High Court of the South Pacific
I respectfully submit this case for the consideration of the High Court and in doing so state that the information contained within it is true to the best of my knowledge, and I further make myself available to answer any questions that the Court may have.
Reference Name
Retention Votes for Administrators
Request
Are members of the Administration Team “officials whose appointment is subject to Assembly confirmation” within the meaning of Charter IV(4)?
Description
Article IV, Section 4 of the Charter establishes annual retention votes for “[a]ll officials whose appointment is subject to Assembly confirmation.”[1] Members of the Administration Team, as established by Article XII, are appointed by that team itself, but “must be approved by a majority of the Assembly before being granted administrator permissions.”[2] On its face, it may appear that administrators are, by the plain language of the Charter, appointees whose appointments are subject to Assembly confirmation.
But that interpretation would mean the Charter contradicts itself. In Article XII, Section 2, the Charter makes clear that the Administration Team is “responsible for the … removal of its own members,” and provides only a single exception, for “a guilty verdict in a fair trial for abuse of administrative powers.”[3] It provides no exception for failing to garner sufficient support in a retention vote, and nothing in the text suggests that the phrasing “except for” is meant to convey anything other than an exclusive exception. Including administrators in retention votes would flatly contradict this provision.
Thus, I come before the Court to ask for a clarification on the meaning of Article IV, Section 4. Does it really include administrators? If so, does that create a contradiction with Article XII, Section 2? How should that contradiction be reconciled?
There are other potential arguments and counterarguments, but as an initial submission—and at risk of putting the cart before the horse—I will focus on one that can hopefully illuminate one area of justiciable ambiguity in the law.
What does Article IV, Section 4 mean when it refers to “officials”? It is not immediately clear whether administrators are officials. Where the Charter refers to ‘officials,’ it variously refers to “government official[s],”[4] “duly elected officials,”[5] and “official[s] of the Coalition.”[6] Nowhere does it refer to any out-of-character position as an ‘official.’ In fact, it refers to “official[s] of the Coalition” in Article XI, establishing a recall mechanism, while the Administration Team is not even defined until the following Article XII. That reflects a logical structure in the Charter vis-à-vis officials of the Coalition, where it first defines various official positions and their responsibilities and then describes how those officials may be removed from office. That structure does not include administrators.
Instead, the common meaning of an official refers to governmental authority, which the Administration Team does not wield. The Charter describes various government officials as exercising power on behalf of, or otherwise deriving their authority from, the Coalition—an in-character entity. This is true even of appointed officials. The Council on Regional Security is “a central authority for protecting the Coalition’s security.”[7] The Admiralty helps lead “the official military forces of the Coalition.”[8] And the Court itself wields “exclusive judicial authority in the Coalition.”[9] By contrast, Article XII—the article of the Charter that concerns the Administration Team—does not refer once to the Coalition.[10] That is logical: the Administration Team is an out-of-character entity, while the Coalition is an in-character government.
Indeed, this submission as a whole may raise the specter of piercing that divide between in-character and out-of-character matters. But we can respect that divide within our in-character world without breaking character because of the rightful deference within our laws to the out-of-character Administration Team. I ask the Court to maintain that divide.
It would be irresponsible to take the alternative approach, of letting a more expansive—and incorrect—reading of Article IV, Section 4 lie dormant. We maintain the in-character and out-of-character divide through our vigilance, not complacence, when it feels not natural, so that when it does not—when our political divisions are at their sharpest, and pose the greatest threat of piercing that divide into out-of-character matters—a dormant interpretation cannot be weaponized. The alternative leaves a plausible, but incorrect, reading of the law on the table like Chekhov’s gun, waiting to be weaponized in a time of greater political disharmony where the paramount independence of our out-of-character administrators is most threatened.
For these reasons, I humbly request that the Court make clear whether or not Article IV, Section 4 of the Charter applies to members of the Administration Team, and hold that it does not.