Welcome Guest
[Log In]
[Register]
- Lazarus
- →
- Archives
- →
- Archives
- →
- General Archives
- →
- Celestial Union Archives
- →
- Court Archive
- →
- Request for Review
| Welcome to the forums of the Undead Dominion of Lazarus. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features |
| Request for Review; Constitutionality of Pre-Constitutional Treaties | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 13 2015, 08:31 AM (558 Views) | |
| Cormac | Jul 13 2015, 08:31 AM Post #1 |
Lazarene
|
Honorable Judges of the Grand Court: I am petitioning the Court for a constitutionality review of treaties carried over from the People's Republic of Lazarus. Article III, 3 of the Constitution specifies that "[t]he Grand Assembly may ratify or repeal treaties with foreign powers negotiated by the executive by a simple majority vote, unless the treaty specifies its method of termination." In the case of the FRA Charter, as well as all other treaties excepting the Bethany Accords and the Lazarus-Osiris Non-Aggression Pact, the Assembly has not ratified these treaties. They were instead continued from the People's Republic of Lazarus, ratified by the elected, representative People's Congress established by Mandate 8. The Constitution makes no provision for the continuation of treaties from the People's Republic of Lazarus, and in fact no mention of the PRL, previous laws, previous treaties, or previous governments at all. My questions for review are therefore as follows: 1. Is it constitutional for treaties to be carried over from the People's Republic of Lazarus without a ratification vote in the Assembly? 2. Are the treaties listed as "active treaties" that have not been subject to a ratification vote in the Assembly currently in force? I thank the Grand Court for its time. Edited by Cormac, Jul 13 2015, 08:33 AM.
|
 |
 
|
| Funkadelia | Jul 13 2015, 08:45 AM Post #2 |
 
|
Your honors, I request that the court deny this petition. All of the pre existing treaties that were carried over (with the exception of the Wintreath treaty, which was nullified due to the wording of "The People's Republic of Lazarus," already provided for a change in legal government. The wording in the treaties perfectly allows for governmental change to happen without affecting the status of the treaties themselves. Previous treaties from other Lazarus governments have carried over through Constitutions and have had no issue, despite having a similar wording on the ratification of treaties due to the fact that the treaties were worded in the manner that they are. |
|
|
|
| Cormac | Jul 13 2015, 09:34 AM Post #3 |
|
Lazarene
|
Your Honors: I submit that the Delegate's arguments are incorrect in at least three ways: First, precedents established by prior Lazarene governments should be inadmissible here. Such precedents were established under prior constitutions (Mandates 1-8), which radically differ from the current Constitution, and which are not even referenced by the current Constitution. It is significantly contrary to the spirit of this Constitution, whatever the precedents of previous Mandates, to simply adopt treaties that were ratified by elected, representative legislatures, instead of submitting them for ratification by our directly democratic Assembly as required by the Constitution. We would, in effect, be automatically adopting treaties that were ratified by a tiny number of people, some of whom are now considered traitors to Lazarus. That does not make legal sense, nevermind political sense. It would be giant steps backward from the progress Lazarus has made with the enactment of this Constitution. Second, whatever the treaties in question may mandate, the Constitution is unambiguously clear that treaties must be ratified by the Assembly and makes no provision at all for the continuation of treaties ratified by prior Lazarene governments. Insofar as Article V, 5 empowers the Court to "determine the constitutionality of laws, treaties, and government policies," it is clear that treaties are superseded by the Constitution, which is the supreme law of Lazarus to which all laws, treaties, and government policies must conform. As the Constitution provides only one way for treaties to be enacted -- through ratification by the Assembly -- it is clear that any treaty previously enacted in any other way is unconstitutional, rendering pre-constitutional treaties unconstitutional unless and until they are ratified by the Assembly. Third, the government established by this Constitution cannot possibly be considered the legal successor to the People's Republic of Lazarus, for the following reasons:
To summarize my arguments for the Court:
Edited by Cormac, Jul 13 2015, 09:42 AM.
|
|
|
|
| Myroria | Jul 13 2015, 02:42 PM Post #4 |
Revolutionary
|
snip
Edited by Myroria, Jul 13 2015, 02:43 PM.
|
|
|
|
| Belschaft | Jul 13 2015, 10:40 PM Post #5 |
Supreme Executive Chief Justice for Life
|
I'll have a read of all this tomorrow. |
|
|
|
| Kazmr | Jul 14 2015, 07:04 PM Post #6 |
Lazarene
|
Your honors, If permitted by the court, I would like to make the following arguments in favor of keeping the treaties as is. The individual who requested that this issue be looked into has made several arguments:
Regarding the first of these issues listed above, much of the claim is patently false. The claim was made that previous governments are not mentioned in the Constitution, but I would like to call attention to the Preamble as it is currently written:
By stating that the document is being ratified by the nations of the former PRL, the drafters of the Constitution clearly intended to establish the current Constitution as a new mandate, a successor to the previous 8 in the region, rather than some clean break from the past. On the issue of whether articles in the PRL constitution prevent this from being a possibility, I would like to call it a legal absurdity. By that logic, the People's Republic of Lazarus still exists since it is impossible to repeal, despite the fact that there is no one in it. I would advocate that the court recognize the reality that the PRL was a government whose jurisdiction encompassed this forum and the region of Lazarus, just as the current government was, and it was through the nearly unanimous action of the citizens of the PRL that that regime was ended and its responsibilities passed on to this new regime. In fact, if we do not recognize that this government is the successor to the PRL, we run into a major issue with the legal code currently being drafted by the court itself. We have all considered it possible to prosecute individuals for crimes committed under the PRL as long as there is a current law that is the equivalent, but if we suddenly do not consider the PRL to be the legal predecessor to our current government, that principle is undermined. This argument in fact also ties in with the second point raised, that there is no mechanism for carrying over treaties. I would argue that if we have already recognized that the prosecution of crimes are not affected by ex-post-facto restrictions if there is an equivalent law, then treaties would likewise not need to be re-ratified if they apply to the region itself, as the current treaties in question do. As for the spirit of the constitution, my short rebuttal follows off of the same argument. Present in both our current Mandate 9 and the Constitution of the PRL is a method for ratifying treaties. These methods, while different in practice, are equivalent to each other in so much as they accomplish the goal of ratification of treaties with foreign powers. I would also like to call attention to the treaties themselves, all of which explicitly mention that they have been established with 'Lazarus' rather than a specific iteration of its government. One of these treaties, in fact, has been in effect since at least 2011 as evidenced by The Rejected Realms forum, and thus has stood through several mandates because it is explicitly with the region, and not with an abstract government somehow separate from the region, as one might find in the highly unorthodox West Pacific. Given all of this, I strongly encourage the court not to consider the treaties with The Rejected Realms and The South Pacific, the FRA Charter, and The XYZ Treaty invalid. Thank you for your consideration |
|
|
|
| Guy | Jul 15 2015, 12:24 AM Post #7 |
Lazarene
|
Your honours, Due to time constraints, I will keep my submissions brief. Ultimately, this is a question of what the Constitution is, and what it means. On its face, it is clear that this current state was intended to succeed the PRL, and assume its treaty obligations. Nothing in the text of the Constitution, debates, the context it was created in, or subsequent actions that suggests otherwise. There is no great policy issue with this. As a sovereign body, the legislature is free to withdraw from treaty obligations at any point. If Lazarenes find these treaties unsatisfactory, they may avail themselves of their ability to do so. Petitioner's suggestions to the contrary are unpersuasive. First, petitioner references that Mandate 8 was revoked through means that appear to contravene it. This goes to difficult questions of the effectiveness of entrenchment and where sovereignty truly lies, of which the Court may or may not be aware. I would simply submit that the supersedure of the very document setting up the succeeded state is not any indication that the intent is not to succeed it. Second, petitioner makes a textual argument, stating that the Constitution requires treaties to be ratified by the Assembly. This clearly only applies to how future treaties are to be ratified. If the Constitution was amended to require John McCain to provide his personal assent to treaties, absent a clear indication otherwise, this wouldn't render ineffective the ratification of prior treaties. It is true that treaties ratified prior to the current Constitution are not explicitly 'saved' by it, which is a somewhat common mechanism. This does not mean that the otherwise clear intent of the Constitution should be ignored. To the contrary, in any successor state situation, the presumption is that the new government takes on the treaty obligations. Petitioner has failed to make any convincing argument why this should not be the case here, and therefore the Court should answer petitioner's questions simply to the effect that all referenced treaties are currently in force. |
|
|
|
| Cormac | Jul 16 2015, 11:11 PM Post #8 |
|
Lazarene
|
It's only been three days, so it's not like I'm expecting this to be resolved by now, but I was just wondering if the Court has any timetable for this or if the request for review has even been accepted. Thank you.
Edited by Cormac, Jul 16 2015, 11:12 PM.
|
|
|
|
| Belschaft | Jul 16 2015, 11:18 PM Post #9 |
|
Supreme Executive Chief Justice for Life
|
Me and Pow have been discussing it, and there is currently a rough first draft in existence. We don't actually have a Chief Justice at present, so technically no one is in place to formally accept reviews. |
|
|
|
| Cormac | Jul 16 2015, 11:58 PM Post #10 |
|
Lazarene
|
All right, thank you! |
|
|
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
|
|
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · Court Archive · Next Topic » |
| Track Topic · E-mail Topic |
 11:31 PM Jul 10
|
Theme by Sith - Recolored by Seth of Outline