Detail: http://zenith.homelinux.net/cotc/viewcase.php?cfj=2761 ============== Criminal Case 2761 (Interest Index = 0) =============== comex (c.) violated the power 3 Rule 101 by infringing the several rights of the collective Citizens United, when e caused them to cease to be persons. ======================================================================== Caller: c. Judge: G. Judgement: NOT GUILTY ======================================================================== History: Called by c.: 07 Feb 2010 19:03:40 GMT Defendant c. informed: 07 Feb 2010 19:03:40 GMT Assigned to G.: 08 Feb 2010 08:07:29 GMT Judged NOT GUILTY by G.: 10 Feb 2010 17:35:57 GMT ======================================================================== Caller's Arguments: To whom it may concern: I am bringing action on behalf of my clients, a 100-strong coalition whose notable members include P1, P2, P21, P43, and P67, among others, collectively referred to as "Citizens United". These entities, who cannot initiate proceedings on their own behalf due to their unfortunate state of nonexistence, brought on of late by their disbandment as partnerships, have a grievance against comex who, by causing them to lose their legal personhood, opened the door for violations of their Rule 101 rights, and, by proceeding to dissolve them, blatantly violated those rights by stripping them of their future ablity to, among other things, participate in the fora, initiate judicial cases on matters of controversy, and/or deregister. If it were possible, as has been generally suggested (without much concern for my clients' feelings, if I may say so myself), to remove their personal rights simply by redefining them as no longer persons, the rights could be effectively overriden by any proposal of power 3, or possibly, as in this case, an entity of lower power, an arrangement which affords them more of the status of regulations than of actual rights. Indeed, the term "person" (rather than, e.g., "citizen") has historically often been employed in law precisely to prevent rights from being circumvented through redefinition. It is my clients' view that the rights and basic privileges afforded to them through personhood exist and will continue to exist in perpetuity, a view only natural considering that they are entities whom, once, we saw fit to regard as equals (and I need not remind you how they have come to be oppressed, first by being declared "second-class", then by having legal ability after ability repealed; for a while now, even basic playerhood has required Agoran consent, and recently their very right to exist was challenged in a popular proposal); in light of the safeguards we saw fit to enact, in what may well be considered a more enlightened time, a time of prosperity and peace, and thoughts of expansion... in light of ... my clients believe (surely, surely you must consider this a view only natural!) that they are still People and Citizens proper, that they were never legally dissolved, and that they still have the right to play this game! ======================================================================== Judge G.'s Arguments: First, on Persons: R101/13 Rights can indeed be removed by redefining the term "person". This is true for natural persons as well. The initial ("definitional") defense against this is in R754/11(2). Just taking R101 and R754(2) into account, if a definition of "person" is inserted at a lower power than R101, the "common" definition of person (which by judicial precedent, includes certain types of contracts) would still override this, and be used to interpret R101. If a definition is inserted at the same power as R101, that's a danger, but since such an insertion could just as easily alter R101, that's a political issue. However, R2150/6 (Personhood) is power-3 and contains this definition: "A person is an entity defined as such by rules with power of at least 2." therefore delegating a definitional ability to a lower power. This is in fact a very specific security hole and a danger both for natural and secondary persons, and R101 doesn't protect against this redefinition! Second, on Contracts: When R101 came to have its current general form (August 2006), "persons" were not explicitly defined in the ruleset. Also, agreements (not yet called contracts) were included in the ruleset with limited regulation, assuming them to be "natural" things that might exist outside of Agora that could be brought into Agora by specific actions (e.g. if part of the act of agreement involved, explicitly or implicitly, agreeing that Agora was the binding authority for adjudicating disputes). Later, judicially, the fact that agreements/contracts could have a "natural" existence (as being entities that natural people naturally have the freedom and right to create) was used to find that certain kinds of agreements were naturally like persons, thus falling under the purview of R101. (This means that of contract "persons" could exist outside of Agora and later become recognized by Agora; that is no more troubling than realizing that there are 6 billion+ natural persons in the same situation). This also meant that contracts, like natural persons, could be affected by external, "natural" events. Just as natural persons could be born and could die, and exist without recognition within Agora, so could contracts. They can be created, and they can "die", with or without Agora. These natural events are not in themselves, in the words of R101, "interpretations of Agoran law" but can affect Agoran law. For example: if, god forbid, a first-class person dies, e ceases to fit the definition of person (biological questions of what constitutes living aside, Madame Xanadu does not constitute an Agoran-recognized "translation service"). R101 does not claim to govern these external events (as generally recognized by the "not guaranteeing the ability" clause of R101(i)). R101 does not gaurantee that a person who ceases being physically able to fit the definition of person continues to be a legal person. And if (god forbid) a first-class Agoran person murders another first- class Agoran person, the laws of Agora themselves don't purport to govern or punish this "natural but violent" termination (though fortunately, other jurisdictions would). Thus such an unfortunate event would not "violate" R101, as the termination is a physical fact that affects Agora after the fact, rather than being a matter of Agoran law prima facie. The same is true of contracts, especially in the original "natural" R101 sense. But what constitutes the "natural physiology" and thus the "natural death" of a contract? Quite simply, its text that brings it into existence, that including any methods of self-modification, including termination. Therefore, any termination of a contract by its natural processes (its legal text) would cause it to cease being a person without violating R101. In fact, to hold that such a termination is somehow prevented would alter the nature of the contract without the signatories' consent. While it is not necessary to decide on global precedents between R101 rights, I hold that the R101 right of natural persons to not be bound by agreements they didn't agree to, in this very limited sense, supersedes the R101 "right" of the secondary person they create (the contract) to be locked into perpetual existence against the body of its text that governs its "natural" termination. So terminating a contract according to its legal mechanisms removes its personhood, but does not violate R101. But what if the method of termination is an Agoran mechanism, not contained in the contract text? This is the case here; the contracts in question were purportedly terminated by Notary Murphy w/o Objection. When a contract (agreement) is made in a way that the parties WILLINGLY bring it under Agoran law, this is effectively making, as part of the text of the agreement, "This Contract is governed by Agoran Law". At which point, PART of the agreement becomes being bound by Agoran procedures. To say that the procedures of Agora do not work for such a contract is again to alter physiology of the contract without the consent of its parties. This means that legal mechanisms in Agora that govern an Agoran contract are part of its natural mechanisms as well. This means that changes in Agoran law are additionally changes in the terms of every Agoran contract; but since these changes (Rule changes) are also made according to a process of "informed consent" to which parties agreeing to be bound by Agora agree to pay attention to (the public fora) this does not generally result in difficulties. If a signatory of a contract complains e was not suitably informed of a change in Agora, e might have a case, though e'd have to show why the public process did not inform em. That has nothing to do with the current instance however, because the termination mechanism used was in 2173/3 when the P1-P100 were first created, and thus were part of the natural operation of P1-P100 from the beginning. This judge finds NOT GUILTY; the contracts terminated according to their agreed-to mechanisms as was the natural rights of the contracting parties to make. Outside of legality, morally and ethically this is equivalent to a decision to not turn on life-support for a naturally- dying entity; comex was in fact bowing to the the mercy of Dr. Murphy when e did not object to the termination. The Accused did NOT breach R101 via the specified act. ========================================================================