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Aramanchovia · 03-23-2015, 01:59 AM

I know Hileville has asked for a quick response to this issue, however as we have two candidates, I do think we will be unable to respond prior to elections finishing up (both Farengeto and myself can be argued to have a COI). Thoughts.

I plan to sit this one out, at least until after the elections.

Awe · 03-23-2015, 07:22 AM

I agree that there may be a conflict of interest present between Aram and Farengeto. However, in the interests of fairness in this election, I believe that the Court should at least issue a brief summary of its preliminary opinion, seeing as this is a matter of importance

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Awe · 03-23-2015, 01:13 PM

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24.03.15

Temporary Ruling on

Voting and Citizenship

Presiding Justices:

Awe, Hopolis

The Court issues the following temporary ruling, due to the exceptional circumstances surrounding this Legal Question.

As stated in Article 2.11 of the Charter:

Quote:11. Voting and being elected to an office under the Coalition of The South Pacific shall be rights afforded only to citizens.

The above implies that only citizens are allowed to vote in elections, specifically excluding non-citizens. The provisions for the loss of citizenship are also outlined in Article 1, Sections 2.6-2.8 of the Charter. In particular, the Petitioner draws attention to Sections 2.6 and 2.8 of the Charter, stating that a citizen must meet the upkeep requirements of logging into the forums once every 30 days, posting twice in that period, and maintaining a nation in the in-game region of the South Pacific.

While the Charter does not afford the Election Commissioner the power to revoke an individual's citizenship, the Court Justices, in drafting this Temporary Ruling, have resolved that the Election Commissioner shall be temporarily charged with the right to deem voters who do not meet the upkeep criteria to be non-citizens, and as such discard their votes, in accordance with the provision set forth in the Bill of Rights.

In delegating these powers to the Election Commissioner through the issuing of this Temporary Ruling, the Court hopes that he will execute his duties and responsibilities with fairness and integrity. Should the Election Commissioner be found to have misused the additional powers granted by this Temporary Ruling, this Court reserves the right to rescind this ruling.

The Court will look into this Question formally when a full bench is constituted, after which this Temporary Ruling will lapse and be superseded by a formal legal judgement.

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(This post was last modified: 03-23-2015, 01:14 PM by Qwert.)

Hopolis · 03-24-2015, 05:50 PM

We have a problem in that I can't agree with that ruling.

Nowhere in the Charter or CoL do we have the power to issue a temporary ruling and even assuming that silence on the matter were to mean we did (which could be a valid position arguably), it wouldn't be binding in any way. On that basis anyone acting on our decision could in theory find themselves before the Court facing charges.

Given the election will be over by the time we have appointed a third judge and agreeing that Aram and Farengeto probably have COI's I think we will have to advise there is a split decision on the matter with insufficient judges to make a ruling.

It's a darn good question though and once the elections are over we need to review it asap.

Apad · 03-24-2015, 08:32 PM

I agree with hopolis and i would oppose this ruling if im elected to acting justice.

Apad
King of Haldilwe

Aramanchovia · 03-25-2015, 06:24 PM

I know this question has been withdrawn and reasked elsewhere, and that I still have a COI in this issue. My non-binding thoughts, which you should probably completely ignore are there is one article that is the only real part of legislation detailing this matter and it is as follows:

Article 4 - Election Commission

1. Elections will be run by a member of the forum administration staff, acting as an election commissioner.
2. A designated Election Commissioner may be appointed if all members of the administration staff will be candidates in the given election, or if no administrator is able to be an Election Commissioner.

Looking at 2. The EC can be appointed is all it says of relevance. Fine. You then look at 1. This says the elections are run by the EC. The next point would then be to say what running an election involves. Unfortunately this is not defined anywhere in legislation that I could find. The question is where you take the decision from there, and I am not getting involved in that.

Feel free to disagree or ignore if you want. Probably completely unhelpful, but I would suggest that is your starting point when resolving this matter if you are going to strictly follow the legislation, which you would have determined yourselves. You are probably not going to be popular, no matter what your decision ends up being unfortunately.

Not much help probably. Sorry to leave you with a tough decision again due to having a COI. Can't be helped.

Apad · 03-25-2015, 06:35 PM

My opinion is that the assembly should be made to resolve this issue thru new legislation. I dont like the idea of the court creating new powers for a position that is very poorly described in the election act.

Apad
King of Haldilwe