| Legal Question: Overlapping voting times in the Assembly and their effect on status |
Your Honor,
I submit the following Legal Question on the Legislator Status Requirement found in Article IV, Section 4 of the Charter: Quote:4. Continued legislator status requires active membership and good behavior. The Chair will remove legislator status from any person absent for three non-concurrent Assembly votes; legislators who have an approved leave of absence from the Chair shall not be considered absent. Additionally, the Chair may suspend privileges for disruptive members. Frequent suspensions may be grounds for ineligibility, if found appropriate in a fair trial by the High Court. The clause in question here is the Voting Requirement. Do votes started on different days, but having overlapping periods of length, count as "non-concurrent" votes for the purposes of the requirement? My purpose for asking this question is that the Charter is not crystal clear, and past practice doesn't provide solid guidance either. I do not take a position on the soundness of either policy, but merely request clarification of my duties as Chair.
The High Court will hear this legal question, hereafte designated HCLQ 1702. Interested parties are invited to submit an amicus brief on the matter.
HCLQ1702
February 26th, 2017 Petitioner Sandaoguo Presiding Justice Farengeto Your Honor, I submit the following Legal Question on the Legislator Status Requirement found in Article IV, Section 4 of the Charter: Quote:4. Continued legislator status requires active membership and good behavior. The Chair will remove legislator status from any person absent for three non-concurrent Assembly votes; legislators who have an approved leave of absence from the Chair shall not be considered absent. Additionally, the Chair may suspend privileges for disruptive members. Frequent suspensions may be grounds for ineligibility, if found appropriate in a fair trial by the High Court. The clause in question here is the Voting Requirement. Do votes started on different days, but having overlapping periods of length, count as "non-concurrent" votes for the purposes of the requirement? My purpose for asking this question is that the Charter is not crystal clear, and past practice doesn't provide solid guidance either. I do not take a position on the soundness of either policy, but merely request clarification of my duties as Chair. Ruling
Using the definition of concurrent as "operating or occurring at the same time" it is the opinion of the High Court that any votes whose voting periods overlap, fully or partially, are to be considered concurrent regardless of start date and voting length. Therefore votes who do not experience any such overlap in their voting periods are non-concurrent for the purposes of Article 4, Section 4, and as such any three votes that are not concurrent with each other (under the definition in this ruling) will qualify the legislator as absent. |
| Users browsing this thread: |
| 1 Guest(s) |