Ruling [Question] In the context of listing one's nations on the shareholder application, to what extent does not listing some nations constitute fraud?

[thechurchofsatan]

It has recently come to light that the shareholder application asks (and I quote,) "Do you have any other nations? (Yes/No)" while section 6 subsection 1 of the Criminal Code Act states "(1) Any person who, knowingly or recklessly, falsifies a material fact in any matter regarding a citizenship application shall be guilty of fraud." Charges were very recently levied against PowerPOAK, also known as "Neq" for not listing a nation on his shareholder application that ceased to exist nearly three years ago. The possibility of a guilty verdict under these circumstances against anyone would set a dangerous judicial precedent that could be abused with impunity to get rid of countless citizens. To what extent does this question on the shareholder application apply? Can it include any nation someone has or had at any point in time? Are all citizens, potential or otherwise, required to list every nation they've ever had? Even ones that might have ceased to exist months or years ago? Even card farms or R/D puppets?

[edited to fix a syntax error]

 

[Eldarion]

Can it include any nation someone has or had at any point in time? Are all citizens, potential or otherwise, required to list every nation they've ever had?

That is partly answered on the application itself, by the descriptive text:

Listing every nation is not required, only your most recent or important ones, or ones charged with a crime in another region.

Listing every identity is not required, only your most recent or important ones, or ones charged with a crime in another region.

What is considered recent or important is up to the Granting Official (informally the immigration minister) at the time the application is posted, or the Delegate, as they give the approval on citizenship apps.

Such a category would be important for when a region is proscribed, like when it was prohibited for NPO citizens to have a citizenship account here, or if they were part of a region of ill repute such as a fascist region.

That said, we've never needed to define a specific time frame, as recent would be a citizenship currently held in most situations.

Nor have we had to really define what "important" means, and the current legal action being taken refers to The East Pacific, which could not be an insignificant region to mention, if the Granting Official considered it important, though it isn't a region of ill repute, or proscribed, either.

Whether that that omission is illegal is up to the Court to decide of course though.

 

[thechurchofsatan]

Well evidently a distinction does need to be made, because a citizenship nation in another region from nearly three years ago that ceased to exist also nearly three years ago is apparently important. Unless the delegate has suddenly considered it important enough to warrant a criminal charge, it is not in fact important enough to warrant a criminal charge.

The East Pacific may not be an insignificant region, but it was still nearly three years ago. Anybody could forget about a nation they made years ago and haven't kept from ceasing to exist. But Domais would have us be targeted for such things whether we could remember it or not. A distinction must be made.

Additionally, the shareholder application does not say one need not provide a list of all nations. The helpful guide about filling it out does, but it is a guide, not the application itself.

 

[Wymondham]

The court hereby unanimously releases the following unanimous opinion; authored by Justice Wymondham:

The essence of the question before the court is what constitutes a "material fact" when considering a charge of fraud on a citizenship application. The example provided to the court is the 4th question on the current Citizenship Application '"Do you have any other nations? (Yes/No)"'.

Fraud is commonly understood to involve intentional deception to realise a material gain. The criminal code prohibits said deception, in the cases of citizenship applications and criminal reviews. It is therefore appropriate to consider the nature of the gain an individual would obtain by committing deception around their citizenship application. Given that the purpose of a citizenship application is to achieve citizenship, it is only logical to conclude that the material gain in such a case would be obtaining citizenship in Lazarus. Therefore Fraud falling under Section 6 (1) of the criminal code can be summarised as committing intentional deception on a citizenship application in order to obtain citizenship. Said deception will therefore occur so as to either increase the likelihood of success by concealing information which would otherwise damage the likelihood of an individual's application for citizenship being successful. Thus, for fraud to occur, it must occur deliberately and serve to increase the likelihood of an application succeeding. In summary, a 'material fact' must be information which would have a material impact upon the prospects of an individual's application for citizenship.

It is important to consider the role of the court when deciding this question namely the areas in which the court must defer to the judgement of an individual far more qualified than the court. The court will not be able to determine whether, had fraud not occurred, an individual's citizenship application would likely have been rejected. Only the delegate or granting official who considered the citizenship application in question would know the answer to that question. Therefore, it is necessary for the court to seek the view of the delegate or granting official who considered the citizenship application in question; in order to determine whether the information which was concealed would have had a material impact on the likelihood of said citizenship application succeeding. That is to say that the court must ask "if you had been aware of this information, would you have accepted this citizenship application. If, in the opinion of the delegate or granting official who considered the application, the answer is no then information would have had a material impact and the court must ordinarily defer to this view and vice versa, subject to the usual standards of unreasonableness.

It is important to note that although the court ought to defer to the Delegate or Granting official regarding whether information constituted a "material fact" the court makes no determination regarding what constitutes intent, or "knowingly" concealing information for the purposes of the Criminal Code. Additionally, the court expresses no opinion on the content of any specific petitions for criminal review that have been filed or may be filed.