In re 9th Parliamentary Election 2021 SDSC 3
In re 9th Parliamentary Election 2021 SDSC 3
| Date of judgment | 17th March 2021 |
|---|---|
| Justices | Chief Justice Ivy Cactus Justice Syndicality Justice Fermiboson |
| Held | The state did not meet the Clear and Convincing standard, and the votes were not fraudulent. |
| Ruling | 3-0 |
| Applicable precedent | The respondent is allowed to agree with the petitioner, 7 Votes must be removed using an official vote between qualified parties, 20 The Supreme Court may act on its own to remove votes, even if the executive fails to follow proper procedures to do so, 21 It is a conflict of interest for candidates to participate in vote removal discussion, 22 The Supreme Court doesn’t have the authority to determine if someone was acting corruptly, 23 A simple pattern of votes is not enough to provide clear and convincing evidence of voter fraud, 24 |
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MAJORITY OPINION by Justice Fermiboson
(with Chief Justice Ivy Cactus and Justice Syndicality agreeing.)
Intro
[1]. The petitioner is seeking review into the removal of 3 votes during the 9th Parliamentary Election on the grounds that the votes were not removed on a Clear and Convincing standard, and therefore their removal violated Article 20, Section 1 of the Constitution.
[2]. For the record, the Court has received and accepted three amicus briefs submitted by Katy, candidate for Parliament; Kamray, statistician and banned member of SimDemocracy; as well as Turncoat, Electoral Commissioner.
[3]. For the record, the Court issued an injunction to temporarily suspend Parliament from forming until this case was properly adjudicated. This is proper to do in all cases of reviews before events, actions, or laws go into effect to avoid having to roll back what happened under them if they’re found unconstitutional.
Procedural Issues
[4]. In court, the respondent was accused of Contempt of Court because they had agreed with the petitioner and therefore gave the "bare minimum effort" required to comply with trial requirements. This was due to the fact that they viewed the petitioner’s argument as unarguably correct, and declined to argue to the contrary
4.1 This seemingly clashes with 5 of Ivy Cactus, ex parte Dickhead68 (Appellant) v State of SimDemocracy (Respondent) 2020 SDSC 9, in which the Attorney General at the time, Halfcat, was held in contempt due to a failure to argue against the Appellant.
[5]. However, the Court observes that there are many cases of the respondent agreeing with the petitioner, such as in In re Appendix s1.7 of the Constitution 2020 SDSC 3, 12; In re 38th Presidential and 38th Senatorial Elections 2020 SDSC 10, 10; and In re Article 10, s2 of the Trial and Pre-Trial Procedures Act 2020 SDSC 13, 7.1. All of these cases display the respondent partially agreeing with the petitioner, and the Court sees no reason why this could not be logically extended to full cases.
[6]. Moreover, the Supreme Court would like to note that it is not an adversarial court, but rather an inquisitorial one, as described in 16 of Nighteye (Appellant) v LordDeadlyOwl (Respondent) 2020 SDSC 5\. This means that the Court is perfectly capable of determining counter-arguments itself if there are any legally viable ones, combined with the people’s ability to file Amicus briefs there’s no reason to believe that just because the lawfully appointed respondent agrees with the petitioner, the Court wouldn’t see opposing opinions if any are viable.
6.1 There is plenty of examples of this throughout SDSC cases, such as Nighteye (Appellant) v LordDeadlyOwl (Respondent) 2020 SDSC 5, in which the defendant failed to appear to an appeal and the Court moved forward with it, and In re Trial and Pre-Trial Procedures Act 2020 SDSC 4, which indeed lacked any argumentation altogether.
[7]. There is no legal basis to force the respondent to argue against what they believe. While putting minimal effort in a court case may constitute Contempt of Court, agreeing with the petitioner does not fall under this condition, similar to how pleading guilty in criminal or civil cases does not constitute Contempt of Court.
7.1 It should be noted that in Ivy Cactus, ex parte Dickhead68 (Appellant) v State of SimDemocracy (Respondent) 2020 SDSC 9 the Acting Justice Kangawolf drew on a now-repealed section which required the Attorney General to actively participate, with the removal of this section no legal duty to do so exists as of current.
[8]. Despite this, the Court utilized the report given by the state as to why they removed votes as a response, given its hopes to sit opposite from the petitioner’s and its official paperwork on behalf of the state, it fits this void well.
[9]. The respondent also motioned for the petitioner to withdraw the arguments regarding the unconstitutionality of Article 6 of the Electoral Commission Act. The petitioner agreed to defer the arguments referring to the article’s constitutionality to a later date so that the issue can be argued without time pressure. A case addressing this was quickly added to the Court’s docket and will be pursued separately as agreed to by both parties.
[10]. Early at the beginning of the review, the petitioner asked for a subpoena into Operation Freedom chats. This was promptly accepted by the Court, and the Subpoena levied against the Minister for Justice was fulfilled quickly, these documents would be used throughout the review.
Petitioner
[11]. The petitioner's argument follows three main lines: that of the procedural errors involved, the inadequacy of the evidence provided to meet the clear and convincing standard, and the conflict of interest of the persons involved.
[12]. Using the chat logs provided by the subpoena of Operation Freedom, the ongoing operation of the Ministry for Justice in which it examines votes for Election Fraud, the petitioner showed that no vote had taken place between the Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Director of Investigation, which means that the votes weren’t legally removed as described in Sections 1
