Europeian High Court reaches Historic Decision
EBC Update
Written by JayDee
(September 1st, 2017) Following an application for Judicial Review, the Europeian High Court heard its very first court case for the actions of a Discord officer. This Judicial Review was filed by former citizen Constie in light of a two-month Discord ban; Constie filed the case with the belief that the discord moderators had breached the “Standard Punishment Escalation” as posted by former President Calvin Coolidge.
In his application for Judicial Review, Constie made his case for Review, “I was banned from the Europeian discord [for Nazi imagery and posting of expression associated with Nazism]...I never received a private warning for this, and furthermore, the punishment was not in line with the guides to standard punishment.” Chief Justice Onderkelkia was quick to accept the application, appointing his Primus Inter Pares, Skizzy Grey, as presiding Justice.
Constie’s scheme would also take hold in the Senate, where Speaker Drecq proposed the first amendment to the Communications Platform Administration Act (2017). “The Judicature Act foresees applications to be restricted to Citizens...The CPAA, however, speaks only of persons impacted by mod actions. I think it may make sense to restrict access to our Court system for people who use discord but are not Citizens of Europeia.” After his statement, Drecq officially proposed the Moderator Action Review Amendment (2017) which aimed to restrict access to Europeia’s court for discord matters to citizens and official diplomats. The amendment was well received by Senators such as Festavo, who believed noncitizens should have no rights whatsoever. However, multiple other Senators came to the defense of noncitizens, believing they should have equal access to Europeia’s Court in matters related to discord. The debate soon headed into a lengthy argument in the Senate discussion subforum; a back and forth between Drecq and Rand soon formed. Rand, believing noncitizens should have right to appeal moderator decisions, argued against the amendment while Drecq vehemently opposed the idea of noncitizens having the right to appeal a decision to Judicial Review.
In the Judicial Review thread itself, President Cat, the alleged defendant, appointed Drecq as her defendant. Constie was unable to find a suitable counsel and thus chose to represent himself in the case. The hearing started out as expected, with Constie disputing the facts that his posts were a deliberate association with Nazism. The dispute, however, was overruled by Skizzy Grey, who maintained that an image similar to Nazism is, indeed, an association to Nazism. Following Skizzy’s rejectment of Constie’s dispute, Court order soon got out of hand as Constie and Drecq descended into petty squabbles amongst each other. Following Constie’s refusal to adhere to the court order, Drecq was quick to step in and rebuke Constie, accusing Constie of attempting to derail the topic, “Your Honour, could we have some order here? If I behaved as Constie does and jumped in at every post this process would very quickly derail.”
Following the squabble, Skizzy Grey released his statement on the hearing. In his decision, Skizzy ruled that the Europeian High Court was powerless to demand any action be taken because more than one potential action existed. “I, therefore, conclude that granting the remedy sought by Constie would represent an unacceptable usurpation by this Court of a prerogative that the Senate has chosen to vest exclusively in the Executive Branch.”
In light of Skizzy’s judgment, debate continues on the amendment to the Communications Platform Administration Amendment.
