I cannot reproduce this error, but we will get it sorted.

Anyway.

The first applications have come through, and once we hit a minimum number, we'll send them off to the printer's.  It's cheaper per card to do ten at a time, so if you haven't yet done so, take the (easy) test and apply for a card!

Your Majesty King John and Squirrel Viceroy at Arms:

I speak as Dean of the Coletx.

Cauvesc Carlüs Xheraltescu has been convicted of bringing his country into disrepute.  While I can imagine that this might not always merit abatement, his disrepute was a result of his abuse of power to assault a minor.  The facts have already been rendered publicly, and judgment made both here and abroad.

The precedent in our country has not been to strip an armiger of their achievement, but instead to abate their arms.  I suggest that we abide by this precedent.  Let the arms be abated.

The achievement is currently: Per pale vert and argent a tower counterchanged in chief a mullet one point to base argent and a rose gules barbed and seeded or.


I would suggest an appropriate abatement and in keeping with tradition would be Per pale Vert and Argent a tower counterchanged in chief a mullet one point to base Argent and a rose Gules barbed and seeded Or, abated overall by an inescutcheon reversed, Sanguine.


-Dean

Whereas the Clerk of Corts thinks the current statutory procedure for keeping cort records is excessive and onerous, and not really in keeping with our needs,

THERFORE subsections 12.3.1 through 12.3.5 of Title G of el Lexhatx, which currently read

Quote12.3.1. If the Cort pü Inalt shall request the Government or Scribe to maintain official reporters, then the Cort pü Inalt must designate, in the decision, whether it shall be deemed binding, and if so, it shall be reported in an official reporter entitled "Cort pü Inalt" and abbreviated to "CPI" in citations. All decisions of the Cort pü Inalt designated nonbinding shall be reported in an official reporter entitled "Cort pü Inalt Appendix" and abbreviated to "CPIA" in citations.
12.3.2. All final determinations of the General Cort shall be published in an official reporter entitled "General Cort" and abbreviated to "GC" by the Scribe or an individual designated by the Government in the same fashion as described in G.12.1.3.1[r 13]. Non-final or interlocutory determinations that impact the rights of a party must also be reported in the GC reporter. All other determinations need not be reported in the GC reported unless so designated by the General Cort. Determinations not contained in the GC reporter shall be styled as General Cort Slip Opinions and must be made publicly available on a State-run website in consecutive order by date with an affixed number with an appropriate pin cite every 200 words, for ease of reference, that shall be listed as follows: Case Name, Year GC Slip Op NUMBER, *Pin (Full Date, Magistrate's surname, M.) (e.g. Doe v Smith, 2020 GC Slip Op 001, *1 [27 February 2020, Smith, M.]).
12.3.3. If the Scribe or the appointed Government Ministry determines any aforementioned volume becomes lengthy, a subsequent volume shall be created with the appropriate cardinal prefixed prior to the reporter.
12.3.4. The Cort pü Inalt may direct the Clerk of the Corts to normalize case captions according to rules it may set forth, which shall then be used in any reporter.
12.3.5. The Cort pü Inalt may publish an official style manual enumerating proper citations for any source, which shall be followed by all parties filing documents with any national Talossan cort.

shall be deleted from the law.

Uréu q'estadra så
Alexandreu Davinescu (MC-TNC)

Quote from: Viteu on May 16, 2023, 09:34:04 AM2. The reality is that the 1997 Organic Law required a citizen to participate in an election to avoid the two-strikes rule.  Abstention counted as participation. The referendum was tied into the election. Therefore, abstaining counted as the overall number of people participating in the referendum.

I'm not sure it's quite as clear as that.  Abstention is usually counted for things like establishing a quorum or merely indicating presence at the vote, but it's not usually counted for voting thresholds unless the vote requires a certain percentage of those "present" or the like.  The language of the OrgLaw in this instance is ambiguous to my reading: "two-thirds majority of voters participating in the referendum on the question of the amendment."

It is definitely wrong to say that abstentions always increase the denominator.  By default, abstentions are held not to affect the outcome.  This is apparent from any reading of Robert's Rules (or from watching the US House try to choose a Speaker a bit ago).  The only reason there's a question here at all is because the language of the OrgLaw describes the denominator as all voters participating in the referendum, and that's a broad concept.

Quote from: Viteu on May 16, 2023, 09:34:04 AM3. Why did I not raise the referendum sooner? Because Miestra expressly told me not to.  She said, "but leave out the issue of the referendum[.]" If she were so confident in her position, why did she tell me to leave that out?

She very plausibly says that she didn't want to argue with you.

I think "concerned" is probably the right word, Antaglha.  Gluc, maybe I came in a little hot -- I was pretty surprised by the whole thing.  But as I said from my first reaction, I thought it was suspiciously out-of-context.

Viteu, is there more here, or was this the "going nuclear"?  As I said last night, this actually looks way worse for you than it does for Miestra, no matter how it's read.  It's also a weird way to launch a new party.

Lol, the distraction thing... I almost fell for that one again!

Everyone can read the excerpt and come to their own conclusions, so I'll leave it be.  Have a good evening.

No?  I didn't say that.  I said it looks pretty damning since he said he thought it didn't pass, and you said he shouldn't mention that but should just try to fix the Covenant issue.  It sounds plausible you thought he was just wrong and wanted to move him past the issue.  It would be nice if there was more context, but if wishes were fishes, there'd be no room for water.  So I'd be inclined to believe you, given this explanation.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on May 15, 2023, 11:06:54 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on May 15, 2023, 10:58:30 PMI guess I'm very confused, then.  The screenshot V posted looks like a back-and-forth conversation from Messenger.

I just found what you're referring to. That conversation happened in January 2021, more than two years ago, and I had utterly forgotten about it. I read that as V raising a possible legalistic point, me saying "interesting if true", and telling him to pursue it if he found it interesting. Please inform me how this is a scandal on me.

Well, the last exchange has you directing Viteu to propose fixing the Covenant issue, but not to say anything about the amendment vote publicly.  It's not a huge scandal, and it's way more damning for Viteu himself, but this doesn't look great.

However, this looks like it could be really out of context.  I can easily imagine more to this conversation that completely exonerates you -- the very next words you typed might have been, "I'm sure the bill passed, so there's nothing to talk about."

But if you thought the OrgLaw didn't pass, why haven't you said anything for all of this time?  You're a judge and an officer of the cort.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on May 15, 2023, 10:56:13 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on May 15, 2023, 10:52:22 PMthe screenshot shared seems to show a pretty damning conversation where Dama Miestra and Viteu discuss the possibility and plan how to address it without stirring any scrutiny.

There was no conversation. Judge V posted that on his Facebook page, after he had already quit the Free Democrats. He had never discussed the issue with me, or anyone I have ever heard of, before. I did not reply but simply reposted it to the Free Democrats group so they knew of his current state of mind.

I'm really fed up, Alex, about how you can't read or hear of anything involving me without leaping to the conclusion that I've done something corrupt and wicked.

I guess I'm very confused, then.  The screenshot Viteu posted looks like a back-and-forth conversation from Messenger. 

He messages someone -- I thought it was you, but you're not mentioned by name, so maybe it's someone else? -- to tell them he thinks the OrgLaw amendment didn't pass.  Since it amended the Covenants, it required the higher threshold to pass, and Viteu thinks it didn't make it.  The other person disagrees with Viteu.  They discuss how it would be hard to pass a completely new OrgLaw.  Then they say that the best way to handle the situation is just to address the accidental Convenant change by itself.

It's not the worse thing in the world, but it definitely doesn't look good.  But on the other hand, you're being very forceful in your denial, so now I don't know what to think.

Incidentally, while this is a pretty dire look into the ethics of some folks, and an interesting legal question, I don't think there's any practical concern here.  Someone should just hopper something to re-affirm the OrgLaw as it stands and irrespective of other amendments, just in case.  Unless someone files a suit to overturn stuff based on this revelation, I don't think the OrgLaw's going to get overturned.

Goodness.

It goes without saying that there seems to have been some shameful behavior here.  Apparently some civic leaders thought that the Organic Law was illegally amended on a broad scale, and decided to say nothing.  It is possible that this stuff was taken out of context, but the screenshot shared seems to show a pretty damning conversation where Dama Miestra and Viteu discuss the possibility and plan how to address it without stirring any scrutiny.

Maybe there's more context here?  It's possible the very next page of the conversation has Dama Miestra saying that she's sure that everything is on the up-and-up.  I hope so.

This is all the worse because I'm genuinely unsure what the answer is, here.  Usually you don't count abstentions against a 2/3 requirement's denominator, since an abstention is treated the same as not voting (even though it functionally indicates your presence at the vote).  But that's not the case if the requirement is something like 2/3 of "all voters present" or "all members at the vote," which does count increase the denominator.  And the language here is "two-thirds majority of voters participating in the referendum on the question of the amendment."  It seems to indicate it's talking about all who voted in whatever way, but also an abstention is considered not to be participating in a vote!  And I'm not sure there's any precedent either way with this specific language.

Here is a link to the last time this onerous chore was performed.

https://talossa.proboards.com/thread/11386/convening-court-chivalry

-Dean

There is precedent for this. @Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB , I believe you are the most active senior member. Maybe it would be appropriate to follow your lead? I have located the last time we did this, years ago, if the specifics would help.

-Dean