Your Honors, 

I wish to apologize for the delay in my writing an amicus brief for this case, I've been prioritizing other matters. 

While Belschaft presents a rhetorically powerful case for the "consent" of the gameside community to any change potentially effecting them, his argument is far removed from the reality of the language in the Charter and endorsing it would be an absurd endorsement of a populist rewriting of our laws.

If the Charter read "the gameside shall vote to approve any proposal which affects the practices, idea, or concept of the gameside", then Belschaft's argument would be correct. However, that is not how the Charter reads in any of the relevant components. I argue the Court should rule the amendment constituitonal. I will turn to each component and explain why it does not apply.

Article I, Section 4 of the Charter reads as follows:

Quote:(4) Any constitutional law passed by the Assembly that directly affects the gameside community or its home governance, as determined by the Chair of the Assembly, must also receive the consent of the gameside before coming into force, where that consent shall not require more than a three-fifths supermajority in a vote.

In order for a constitutional law to require the consent of the gameside community before entering into effect, it must meet several stipulations.

• The amendment must directly affect the gameside community. The use of the word "direct" is deliberate and opposed to an indirect affect. In this case, the amended Article XIV's affect on the gameside community is at best indirect, as no activities of the gameside are in fact limited by the amendment to change the Great Council procedure.
  
• The amendment must affect the community or its home governance. Changing the procedure for calling a Great Council does not affect the community--no part of RMB activity or communication is modified. Nor does it affect its home governance, as the amendment to Article XIV does not change RMB rules or activities or the internal administration of the gameside (i.e. Local Council elections). If the Assembly had passed a law stating "The Local Council must ban double posting" or "The Local Council must move to six month terms", this would violate Article I, Section 4.
  
• The concept of "consent" does not appear in this article in the way Belschaft describes it. "Consent" is not a thing which the gameside always must do, it is something which is only required if the conditions of the Charter are met.
  

If the Court believes Article III, Section 5 of the Charter to prohibit the amendment to Article XIV altogether, then the portion of Article I, Section 4 that gives the power to make that determination to the Chair of the Assembly should be considered prior because Article I of the Charter "[d]efines the supreme laws of our community", which is prior to defining other components of the regional government.

The phrase "as determined by the Chair of the Assembly" is significant. I accept Bleakfoot's understanding/standard of "sufficiently egregious", however I disagree as to whether it applies in this case. The Chair did not err in a sufficiently egregious way in the context of the specific phrases used. The example used by Bleakfoot is not applicable. The Chair has not ruled an amendment an amendment abolishing the Local Council does not require gameside consent, rather that a different procedure for rewriting the laws of the Coalition does not require gameside consent. In this, there is a crucial difference. Furthermore, Bleakfoot's argument that this will result in the Great Council being able to abolish the Local Council without the consent of the gameside is based on a future possible scenario, something which is by definition indirect rather than direct. Additionally, such an occurrence would be a political question, which the Court should err to avoid.

While the Court may be dissatisfied with the strength of the Chair's reasoning for their determination, satisfaction (or lack thereof) with the thoroughness of this explanation is a political question rather than a question of law. If the Assembly were dissatisfied with the outcome or level of rigor which the Chair applied to this question, then the Assembly may either recall the Chair or choose to not re-elect the Chair. It is not for the Court to decide if the Chair's reasoning was itself sufficient, rather whether the Chair's action was sufficiently egregious. Furthermore, I disagree with Belschaft's characterization that the Chair's decision was in bad faith. This is not reflected in the reasoning provided by the Chair, and the inconsistency of the Chair's previous administrative rulings (e.g. the ruling on PhilipMacaroni's vote) with the supposed objective of promptly beginning the Great Council discredits the theory the Chair was acting in bad faith.

Article III, Section 5 reads:

Quote:(5) No law may be passed by the Assembly that directly affects the activities of the in-game community without the consent of the in-game community.

Again, the phrase "directly affects" and "activities" appear in this section. The amendment to Article XIV does not directly affect the activities of the in-game community because it does not directly limit the Local Council's ability to run activities, programming, or self-govern. Any potential affect is indirect in nature, rather than direct, and would be done by the Great Council, rather than the Assembly. Per the language of the amendment to Article XIV, the Great Council is a legally distinct body with distinct composition of membership from the Assembly, and thus is not bound by Article III, Section 5. Therefore, the Court cannot even rule against the amendment on the basis of potential "direct affects" by the Great Council, as the Great Council is distinct from the Assembly, which is the body affected by Article III, Section 5.

Article XIII, Section 2 reads:

Quote:(2) Any amendment to the Charter or constitutional laws that directly affects the gameside community or its home governance, as determined by the Chair of the Assembly, must also receive the consent of the gameside community before coming into force, where the consent shall not require more than a three-fifths supermajority in a vote. Additionally, the Local Council may originate amendments to its structure in the Charter, which must receive the consent of the Assembly before coming into force.

Article XIII, Section 2 does not introduce any additional protections beyond those contained in Article I, Section 4 and uses the same phrasing "directly affects the gameside community or its home governance, as determined by the Chair of the Assembly". As a result, I will not reduplicate my analysis.

I will add that Article XIII, Section 2 is self-evidently the clause of the Charter intended to provide an agent and procedure for execution of the guarantees provided in Article III, Section 5. Article III, Section 5 provides a guarantee of a right to consent to the gameside. In this case, the Court should not intervene to decide how Article III should be executed and compliance determined where the Charter has already provided a mechanism. While the Court's mandate does supply an ability to reconcile incompatible sections of the Charter, this is not the case because the Charter explicitly intends Article XIII, Section 2 to be the political process for executing Article III, Section 5's rights guarantee.

Belschaft concludes his amicus brief by arguing such a result is "absurd".

In order to prefer Belschaft's reasoning, one has to intervene in order to utilize completely distinct language from the language available in the Charter. The Court has in the past given rulings which were arguably "absurd" in order to avoid the possibility of intervention beyond the scope of the laws provided and reserve political determinations to the political branches.

The language that Belschaft provides in his brief is lofty at best and based in principles preferring a certain ideological position rather than law. To side with Belschaft's argument would place the Court off of the firm grounding of the language of the Charter and in the realm of intervening on behalf of a political cause. This would be absurd and extend past the Court's assigned role by the Charter.