| Charter Typo |
1. It has always been said that the Chair has broad discretionary powers, but only now have those powers been somehow limited in their scope. I'd argue that, while controversial, Glen's interpretation of his powers at Chair at the time wasn't illegal, because when he did those actions there was no Court ruling.
2. I don't have the power to arbitrarily ban nations. The Charter makes it clear that I can only eject adspammers, and that all other ejections must be (1) on security grounds with Cabinet authorisation or (2) based on guidelines established by the Assembly in the Code of Laws. Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator. I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum. Legal Resources: THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System
First, I feel as though my character is being impugned here unfairly. As the Chair of the Assembly, I fulfilled my duties of translating passed bills into the Charter. That included fixing formatting errors that were very frequent under IP.Board's text editor. This happened every single time the Charter post was edited, and sometimes formatting errors were missed and left behind. I also saw this problem occur frequently under other Chairs. Some common formatting errors were the introduction of extra empty articles, incorrect spacing, different fonts and font sizes, and many more minor errors. I fixed all of those when I was Chair, and I imagine all other Chairs did the same thing, including Belschaft. This is not a criminal case, yet I feel that I am being accused of criminal activities, when all I did was fulfill the duties of the position as I understood them.
Second, there is no way to reconstruct what the Charter was before the formatting was edited for errors. Administrator and moderator post edits were not recorded in IP.Board. There is no version history. Yes, we can go through voting records and reconstruct the Charter, but who has the authority to do that? Certainly not the Chair, under the High Court's ruling. The High Court itself has no power to rewrite the Charter, either. It can only declare General Laws unconstitutional and reconcile contradictions between Charter sections. In order to conduct a reconstruction, like Belschaft is suggesting, the Assembly would have to vote on an entirely "new" Charter, as the Assembly is the only body with the authority to make any changes. Third, building on the High Court's lack of authority mentioned above, I do not believe the High Court is able to declare the existing Charter defunct in its entirety. The only laws the High Court can declare defunct are General Laws, of which the Charter is not one. It is a good thing the High Court did not attempt to do that in its decision, anyways, because it would arguably have lacked the jurisdiction to do so under Article 4, Section 5, part 2. Kris did not ask the High Court to determine whether past actions were illegal, or whether the current Charter has legal force, so attempting to rule on those questions would be in violation of that part of the Charter. Fourth, I want to address this idea that I, as Chair of the Assembly, had no business interpreting the law. That is not how our government works. The judiciary is not the only body that has the authority to interpret law. Rather, the judiciary has the final say in which interpretations are authoritative. In exercise their duties, all Cabinet members must interpret all relevant laws. That is how an executive branch works. We cannot execute the laws without first interpreting what they mean. Lastly, I want to stress, yet again, that we're talking about typos and formatting errors. I don't know why we're acting like I changed any actual laws.
How about we just put the entire charter up for a vote? Any and all edits GR made to the charter would then be made legal, and we won't have to continue on with all the bickering.
That seems like a reasonable way forward to me.
I see it as wasteful overkill to put the entire charter to vote. We really shouldn't need legislate formatting errors.
(05-10-2014, 02:01 PM)Arbiter08 Wrote: How about we just put the entire charter up for a vote? Any and all edits GR made to the charter would then be made legal, and we won't have to continue on with all the bickering. That's basically a Great Council. We can do that, but it would take time. I personally wouldn't want to vote on a new Charter that includes Article 9, and I imagine there are other changes some people might want to make if we're bringing the entire Charter into debate. Or, we could all agree that the Charter isn't under question. The only person I really see advocating that position in Belschaft. As long as nobody brings the question up to the High Court, then there's no reason for the Charter to be in question.
This whole "debate" is embarrassing. I cannot believe it's still going on. Ten pages to argue about typos? You know, in Spiritus, we had a typo that was caught in a Constitutional Amendment just after it was passed. We talked about it in IRC for no more than a couple minutes, came up with a legal solution, carried it out, and we were done. That was it! We somehow managed to persevere through such a horrible event without any legislation regarding typos. Yet in this region, one I've admired for so long, one that is one of the oldest and most significant regions, you can't even manage to fix a typo? The law is invalid because someone fixed the formatting? Ten pages about a typo, people! How can this conversation still be happening?
Delegate of Spiritus
Vice Secretary-General of the World Assembly "When you are the potatoes guy everyone is like, 'Yeah, it's the potatoes guy!'" - Max Barry
I pretty much agree with everything that has been said.
I have no problem putting the whole charter up for a vote -- without edits. The only problem is wtf happens if we can't muster 75% vote for it. Such an action would, in fact, render the entire government as illegitimate.
The fact that such a small issue could dissolve the government speaks of much bigger issues, both with the Assembly and the Charter itself.
The Third Imperium
Journalist, South Pacific Independent News Network (SPINN) Provost, Magisterium Sergeant, East Pacific Sovereign Army Journalist, East Pacific News Service Foreign Affairs Minister, The West Pacific
(05-10-2014, 07:58 PM)God-Emperor Wrote: The fact that such a small issue could dissolve the government speaks of much bigger issues, both with the Assembly and the Charter itself. Well, if you ask Bels, this doesn't dissolve the government since the Charter is still in tact, it's just apparently irretrievable at the present. I do think this speaks volumes about the mindset of the region at the present and the willingness of individuals to use any petty issue for political gain. |
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