the conversation is between Imki and the person who the Cabinet is refusing to disclose it to?

The issue isn't that Petitioner receives the conversation, but rather that it originated from private conversation and Imki herself has only cleared it to be shared with Cabinet, not publicly.      

What the party to a conversation has or has not cleared is irrelevant to the legal evidentiary question. There are certainly moral and ethical considerations, and possibly diplomatic ones, but that is the Cabinet's problem to address. Prosecutors face this question in courts every day - does the value of of evidence to a case outweigh the potential harm of presenting it? The Cabinet here has a simple choice, present the evidence as required by law or decide to not use it based on concerns about the consequences - either is a valid choice.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote: In response to Counsel Malashaan's assertions on August 16:

(08-15-2018, 11:01 PM)Malashaan Wrote: II. Appellant Should Be Given Access to Pertinent Evidence and InformationA. The Cabinet Must Explain the Basis on Which the Evidence is Classified

The classification of this evidence was not done by the Cabinet, but rather by the Intelligence Coordinator. The Cabinet had no role in the procurement or classification of this evidence.      

Petitioner is well aware that the Intelligence coordinator is responsible for the gathering and classification of evidence. However, it is the Cabinet that is relying on alleged classification to avoid presenting evidence in court. Petitioner has raised genuine questions as to whether the evidence in question meets the legal definition of classified intelligence. Article VIII, Section 1 of the Judicial Act makes submission in open court the default for all evidence. The burden is on the Cabinet to prove it is entitled to the exception it claims.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote:

(08-15-2018, 11:01 PM)Malashaan Wrote: B. The Evidence the Cabinet is Relying Upon Must Be Made Available

Petitioner's counsel should be aware that this isn't a criminal trial with a defined prosecution and defense, but rather an appeal in a non-adversarial setting. There is, therefore, no inherent right granted to cross-examine any evidence. The Court has received the full evidence as well as commentary on its sensitive nature, which is sufficient for it to derive a fair ruling.      

The distinction the Cabinet is trying to draw between criminal trials and other cases in this Court is not consistent with TSP law. The Judicial Act establishes that, "by default, material submitted for a case shall be submitted alongside the case proceedings in a public venue." (Judicial Act, Article VIII, Section 1 (emphasis added)). The Chief Justice established in his opening remarks that this case will be treated as a Legal Question. " A legal question is a case containing one or more questions seeking to receive clarification on the meaning of existing law or the applicability of law to concrete or hypothetical situations." (Judicial Act, article IV, Section 1 (emphasis added)). In other words, this is a case and material submitted for the case is public by default. Unless an exception applies (and, as I established in my brief, no exception exists that justifies a complete lack of public disclosure), the evidence the Cabinet is relying on must be submitted in public.

Furthermore, even were this case treated as an Appeal under the Judicial Act, it would still be "a case." (Judicial Act, Article VII, Section 1 (defining an appeal as a case)). The Judicial Act simply does not distinguish between types of cases for evidentiary matters. The rules laid out in article VIII apply in all judicial proceedings.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote: Article 8, Section 2 of the Judicial Act only mandates that the Court works with the corresponding authority (in this case, the Intelligence Coordinator) to redact information that may harm regional security. The integrity of intelligence and counter-intelligence operations is intuitively important for maintaining regional security, and in some cases that integrity can't be maintained if any release of evidence is done at all, no matter how redacted. This is the case here. That doesn't mean such evidence can't be submitted (that would be absurd), it just means that when not reasonably possible, the court can accept confidential evidence even if no redacted form is published.

The Cabinet is trying to write an exception into the law that isn't there. The South Pacific legislature is more than capable of writing an exception into the law that allows for certain evidence to be considered confidentially by the Court. In fact, it did just that with the exception for material of a personal nature. That exception states "Material that is of a personal nature ... may be provided to the Court on a confidential basis, and published in a redacted form only if a reasonable person could not deduce the identity being protected." (Judicial Act, Article VIII, Section 3). In other words, with personal information, the Court can review confidentially and has discretion to to publish a redacted version if it concludes it can do so without revealing the identity of the individual.

In contrast, the exception for confidential information that the Cabinet is relying on is narrower. It requires the Court to work with the corresponding authority to redact information that may harm regional security, but does not allow for confidential consideration or for complete non-publication. (Judicial Act, Article VIII, Section 2).

The Cabinet asserts that it would be ludicrous to conclude that evidence cannot be submitted if the government does not wish it to be made public (even in redacted form). However, that is simply not the case. This is another classic case of the balancing act that occurs with using sensitive intelligence. The Cabinet is faced with a choice between retaining the complete secrecy of the intelligence and trading some of that secrecy for the evidence it provides in this case. I have been involved in many such decisions in several regions, and it can be a difficult one, but it is by no means a ludicrous setup. Rather, it implicitly is present in the Judicial Act as written. It is just one of many examples of the difficult balance between transparency, openness, and due process on the one hand and efficiency of governance on the other.

(08-21-2018, 12:46 AM)Roavin Wrote:

(08-15-2018, 11:01 PM)Malashaan Wrote: IV. The Proscription and the Cabinet's Defense of it Rely on Several Erroneous Assertions of FactC. Appellant was not the Singular Reason why The East Pacific Proscribed The Black Hawks

As shown above, it was Petitioner's conversation with The East Pacific's Minister of Foreign Affairs that led to the blacklisting. This directly contradicts the Counsel's assertion.       

The evidence does not contradict my assertion, either directly or otherwise. My assertion was that Appellant/Petitioner was not the "singular reason" for TEP's proscription. TEP's announcement provides several reasons for the proscription. As soon as there is more than one reason for something, none of those things are the "singular reason."

NOTE: Edited to fix a broken quote and correct a couple of typos.