Your honors,

During Omega's term as Chair, as noted in his recall, two laws were passed by the South Pacific, but were not entered into the MATT-Duck law index. This makes it rather uncertain what is law and what is not. The two laws of questionable status are:

2016-09-08, Amendment to the Elections Act - passed Assembly vote here
2016-12-18, Amendment to the Elections Act - passed Assembly vote here, passed gameside vote here

These amendments passed, but the texts of the laws were not amended accordingly.

The 2016-09-08 Amendment edited sections 1.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the Elections Act. Many of the sections that this bill amended have since been amended as if the 2016-09-08 Amendment never occurred.

The 2016-12-18 Amendment edited section 5, Vacancies of Office. This section has not been amended since before the 2016-12-18 Amendment passed, except to modify the numbering scheme, so this Amendment has not been, as it were, overwritten by subsequent laws.

I ask the Court:

1. Is the 2016-09-08 Amendment to the Elections Act law?
2. Is the 2016-12-18 Amendment to the Elections Act law?

(This post was last modified: 05-01-2019, 01:49 PM by Kris Kringle.)

Reply

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High Court of the South Pacific
Notice of Reception | 1916.NR

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This submission has been received and has been assigned the following naming information:

Docket File Number: 1916

Reference Name: Validity of Unindexed Laws

Question:

• Is the 2016-09-08 Amendment to the Elections Act law?
  
• Is the 2016-12-18 Amendment to the Elections Act law?

The submitted and interested third parties are invited to explain the necessity of a ruling in this matter while the Court considers its justiciability. Brief Amicus Curiae on the eventual preferred outcome of this case are not required at this time.

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:
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Reply

May it please the Court: this legal question is important as it affects which laws operate within the South Pacific, making it very wide-ranging. I urge the Court to allow this case.

Former Associate Justice of the High Court of the South Pacific (4 December 2019 to 5 February 2021)

Reply

Determination of Justiciability
Validity of Unindexed Laws | 1916.DJ

 

Whereas Nakari has petitioned this Court to interpret the law with the following questions:

 

Is the 2016-09-08 Amendment to the Elections Act law?
Is the 2016-12-18 Amendment to the Elections Act law?

 

Whereas this Court has reviewed the merits of such a request on the basis of its legal necessity and potential to impact present and future policies.

It is resolved with respect to this Legal Question as follows:

1. It is deemed justiciable.
   
2. It shall be assigned the case number HCLQ1904 and be referred to in full as Validity of Unindexed Laws.
   
3. The Court invites all able and willing members to submit their views and stances on this Legal Question in the form of amicus curiae briefs, no later than 29 May 2019.
   
4. The Court reserves the right to consult with, and request private testimonies from, other government institutions and individuals, for the purposes of research and clarification of context.
   
5. The Court retains, in compliance with the Charter and the Judicial Act, the sole right to issue an opinion on this Legal Question.
   

It is so ordered.

 

Kris Kringle
Chief Justice

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

Reply

Your honors, I intend on submitting my views on this case. Thank you

(Submission will be entered here with an edit when the piece is ready)

Reply

May it please the Court, here is my amicus curiae brief on why the unarchived amendments are still law and how the Court should go about reconciling the unarchived amendments with the archived Elections Act. I am happy to answer any and all questions the Court may have about my brief.

Please note: this brief has not considered the question around whether other process requirements, such as a minimum debate and voting period, must be met in order for a proposal to become law. It would seem the amendments in question met these requirements, so it is not necessary to discuss these matters in the brief.

Regarding the status of any and all unarchived amendments

The Legislative Procedure Act (1.4) provides that non-constitutional laws "require a simple majority of those voting to pass" and constitutional laws "require a two-thirds supermajority of those voting to pass." Only the provision with the most votes can be passed if multiple competing provisions are voted upon by the Assembly at the same time (1.5). According to the Charter (I.4), a constitutional law which affects gameside "must also be debated and voted upon by the gameside community." Further, "the Assembly may not enact any law [...] that is solely related to an issue to the in-game community." (V.2) I could find no other provisions in TSP legislation directly commenting on when a proposal becomes law.

It is important to note that the Legislative Procedure Act (1.7) provides that: "Should any bill, resolution or amendment become law, the document itself, its debate thread, and its voting thread and results shall all be archived." The wording become law indicates that an amendment has become law prior to it being archived. It is clear that archiving does not give any amendment the status of law; it had that status before archiving. Hence, the fact that the amendments in question were not correctly filed does not have any bearing on whether they are law. As suggested by the analysis above, a proposal becomes law once it meets its voting requirements (provided it is not solely related to gameside). Hence, the amendments in question are law, whether or not they were archived.

Regarding Article VIII, Section 5 of the Charter

Since the unarchived amendments, in this case, were made to a constitutional law,¹ there is no need for the Court to concern itself with provisions relating to any conflict between constitutional and general laws. Hence, Article VIII, Section 4 of the Charter does not apply in this case, whereas Section 5 of the aforementioned Article does. It provides that:

"The High Court may reconcile contradictions within [...] constitutional laws, [...] maintaining the least amount of disruption to the intended purposes of the contradictory parts."

Note that contradictions must exist within the laws in order for the Court to reconcile the contradictory parts. Indeed, without a contradiction in the law, the Court is merely permitted to "clarify and interpret provisions of law." (The Charter, VIII.6) The Court has previously ruled on the methods by which it interprets law in Designation of Constitutional Laws (HCLQ 1805), with that ruling itself having the full force of law. (Judicial Act 4.3) Justice Belschaft did a fine job of summing up the Court's approach to statutory interpretation when the ruling stated: "Should there be a single literal, common sense meaning then the High Court will establish such as the law." (emphasis added) Therefore, if there is no contradiction in the law, the Court must uphold the single literal, common sense meaning on every occasion.²

Where contradictions in the law do exist, the Court has the power to mould the law so as to honour the intentions of the two contradictory pieces of legislation. There is nothing within the Charter which suggests that the options for reconciling contradictions do not include completely disregarding one of the pieces of legislation. Provided the intention of that discarded law is upheld, the provision in the Charter has been satisfied. Hence, laws may set aside by the Court, but only if contradictory provisions exist.

Regarding the first unarchived amendment

The first unarchived amendment to the Election Act made three substantive changes: the amendment of Section 1.3, the addition of Article 4 (now Article 5), and the addition of Article 7. While it may appear that this amendment also made the Election Act a constitutional law, this was already done in June 2016.¹

Section 1.3

The MATT-DUCK Law Archive only details one amendment to Section 1.3; this amendment, passed in 2018, replaced references of the old Electoral Commission to reflect the new Electoral Commissioner. Since Subsection 1.3(a) of the first unarchived amendment still references "a member" of the Electoral Commission, there is a contradiction that exists between it and the 2018 amendment. However, this is easily resolved. It is clearly evident that Subsection 1.3(a) of the first unarchived amendment was meant to permit the people who coordinate elections (that is, the current Electoral Commissioner) to step aside so they can run for office. It is also clearly evident that the 2018 amendment was meant to replace references to the Electoral Commission with the Electoral Commissioner. Therefore, the interpretation "maintaining the least amount of disruption to the intended purposes of the contradictory parts" is that the reference in Subsection 1.3(a) to the members of the Electoral Commission should be construed as referring to the Electoral Commissioner.

There are two provisions added by the unarchived Section 1.3 amendment which are unaffected by the 2018 amendment. Firstly, the unarchived amendment lists the Chair of the Assembly amongst the list of prohibited offices. Secondly, the unarchived amendment adds Subsection 1.3(a), which permits stepping aside (permanently or for a time) to run for a prohibited office. As there is no evidence that the provisions related to the prohibited offices in Section 1.3 have otherwise been amended, there is no contradiction in the law nor is there a contradiction in the intended purposes of the law. Therefore, since there is no contradiction, the Court has no need to alter the aforementioned provisions. This means that the text of the unarchived Section 1.3 amendment should be interpreted according to its "single literal, commonsense meaning" and cannot be discarded by the Court.

Therefore, the addition of the unarchived Section 1.3 amendment to the current legislation (with a change of reference from members of the Electoral Commission to the Electoral Commissioner)³ should have Section 1.3 of the Election Act read:

(3) The Commissioner may not run for office or hold the office of Delegate, Prime Minister, Chair of the Assembly or Cabinet Minister, during their as Commissioner.
a. This does not prohibit the Commissioner resigning to seek office via an election or finding an accepted surrogate to oversee the election in their place.

Article 4

Article 4 of the first unarchived amendment details the manner in which the Chair of the Assembly is to be elected. Specifically, it deals with election dates, nomination period length, campaign period length, voting period length, method of election, and time period until the assumption of office.

The archived Elections Act contains election provisions for the Chair of the Assembly which were passed in 2017. This amendment deals with election dates, campaigning period length, voting period length, method of election, and time period until the assumption of office. While nomination period length is not detailed in the amendment, it is implied that nominations occur during the campaigning period. Hence, the 2017 amendment covers every area which the unarchived amendment covered. It does so differently to the unarchived amendment, creating a contradiction in the law. Because of this, the Court must reconcile the contradictions.

When Ravenclaw added the Chair election provisions to the unarchived amendment, the proposal post stated: "I would further suggest amending the Elections Act to include the Chair of Assembly election, to centralise the purpose of this Act." The provisions which Ravenclaw proposed were almost identical to those already used for the members of the Cabinet at that time.⁴ Therefore, the intended purpose of the Chair election provisions in the unarchived amendment was to provide for an explicit method by which to elect the Chair. The 2017 amendment would uphold this intention fully.

When Farengeto proposed the November 2017 amendment, the opening post stated: "We've been having recurring trouble with a lack of CoA Election procedures since the Great Council, so I've been working on an idea for the election procedures. Due to the special nature of the Chair of the Assembly I'm looking into alternative election systems." Thus, while the main intention of the 2017 amendment was to provide provisions for the election of the Chair, a secondary intention was to use an electoral system which was more reflective of the unique nature of the Chair. The election provisions of the unarchived amendment, which mimicked those of the Cabinet, would not uphold this secondary intention of the 2017 amendment. Since the 2017 amendment satisfies all the intentions of both amendments, upholding it as law (and disregarding the unarchived amendment on Chair elections) would be "maintaining the least amount of disruption to the intended purposes of the contradictory parts."

Article 7

Sections 7.1 and 7.2 of the first unarchived amendment details which offices cannot be held concurrently, that it is permitted to still seek election or appointment to other offices, and what occurs if an officeholder gains another office. Sections 7.3 and 7.4 repeat old ground by providing that membership of the Committee for Regional Security [sic] is not an office under Article 7 and that the prohibition on simultaneous holding of offices applies to all offices listed in Article 7 unless otherwise stated.

The Assembly passed an amendment to add an Article 7 in 2017. This amendment detailed (among other things) which offices cannot be held concurrently, that it is permitted to still seek election or appointment to other offices, and what occurs if an officeholder gains another office. It makes different provisions to those in the unarchived Article 7 amendment. Clearly, a contradiction exists between the unarchived amendment and the March 2017 amendment. In the opening post for the 2017 amendment debate thread, Belschaft mentioned that the amendment was needed to replace the unarchived Article 7 amendment since that amendment had not been archived. It is therefore evident that part of the intention of the March 2017 amendment was to replace the unarchived amendment. The intention of the unarchived amendment was to provide for a separation of powers, which the 2017 amendment also achieves. Therefore, the interpretation "maintaining the least amount of disruption to the intended purposes of the contradictory parts"  is clearly that Sections 7.1 and 7.2 of the unarchived amendment are not current law whereas the 2017 amendment is.

As stated before, Sections 7.3 and 7.4 of the unarchived amendment are essentially redundant clarification provisions. Because of this, they do not actually contradict anything provided for in the 2017 amendment. So, there is no contradiction upon which to base a reconciliation of the intended purposes. As such, Sections 7.3 and 7.4 of the unarchived amendment cannot be disregarded by the Court, but must be interpreted according to their "single literal, commonsense meaning." Therefore, Article 7 of the Elections Act should read:⁵
 

7. Separation of Powers

(1) Offices of the Coalition are the Delegate, the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers, the Chair of the Assembly, Local Councillors, the Chief Justice, and any of their appointed deputies.

(2) It is not permitted for any individual to hold more than one office within the Coalition's government.

(3) It is permitted to seek election or appointment to new office while holding an existing office.

(4) Election or appointment to a new office constitutes explicit resignation of an existing office.

(5) No person holding a Cabinet office or the office of the Delegate may hold any equivalent office in a foreign region or organisation.

(6) Members of the Committee for Regional Security are permitted to occupy other roles so long as they do not violate the restriction in 7.1.

(7) Unless otherwise stated, Article 7 is considered to apply to all explicitly named elected and confirmed offices as detailed in this 7.1.

Regarding the second unarchived amendment

The second unarchived amendment to the Election Act added a new Section 5.2 to the Election Act (it would now be numbered 6.2). This provided for the filling of vacancies on the Local Council.

Later that year, the Assembly voted to remove the electoral law around the Local Council. This was recognised as having been passed on 13 June 2017. Because of this, it is possible that the Assembly would have intended to repeal the changes made by the unarchived amendment also. This argument is supported by the debate thread for the repeal, which consistently discussed home-rule considerations. While this may be true, it is irrelevant.

The unarchived amendment provides for the filling of Local Council vacancies. The June 2017 repeal does not affect it. It cannot affect it, for the repeal left no lasting piece of operational law. Because of this, there is no conflict in the law itself. There simply exists a provision in the Elections Act about the filling of Local Council vacancies. With no contradiction in the actual law, the Court has no power to reconcile apparent disparities in the intentions of the legislation. Therefore, it cannot disregard the unarchived amendment, but must uphold its "single literal, commonsense meaning." As such, Article 6 of the Elections Act should read:
 

6. Vacancies of Office

(1) A special election will be held for vacancies arising within the Cabinet, if more than half of the term remains. If less than half of the term remains, or the position is vacant due to nobody running in its election, the Cabinet may appoint a replacement until the next regularly scheduled election.

(2) A special election will be held for vacancies arising within the Local Council, if more than half of the term remains. If less than half of the term remains, or the position is vacant due to nobody running in its election, the Delegate may appoint a replacement until the next regularly scheduled election.

(3) Should the office of Delegate become vacant, the next person in the line of succession will become interim Delegate until the next regularly scheduled election. If no person qualifies for the office, then a special election will be held.

Compliance with the Charter

It may be argued that Article V, Section 2 of the Charter would prohibit the Assembly from legislating the second unarchived amendment as it "is solely related to an issue local to the in-game community." However, this provision in the Charter was not passed until 25 February 2017.⁶ Therefore, the unarchived amendment, passed on 25 January 2017,⁷ is not covered by Article V, Section 2 of the Charter since the prohibitions on Assembly legislation relate solely to the enactment of a law, not to laws which have already been enacted.

Footnotes

1. The Election Act (as it was then called) was made a constitutional law by an amendment which was recognised as having passed on 28 June 2016.

2. While it is possible that not all the provisions from the unarchived amendments have "single literal, commonsense meanings;" none of them seem to be purely absurd. Should the Court find that one or more of the amendments which have been retained in the law have multiple possible meanings, it is incumbent upon the Court to find the most suitable meaning rather than using the ambiguity as justification for nullifying the provision. Therefore, the point made in this brief still stands.

3. If the Court finds it objectionable that Subsection (a) has been amended along the lines of the 2018 amendment, Subsection (a) could be included as passed by the Assembly (that is, with reference to the members of the Electoral Commission). The Chair of the Assembly could then employ their discretionary powers to alter the typographical discrepancy caused by reference to the old Electoral Commission system.

4. See Article III of the Election Act as it was in 2016.

5. The Chair of the Assembly may wish to use their discretionary powers to amend the wording Committee for Regional Security to the correct Council on Regional Security.

6. While the current Article V, Section 2 of the Charter was recognised as having passed the Assembly on 8 January 2017, then-Chair Omega required it to be voted on by gameside. As such, it did not pass until 25 February 2017 when it was approved by gameside (this is in accordance with Article XIII, Section 2 of the Charter).

7. The second unarchived amendment was recognised as passing the Assembly on 24 December 2016 and then subsequently passed a the gameside poll on 25 January 2017 to become law.

Former Associate Justice of the High Court of the South Pacific (4 December 2019 to 5 February 2021)

(This post was last modified: 05-24-2019, 01:00 PM by Nat.)

Reply

VALIDITY OF UNINDEXED LAWS Opinion

Document Code 1916.O

Submission 01 Apr 2019

Admission 22 May 2019

Opinion 26 Aug 2019

SUMMARY OF THE OPINION It is the opinion of the Court that laws become so automatically upon the certification of their passage, regardless of subsequent recording into the Law Archive. In consequence, the Chair of the Assembly is directed to amend the Law Archive so as to bring it into compliance with the judgement rendered in this opinion, particularly as it relates to Articles 1 and 6 of the Elections Act, whose texts have been amended by the Court to reflect votes that were not properly archived, and to solve conflicts between such votes and subsequent amendments.

CHIEF JUSTICE KRINGLE DELIVERED THE OPINION, SIGNED ALSO BY JUSTICE REBELTOPIA I ON THE PASSAGE AND ARCHIVAL OF LAWS Much can be said about the nature of the South Pacific and its community. We can be called the "party region" or the "lampshade region", and references about SPIT and lampshades can cause much joy, but we are also a democracy and a region founded on the promise of the rule of law: what is written in law applies to all, regardless of power or status, and therefore what does get written into law is important to the health of our regional democracy and to the strength of our community. Nakari rightly asked if what is written into law is always the actual law; more to the point, what happens if what was voted on is different from what ends up written in the Law Library? Which version should take precedence or, to be more exact, which version is the actual law? If we go even further, if the Assembly considers and passes an amendment on the law, but based on a version that was not properly kept up to date, should the latter vote be deemed invalid? These issues, far from being trivial details of a bureaucratic nature, affect the core business of the Assembly. Our main clue to begin to decipher this issue is Article 1, Sections 5 and 7 of the Legislative Procedure Act, which say as follows: (5) Should a debate lead to multiple competing bills or resolutions on the same matter, the Chair will separately and simultaneously bring the competing bills or resolutions to vote, in the same manner as regular business is done. The bill or resolution that receives the most votes in favor and meets minimum threshold requirements for passage will become law. (...) (7) Should any bill, resolution or amendment become law, the document itself, its debate thread, and its voting thread and results shall all be archived.1 These two sections clearly state that what becomes law is the text that is motioned, seconded and voted on. In particular, Section 7 clearly specifies that the law and its accompanying documentation should be archived, which would seem to indicate that archival is a procedure meant to ensure laws can be properly consulted, but is not a step that is necessary for a bill to become law in the first place. Nat said as much in their brief amicus curiae, stating that "the fact that the amendments in question were not correctly filed does not have any bearing on whether they are law"2 by virtue of meeting the passage requirements laid out in the Legislative Procedure Act. To the extent that a bill became law but was not properly archived and was not subsequently amended, the Chair of the Assembly should take steps to ensure the Law Archive reflects the reality of bills that were voted on and passed by legislators, lest there be confusion about what the law is and how it should or should not be amended to reflect changing circumstances. II ON THE 14 SEPTEMBER 2016 AMENDMENT TO THE ELECTIONS ACT Moving on the specific matter of the first amendment to the Elections Act, which was passed on 14 September 2016, this text altered three provisions. In order to adequately solve any possible conflicts, we will address each of these provisions individually. The first amendment modified Article 1, Section 3 of the Elections Act to prevent conflicts of interest by forbidding any member of the Election Commission from simultaneously serving as Delegate, Prime Minister, Chair of the Assembly or Minister, and allowing them to resign or, otherwise, to have a surrogate run the election in their place, in order to run for office.3 This section was subsequently amended in 2018, to replace the Election Commission with a single Election Commissioner, with the caveat that the text amended was not the one that had been passed by the 2016 amendment.4 In other words, the Assembly amended an outdated version of the Elections Act. In their brief amicus curiae, Nat suggested that both amendments, the one questioned by Nakari and the one passed in 2018, are not necessarily conflictive between each other, since the former deals with conflicts of interest and the latter merely alters the composition of the former Election Commission. To that effect, they proposed that both texts complement each other; that is, the 2016 amendment to Article 1, Section 3 should stand, but its text should be altered to reflect the reality that there is a single Election Commissioner, rather than an Election Commission with multiple members and, further, that the Chair of the Assembly is covered under the conflict of interest provisions of said section, as intended by the 2016 amendment. The Court agrees with this, and pursuant to its powers according to Article 8, Section 5 of the Charter, orders that the text of Article 1, Section 3 of the Elections Act be amended to read as follows: (3) The Commissioner may not run for office or hold the office of Delegate, Prime Minister, or Cabinet Minister, during their tenure as Commissioner. a. This does not prohibit the Commissioner from resigning to seek office via an election or finding an accepted surrogate to oversee the election in their place. This amendment also modified what was then Article 4 of the Elections Act to include within that law all provisions related to the election of the Chair of the Assembly. This article was subsequently amended in 2017. It would appear that the 2017 amendment was proposed, discussed and passed under the assumption that there were no standing provisions for the election of the Chair, as Farengeto said at the time: "we've been having recurring trouble with a lack of CoA Election procedures since the [2016] Great Council"5. This discussion led to the passage of the 2017 amendment, which differs from the Article 4 amendment in that the 2017 amendment specifically provided for election through Approval Voting, and did away with the notion of holding elections on predefined months, opting instead for holding them at whichever point in time coincided with the end of the full term of the Chair. In their brief amicus curiae, Nat argued that upholding the later amendment should be the preferred outcome, since it would satisfy the intent of properly legislating the election of the Chair and, in addition, because keeping the 2017 amendment would lead to the least amount of disruption. The Court would tend to agree, and therefore, pursuant to its powers according to Article 8, Section 5 of the Charter, orders that those provisions within the Elections Act which relate to the election of the Chair of the Assembly should remain as they currently are, without regards to any previous amendments. Last in the list of changes enacted by this first amendment was the addition of Article 7, which related to provisions on the separation of powers for certain offices. Since this amendment was never actually added to the law books, a discussion was held the following year on the lack of separation of powers provisions. Eventually, due to clarification on the part of Sandaoguo6, the Assembly was made aware of the fact that such provisions did in fact exist, but the decision was made to move forward with the discussion and update those provisions. In their brief amicus curiae, Nat argued that, since the earlier text does not necessarily contradict the latter text, the Court has no resource but to merge both. This solution is not illogical, but it is in itself a form of reconciliation that does not consider the context of the discussion and the intent of the Assembly. As has been identified in the paragraph above, the Assembly was made aware of the fact that a text was already legally binding, yet opted to proceed with the drafting and passage of a new text. The Court must therefore understand this to mean that the Assembly chose to repeal the earlier text, however implicitly that may have happened, and replace it with the new one. In addition, the Court has already considered one case with the latter text, in [1904] Separation of Powers, which means that there is already precedent that relies on the current text. With those circumstances in mind, and in order to avoid whatever disruption to current practice there may be, the Court orders that Article 7 of the Elections Act should prevail over earlier iterations, unless and until such a time that it is further amended by the Assembly. III ON THE 24 DECEMBER 2016 AMENDMENT TO THE ELECTIONS ACT A second amendment whose validity is being questioned is the addition of a section to Article 6 (then Article 5) of the Elections Act, which read as follows: (2) A special election will be held for vacancies arising within the Local Council, if more than half of the term remains. If less than half of the term remains, or the position is vacant due to nobody running in its election, the Delegate may appoint a replacement until the next regularly scheduled election.7 This amendment was not added to the text of the Elections Act upon passage, and therefore was ignored when the Assembly repealed all provisions regarding the election of the Local Council8. Since it has already been established in a previous section of this opinion that, regardless of archival, the amendment was indeed law, the question is then if the subsequent repeal in any way affected the validity of this amendment. Nat suggests that it does not, and the Court would tend to agree. While there was an intent to repeal certain election provisions, this particular amendment was not repealed, and the Court cannot presume to repeal law that was neither explicitly repealed nor superseded by a later text. Absent a clear mandate to disregard this amendment, and in view of the judgement rendered in the first section of this opinion, it is ordered that Article 6 of the Elections Act read as follows: (1) A special election will be held for vacancies arising within the Cabinet, if more than half of the term remains. If less than half of the term remains, or the position is vacant due to nobody running in its election, the Cabinet may appoint a replacement until the next regularly scheduled election. (2) A special election will be held for vacancies arising within the Local Council, if more than half of the term remains. If less than half of the term remains, or the position is vacant due to nobody running in its election, the Delegate may appoint a replacement until the next regularly scheduled election. (3) Should the office of Delegate become vacant, the next person in the line of succession will become interim Delegate until the next regularly scheduled election. If no person qualifies for the office, then a special election will be held. IV ON THE ENFORCEMENT OF THIS OPINION Pursuant to the judgement rendered in the first section of this opinion on the duties of the Chair of the Assembly regarding the adequate maintenance of the Law Archive, and pursuant to the opinion delivered in the second and third sections of this opinion, the Chair is hereby directed to enact any and all changes to the Law Archive in general, and to the Elections Act in particular, to bring it into compliance with the provisions of this opinion.

CITATIONS 1. Legislative Procedure Act (Article 1, Sections 5 and 7). 2. Brief Amicus Curiae 1916.BAC.01 (Nat, 24 May 2019). 3. Amendment to the Elections Act (14 September 2016). 4. Amendment to Articles 1 and 2 of the Elections Act (29 November 2018). 5. CoA Election Proposal (Farengeto, 11 September 2017). 6. Separation of Powers (Sandaoguo, 02 February 2017). 7. PHASE 1: Amendment to the Elections Act (24 December 2016). 8. Repeal of Article 5 of the Election's Act (12 June 2017).

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

(This post was last modified: 08-26-2019, 02:27 PM by Kris Kringle.)

Reply

ENFORCEMENT OF THIS OPINION 28 August 2019 Your Honours, Please be advised that pursuant to this order, the changes have been enacted. Amerion, Chair of the Assembly

Reply