Question:

Are members of the Administration Team permitted to remove citizenship of players who lapse in their activity requirements?


Argument:

Citizenship is an area of law split sporadically between the Cabinet, the Vice Delegate, and the Administration Team. The Vice Delegate has the primary responsibility of managing citizenship applications. The Cabinet has the ability to remove citizenship through security threat declarations. In the end, the Administration Team is functionally tasked with managing citizenship masking, and has historically been the primary conductor of activity checks.

In the past, the Administration Team has conducted activity checks and removed citizenship masking for those players, without forwarding the list of those players to the Vice Delegate or otherwise seeking any kind of pre-authorization. Example: http://thesouthpacific.org/thread-535.html

It is also common and expected practice that the Administration Team conducts activity checks prior to an election, demasking those who no longer qualify for citizenship.

In HCLQ1510, a two-Justice majority wrote an opinion stating they believed "the intent in the framing of the Charter was to make the Vice-Delegate responsible for all powers relating to citizenship in Article 2 except where otherwise explicitly granted to the Cabinet or Assembly." However, further in the opinion, the majority refers also to "other authorised persons" when referencing the legal removal of citizenship for lapse in requirements.

In seeking clarification for whether or not the Vice Delegate was solely responsible for removing citizenship, Justice Hopolis, one of the majority Justices, said, "We're [the Court] not saying that the Vice-Delegate is solely responsible for activity checks" and that "the Charter and Code of Laws seem to be vague on who is actually empowered to undertake the activity checks and action the outcome."

Given that these responsibilities are split among the Vice Delegate and the Administration Team throughout Article 1, Section 2, I argue that we cannot simply assume the Vice Delegate is solely responsible for an action, unless the Charter explicitly says so. Removal of citizenship for a lapse in forum activity requirements is not assigned to any person or group specifically. As such, there is little guidance for the Court to decide who holds that authority, and should rely on common practice. There is ample evidence that the Administration Team has had the permission and ability to remove citizenship for forum activity requirement lapses, which makes sense given that the Admins are the only group able to see activity in all areas of the forum.


Respectfully submitted.

Reply

The Court finds this question Justiciable and will hear the case. While the Court reviews the issue, interested parties are welcome to submit an amicus brief on the question.

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HIGH COURT OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC [1601.HQ] ADMINISTRATORS AND CITIZESHIP REMOVALS SUBMISSION 10 JANUARY 2016 | JUSTICIABILITY 04 MARCH 2021 Whereas this Court has been asked to exercise the judicial power vested in it by Article VIII of the Charter of the South Pacific, it is resolved as follows: DETERMINATION OF JUSTICIABILITY This case is not found justiciable. SUBMISSION OF REQUESTS FOR AN IN-CHAMBERS OPINION Interested parties may request the Chief Justice to provide an opinion with the reasons that led to this determination no later than 14 March 2021 10:00 UTC. It is so ordered. 1601.HQ.DJ | Issued 06 March 2021

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
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