[ADVISORY QUESTION] On Appealing Banishment

Honorable Arbiters, the Will of our Confederacy,

Section V of the RMB RA has the following:

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5.1- Any nation who is caught committing Spam, Harassment, or Advertising a Foreign Entity shall be considered to be committing a summary offence and may face message suppression, ejection, and/or indefinite banishment from the East Pacific, at discretion of the Delegate or Regional Officers.
5.3- All Citizens have the right to appeal to the Conclave on any punishments and/or actions taken against them.

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From this, and related text to 5.3 in other law, I have the following questions:

  1. For appealing banishment for OOC reasons, especially from RMB RA, how does one move for appeal?

  2. What permits safe passage to this subforum of any banished member (including for IC reasons) to move for appeal? To ask this question in the form of an example, is it proper procedure to suggest a player, who was handed a summary offense or criminal verdict and subsequently banished from all of TEP, register on the forums and make a post here to appeal?

EDIT Dec. 15 01:15 GMT/UTC: Question 1 is worded fundamentally incorrectly. The Arbiters correctly address each part of the question as written. Indeed, RMB RA is an IC Law.

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  1. For appealing banishment for OOC reasons, especially from RMB RA, how does one move for appeal?

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I believe OOC bans are the jurisdiction of the admin team. Therefore, I believe one would have to ask the admins for a reconsideration.

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  1. What permits safe passage to this subforum of any banished member (including for IC reasons) to move for appeal? To ask this question in the form of an example, is it proper procedure to suggest a player, who was handed a summary offense or criminal verdict and subsequently banished from all of TEP, register on the forums and make a post here to appeal?

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The Concordat states:

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Each Citizen shall be given a swift and impartial trial by the Conclave if an indictment is made against them. Additionally, any Citizen may appeal to the Conclave via trial on any government action taken against them. Citizens may not be banned or ejected for any reason not stated in law or this Concordat.

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I draw attention to the bolded parts. It states that Citizens have the right of an appeal. It does not state that non-Citizens have appeal rights. My understanding is that one who is banned would no longer be a Citizen and would not have any appeal rights.

Nevertheless, the Conclave grants rights to an appeal through Article 4, Section 2.4.2 of the SOC:

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A request for an appeal must be presented to Conclave in the form of an application by any party in that suit, the Delegate, or any Arbiter.

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The Conclave grants appeal rights but this doesn’t bind the Delegate as the SOC regulates the Conclave’s own functions. The Delegate may make it impossible for an appeal to reach the Conclave without violating the law per my understanding.

I may be wrong. These were the thoughts that made sense to me. Several other thoughts swirl in my mind.

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  1. For appealing banishment for OOC reasons, especially from RMB RA, how does one move for appeal?

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In my opinion, bans done using the RMB Act are IC actions.  It’s an IC law that is applied to a situation that happens gameside.  IC Bans are all subject to an appeal through the Conclave. (more thoughts on this later)

Any OOC Bans done by TEP Admin/TEP Staff are all subject to the OOC TEP Admin/TEP Staff appeal process. Those bans do not go through the Conclave as they are not IC. (the clear OOC and IC divide.) This is assuming that somehow the TEP Admin/Staff do not defer to the Conclave for a decision (which I doubt would ever actually happen, but hey, future proofing!)

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  1. What permits safe passage to this subforum of any banished member (including for IC reasons) to move for appeal? To ask this question in the form of an example, is it proper procedure to suggest a player, who was handed a summary offense or criminal verdict and subsequently banished from all of TEP, register on the forums and make a post here to appeal?

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Now this is a little more complicated, especially with the whole Residents are now Citizens thing.  An IC Ban would still be permitted to submit their appeals through the proper channels (emphasis mine and will be explained later).  An OOC ban would not be going through the forum, and again, is a separate process with a whole separate team that would be handling such bans. For the sake of this AQ, I will only address IC Bans/bans that go through the Conclave.

The ability to appeal is contingent on the user signing up for a Forum account and access the sub-forum for Court. Assuming we had a masking permission for it, their account would only be allowed access to this specific subforum(the sub-forum used for Trial) for the purposes of a trial and then I believe depending on the verdict, they would either have their perms to post revoked, or allowed greater access (again, depending on the verdict and the punishment to go along with it.)

Now, onto a more controversial opinion and topic, assuming an individual was that extremely opposed to creating a forum account, but submitted their request for an appeal through the Delegate or through a member of the Conclave, it is of my legal opinion that we have a legal obligation to accommodate such a situation.  What I am saying - and I personally dislike the idea of this - is that we may be needing to look in to a way to process appeals on-site/gameside in the event of extreme oppositon to creating an account for thsi forum.

“Appeals are sent to Conclave.” As an RO, I direct people specifically to the Viceroy. I suppose I assumed that contacting a Viceroy and requesting appeal is how it’s presented. Before we get back to this, let’s address the sections Nociav brought up.

“Additionally, any Citizen may appeal to the Conclave via trial on any government action taken against them.”

This, I interpret as separate from the right to appeal RMBRA bans, which is secured by statutory law, and not explicitly denied by the Concordat. The Concordat does say that citizens can appeal action against them, but it doesn’t have anything I can see that prevents laws from saying “Former citizens can appeal their bans, too”.

As such, I do not believe this section is inherently relevant. Sure, the Concordat doesn’t say that non-citizens have the right, but it doesn’t say they can’t be granted it outside of the Concordat. This is where statutory law comes in - The RMBRA, specifically, which does extend this right.

“A request for an appeal must be presented to Conclave in the form of an application by any party in that suit, the Delegate, or any Arbiter.”

Presented to Conclave does not inherently mean “Presented in the Conclave forum.” Of course, this does make the most sense, because this is where Judicial Review and Advisory Questions are presented, HOWEVER, the SOC specifically covers this - “2.1.2- Upon receipt of request, the Viceroy shall initiate public and private threads which outline the bill in its entirety, along with the end-date for the deliberation of the law.“ for Judicial Review and “This must be done in an approved manner, if specified.” for Advisory Questions.

Trials are also in forum threads because of the SOC - 2.3.3, specifically, for those interested. As appeals are not covered in the SOC, these don’t apply to them.

On top of that, one can see in 2.3.2 that the SOC does have precedent for using other forms of communication to do conduct Conclave business: “The Viceroy shall at this point notify the parties involved via telegram, forum message, or other applicable communications with the dates as well as posting it in the public thread.”

Why is any of this relevant? It does two things. (1) Proves that forums are not the official medium for all things Conclave, and thus appeals don’t need to be on forums, and (2) provides precedent for official Conclave communication outside the forums.

Based on these discoveries, I can safely say that contacting Conclave - especially through the Viceroy - is how appeals are made, and thus the medium used - forum, discord, telegrams, twitter DMs - does not matter. This brings me back to my original assumption as RO that directing banned individuals to the Viceroy is the way to do it. I would say this method is as official as making a thread in the Conclave forum, and is even better in that it means I don’t have to answer your second question - because they don’t have to do it here.

I may have missed a clause somewhere that undoes everything I’ve said, so if so please point it out.

P.S. As for OOC bans being brought up with Admin, I agree only if those bans are ordered by admin. For bans through the RMBRA, Conclave does handle that. It is an IC law and violations are thus inherently IC and addressed by the relevant IC body. Since the RMBRA doesn’t refer to the Article G admins, they aren’t involved with RMBRA bans. If someone violated the RMBRA and Admins ordered their ban based on it, yes that would be Admin, but without Admin order, the ban isn’t OOC. I agree completely with Comrade Padoru Bear on this. (Good luck to future historians with this.)

I concur with Shadow that we really do not want to compromise the record-keeping and formal process of the forum trial/hearing, but we must still accommodate those who cannot personally appear. For determining how to handle this, I look to the Standing Orders of the Conclave § 2.3, which defines civil trials as “official challenges to government legislation or action by a citizen”. This includes within its scope the actions which Citizens may appeal by Concordate Article F.1. While we commonly think of the Conclave trial process as exclusive to criminal trials, it is equipped to handle civil cases as well. As a result, an individual who may not appear on the forum is still entitled to trial and, importantly, representation. An attorney representing them in their suit may be entrusted with communicating their statements to the presiding Arbiter and the Conclave at large.

Thus, we need only determine how Citizens, especially those banned from The East Pacific, may file civil suit in the first place. We do not seem to have a formalized process for Citizens to submit an appeal against government action beyond that laid out in the Concordat. Among the Conclave’s Applications for Conclave Action - The East Pacific - Tapatalk is an application to file a civil suit, but this only serves the needs of someone filing against a law. The Conclave has yet to provide a clear application by which to file suit against a government action such as banishment. It also does not present a clear explanation on how to reach Conclave to file suit except by posting an application on the forum.

EDIT: With regard to the question of whether banished individuals retain the right to appeal government action, it is The East Pacific - Tapatalk - Login that “any citizen accused of a crime should not fear that they lose their right to trial or to dispute their charges should they leave the region.” In other words, Citizens banished from the region enjoy the right to appeal that punishment as a Citizen.

I appear to have made a mistake. I categorized banishment from RMB RA as OOC banishment in error. This is indeed an IC action, correct.Thank you Shadow and Aiv for providing additional information to account for my error. You are right that admin’s actions create an OOC banishment, unlike an IC banishment that RMB RA would prompt.

So I understand the best vehicle, as an RO, is to direct the former citizen to the Viceroy. This sounds sufficient. If there are no responses in dissent to Aiv’s opinion, I will proceed with this interpretation and direct potentially a few “unique and different people who are unjustly banned citizens” (pray this doesn’t bite me or my ROs later) to the Viceroy.

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So I understand the best vehicle, as an RO, is to direct the former citizen to the Viceroy. This sounds sufficient. If there are no responses in dissent to Aiv’s opinion, I will proceed with this interpretation and direct potentially a few “unique and different people who are unjustly banned citizens” (pray this doesn’t bite me or my ROs later) to the Viceroy.

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Any Arbiter will likely do, but the office of Viceroy will have to process it anyway to get the pre-trial rolling. What is absent from our procedures is any explicit instruction on how to deliver a motion for suit except by the methods provided in the application thread.

I did not notice the “or action” in that definition, but other than the definition, but, the only other mentions of civil trials in the SOC are the following:

1.1.i: “Hold and preside over trials for criminal activity or civil disputes,”

This just says Conclave does it. Thoroughly unhelpful.

2.1.1: “Judicial Review of a Law shall take place following its passing, its request by the Delegate, a Magisterial Vote, a Vizier Vote, a citizen with a confirmation vote by the Conclave, or a constitutional challenge by a citizen in a civil trial”

This is legislative, unrelated to the other type of civil trial.

2.2.2.a: “While not forming precedence, a prominent informal advisory opinion may be used as a justification for bringing civil suit or filing an appeal.”

Both civil suit and appeal in this case refer to legislative civil trials.

HOWEVER, if a ban appeal is considered a civil trial under this definition, then it is considered a trial in general. Thus, trial procedures, which are outlined quite thoroughly in the SOC, should apply.

This means that the aforementioned 2.3.2 not only provides precedence for communicating with Conclave outside of the forums, it flat out applies. Fun coincidence.

“2.3.2- Once a motion for suit has been made, the Viceroy is shall schedule a pre-trial date and a full trial starting date as soon as possible. The Viceroy shall at this point notify the parties involved via telegram, forum message, or other applicable communications with the dates as well as posting it in the public thread.”

Since “how to make motions” isn’t a thing covered by SOC, however, I believe my previous interpretation applies.

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This, I interpret as separate from the right to appeal RMBRA bans, which is secured by statutory law, and not explicitly denied by the Concordat. The Concordat does say that citizens can appeal action against them, but it doesn’t have anything I can see that prevents laws from saying “Former citizens can appeal their bans, too”.

As such, I do not believe this section is inherently relevant. Sure, the Concordat doesn’t say that non-citizens have the right, but it doesn’t say they can’t be granted it outside of the Concordat. This is where statutory law comes in - The RMBRA, specifically, which does extend this right.

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Following Wallenburg’s edit, this part of my original response is redundant. Although technically it’s true, considering precedent says it in a much more direct manner, it is not necessary for the final result.

I renege my old opinion. Wallenburg has it right. A tried and guilty person has the right to appeal.

In addendum to my Opinion, I would like to add that the Conclave-at-Large may want to review it’s procedures on how to conduct Trials and - by extension - establish a formal process on how Appeals may be made.

I agree with Wall here that it is not necessary to be directed to the Viceroy (as to my knowledge, we all sit as equals on the Bench) and that any singular Arbiter can be directed for an appeal to be made, I do think going to the Viceroy just starts the process faster.

Anyways, side tangent aside, I believe the Conclave-at-Large should make a formal process for Appeals.