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***sandaoguo*** · 06-03-2022, 01:04 PM

HIGH COURT OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC
PETITION OF NON-JUSTICIABILITY

Your Honor,

I rise again to petition that this case is non-justiciable by the High Court.

The power of the Court to “declare […] official act of government, in whole or in part, void upon a determination that it violates the terms of this Charter or any other constitutional law” (Article VIII) must be reconciled by specific grants of authority in the Charter to government officials to make sole determinations. In every instance, the Charter specifies that it is the Chair of the Assembly who makes the determination of whether or not a bill passed by the Assembly requires a game-side vote. This is not a mere incidental recommendation, but the written-in-stone will of the of the Charter.

Where the Charter grants specific powers of determination to an official, the Court must defer to that official’s judgment. The power of the Court to void that official’s determination or action ought to be limited to only the clearest cases of egregious violations of the Charter. Otherwise, the assignment of power in the Charter would be rendered as nothing more than at-will delegation, to be usurped by the Court whenever asked.

An officer’s judgment, in this case the Chair’s, will always be subject to disagreement, particularly on politically charged subjects. It’s no secret that the petitioner is not a fan of the idea of holding a Great Council. The petitioner has voted against every resolution and amendment related to convening a Great Council this year. They disagree with arguments that an amendment to how Great Councils are convened are not “directly” related to in-game issues and do not “directly” impact in-game governance. It is legitimate to disagree, but disagreement alone does not constitute the existence of a clear and egregious violation of the Charter.

There are valid arguments to be made that the threshold of “direct” relationship or impact to in-game governance is not met, because convening a Great Council only incidentally implicates the game-side community. (Relatedly, the amended Article XIV, as well as both resolutions related to convening a Great Council this year, provides for expanded participation where non-legislator RMBers can participate.) It’s not a clear-cut issue. Indeed, the Charter accounts for the fact that these issues aren’t clear-cut by the very fact of granting the Chair the responsibility and power to make the judgment on a bill-by-bill basis. The Charter could have alternatively left these determinations up to the Court, by not opting for the context-dependent judgment of the politically accountable Chair.

Because this is not a case of unambiguous and egregious malpractice by the Chair, the Court must defer to Charter’s explicit instruction to allow the Chair to decide if a bill must be voted on by the game-side community. The petitioner has no injury, has a clear bias evident in their voting record, and those theoretically injured are in favor of convening a Great Council and eligible to participate in it. The Chair is politically accountable and where political disagreements are had, those disagreements over the Chair’s judgment should be resolved within the Assembly itself. If there was little question among the Assembly that the Chair clearly and egregious erred, particularly with malice, then I would support the justiciability of the Court to review their actions. This is simply not the scenario with this case.

(This post was last modified: 06-03-2022, 01:07 PM by sandaoguo.)