Your Honours,

Amicus brief by Jebediah

This Court's most important mandate is to maintain the rights and freedoms as listed in the Charter. Article 8.4 of the Charter gives the Court the power to:

Quote:"...declare any general law, regulation, directive, determination or any other 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."

...while Article 3.2 emphasises this responsibility in relation to rights and freedoms:

Quote:"The High Court may strike down any general law or action that violates any right or freedom found in this Charter."

As has been argued before in this case, determining whether or not a law or amendment affects the gameside community or its home governance falls under an "action" or a "determination or any other official act of government". Since this specific determination concerns a right and freedom - that of Article 3.5, which requires gameside consent to any law affecting the gameside - it is of this court's highest priority to ensure that this determination is correct.

This case concerns the recent amendment to Article 14 concerning the Great Council mechanism - of which the relevant sections concern calling and ending a Great Council. The previous text was written as:

Quote:"(2) A resolution establishing a Great Council may be adopted with a three-fifths supermajority of the Assembly, which must be confirmed by a majority vote of the gameside community.
...
(4) Any and all changes to regional law proposed by a Great Council may be adopted by a three-fifths supermajority of the Assembly, which must be confirmed by a majority vote of the game-side community."

...while the new text on the same subjects is thus:

Quote:"(2) Great Councils shall operate in parallel to the Assembly, which will still be convened under regular order. Participation in Great Councils is determined in the organizing resolution, where the Assembly may expand eligibility beyond legislators or restrict eligibility by criteria it deems fit.
...
(5) Changes or additions to the constitutional canon of the Coalition may be adopted by a three-fifths majority of the Great Council. Changes or additions to regular statutory law may be adopted by simple majority of the Great Council."

Emphasis has been added to relevant clauses. The effect of this change is clear - Article 14.2 removes the gameside's right to block a Great Council, which when combined with the change to Article 14.5 directly leads to a method by which the Assembly may pass any law without consulting the gameside at all.

It does not matter that the Assembly can allow members of the gameside to participate, and that it may only do this if it first passes a resolution allowing itself to do so. The gameside community's right is to have the final say on any laws that affect it, and by introducing this mechanism the assembly is allowing itself to circumvent this. It is clearly absurd that a section made to protect this right of the gameside community should somehow be circumvented by passing a law which gives the Assembly the option to violate it.

It is because of these facts that we are led to the conclusion that this Amendment cannot be compatible with the mischief Article 13.2 and Article 1.4 was made to protect. Had the Assembly passed a law which, as an example, removed the Local Council - this would be clearly put to a gameside vote according to Article 13.2 and Article 1.4. However, the argument that is being made by other friends of the Court is that the assembly may circumvent these Articles by simply passing an amendment which allows them to do so without allowing the gameside to approve it, despite the fact that these Articles specifically protect the gameside from this exact ability. The Assembly may then pass any law it wants regarding the gameside so long as it meets certain conditions (which are entirely different from the conditions required by the gameside's rights and freedoms) without ever needing any kind of approval from the gameside community.

Therefore, it does not matter that this is not an immediate and direct violation of rights but rather an amendment that allows such rights to be violated, because the Court's mandate is to protect these rights and freedoms, not the naive and literal interpretation of this amendment's effect. It does not matter that the Chair is ordinarily responsible for determining this nor whether the Chair's decision was in good or bad faith, because the Court has the ability and the mandate to strike down actions and determinations which violate the aforementioned rights.

To paraphrase Belschaft in his last amicus brief - the right in Article 3.5 is clearly and unambiguously designed to protect the gameside from laws and amendments made by the Assembly by requiring the consent of the gameside to pass any law which affects itself. By allowing the Chair and the Assembly to pass this amendment, the Court would enable the Assembly to circumvent this right entirely, despite the fact that the right is meant to stop the Assembly from passing these kinds of laws.

It would directly enable the very mischief this right was intended to prevent.

It would be clearly and self-evidently absurd.