[ADVISORY QUESTION] Citizens & Trials

The Conclave
1

Honorable Arbiters,

The Conclave [REVIEW REQUEST] Interpretation of Concordat E.1 - The East Pacific - Tapatalk on the difference between a nation and an individual. In short, a nation being a single account on NS, and an individual being the player behind the screen.

Therefore, my questions are:
Say there exists an individual with three Citizenship nations, and all three nations are extremely well-known to be owned by the same exact individual. Two of those nations follow the law to a T- best behaved nations in TEP. The third nation says a billion words on the RMB that can be considered sedition, is prosecuted in a trial following all legal procedure, and presume that the nation is banned by the Conclave for the maximum sentence of five years after a full trial is concluded.

  • Considering every Citizen nation has a right to trial, can the Conclave legally ban the two well-behaving Citizen nations alongside the third misbehaving one, since they are owned by the same individual who owns the banned nation? Assuming the two well-behaving Citizen nations were not mentioned in the trial at all.

  • What would happen in the same scenario as above, BUT all three nations were charged with the same crime, at the same time, with the same exact evidence against the third bad nation (plus additional evidence proving said individual owns all three nations)?

  • What if said individual preformed the seditious activities solely on Discord or the forums? Could any one of the Citizenship nations be charged with the crime and found guilty? Could all three be charged and found guilty at the same time? Or can the individual go scott-free? How would a trial work in that regard?

2

Each Citizen, by my reading, is entitled to their own trial, even if they are the same individual.

— Begin quote from ____

Each Citizen shall be given a swift and impartial trial by the Conclave if an indictment is made against them.

— End quote

By extension, indictments are nation-specific, and by further extension so are convictions. This was a non-issue under earlier versions of the Concordat, since each individual only had one Citizen nation, so any puppets could be removed without trial. In order to remove all puppets of a player suspected of criminal behavior, those puppets must be indicted as well.

A player found guilty of criminal charges is equally guilty regardless of which alias they use (as is rendered necessary by the frequently off-site nature of illegal activity), so all things being equal the trials of one or another puppet would have equal results to a trial of their “main” nation.

Considering every Citizen nation has a right to trial, can the Conclave legally ban the two well-behaving Citizen nations alongside the third misbehaving one, since they are owned by the same individual who owns the banned nation? Assuming the two well-behaving Citizen nations were not mentioned in the trial at all.

No, this would violate Concordat F.1.

What would happen in the same scenario as above, BUT all three nations were charged with the same crime, at the same time, with the same exact evidence against the third bad nation (plus additional evidence proving said individual owns all three nations)?

The trial of each nation would proceed identically, with identical rulings, assuming identical defenses by the accused.

What if said individual preformed the seditious activities solely on Discord or the forums? Could any one of the Citizenship nations be charged with the crime and found guilty? Could all three be charged and found guilty at the same time? Or can the individual go scott-free? How would a trial work in that regard?

If criminal activity can be tied to the individual operating a Citizen nation, criminal charges can be pursued against that Citizen nation regardless of the alias under which those activities occured.

3

I’m in total agreement with Wallenburg on all questions here.