Immigration Law Problems!

[Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB]

So, with our most recent prospective citizen, I started looking into immigration law and there are some serious problems. First, El. Lex. literally references a portion of the Organic Law that does not exist.

To wit: E.14. An individual whose citizenship has been terminated solely by effect of Article XVIII, Section 10 of the Organic Law may apply to the Chancery for reinstatement of citizenship by providing the contact information required by section E.2. (47RZ46)

(emphasis mine).

There is no Article XVIII Section 10. I presume this was an article under the old Organic Law but since I can neither find it nor is that section even in force, what follows in El.Lex. not only makes no sense but it is also most likely unenforceable.

I would be happy to work on a revision to this portion of the law if I had a way of seeing what was being referenced in Article XVIII. Until then, some of our immigration law is murky and as it stands, I can't act legally on this portion as Secretary of State.

Note: it also doesn't help that 47RZ46 isn't even in the Wiki so I had to dig through the database to find it.

Does anyone remember what it was that @C. M. Siervicül  was trying to fix with this law?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

This is a situation in which I am very glad that GV didn't just delete the pre-Still Into This OrgLaw, which is right here still.

As you can see, old OrgLaw XVIII:10 read:

Any citizen who neither votes in any general election nor responds to any national census established by law for a period of two years, as calculated at any Election Deadline, shall be deemed to have renounced his citizenship.

So it's the "Three Strikes", which is X.5 in the new OrgLaw.

[Adam Grigoriu]

For the record, I knew this would happen. I was explaining to some friends of mine yesterday the rich history of Talossa and how I originally came upon it, and something along the lines of "there will be a 6 month court case while my situation is sorted out", and well, here we are.

That said, while I understand that this is lo longer in force, is that not the referenced Article XVIII, §10: https://wiki.talossa.com/Law:Organic_Law#Link18.10?

By my reading, that appears to have essentially been moved to Article X, §5 per 53RZ18.

That said, my argument is that at least originally, Article X, §5 either doesn't apply or shouldn't, due to my situation at the time. It turns out that I came back very briefly before (I entirely forgot that), and my status was legally in doubt then, so...

It appears there were a few clauses that could plausibly cover this specific scenario in the 1997 Organic Law, but they were removed in 2017.

References to my posting on Proboards, for reference:

https://talossa.proboards.com/thread/4921/extremely-sad-news
https://talossa.proboards.com/thread/10889/azul-citizen
(Please excuse my grammar, punctuation, etc. I was 14 and not very smart. I still am, but I was then too.)


Also this is the most fun I've had doing legal research in a very long time.

EDIT: My legal research took too long. Drat.

[Adam Grigoriu]

Having now actually read 47RZ46 and 53RZ22 rather than assuming they didn't exist, I now understand that there is a procedure that covers this.

My new argument (am I allowed to make arguments? I forgot to ask that before making an argument before, so I shall continue doing so now) is that potentially, El Lex 15.1 doesn't apply due to the fact that my original voluntary renunciation was not actually a renunciation, nor was it voluntary. At the time, it was very much involuntary. That said, the case could be made that by coming back and then forgetting I did so, Article X, §5 does in fact apply.

[Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB]

My apologies if my original post embarrassed anyone. That was not my intent. I posted to see if anyone remembered what happened when El Lex and the OrgLaw were changed. It is my interpretation as Secretary of State that Teagan did not renounce voluntarily and was deemed to have renounced by missing 3 elections to which the king did issue a pardon when initially notified of this issue.

Unless there are objections or legal arguments raised to the contrary, it is my intention to reinstate the citizenship of Teagan Elizabeth Rehard in 24 hours time. I also intend on working with the Cosa this term to clean up this section of immigration law to reflect the 2017 OrgLaw and potentially avoid any confusion in the future.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

A couple of notes:

- I agree that it would be very helpful to have the wiki fully updated with the different bills that have passed, specifically for incidents like this. It is a big task though, since it's been years since it was done, so it's a big ask for the Scribery. I think GV is working on some big projects right now, but maybe that could be his next one, if he's got the energy.

- Because of the nature of a wiki, all past iterations of the organic law are included in each page. That's one of the best features of it... You can look back through the history of a page to see how it changed over time, and that's particularly helpful when it comes to a law. I would actually suggest that it's markedly less helpful to have the same law split into two documents, so you have to search through the histories of both to find any particular language, but it's not a big deal. Either way, losing previous versions of laws is not something we have to worry about, thankfully.

- This is a dramatically big decision for the Chancery, and it seems like it would be wise to get the A-X to weigh in and look at the potential precedent being set in terms of the definition of "voluntarily" for the purposes of the law.

[Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB]

- This is a dramatically big decision for the Chancery, and it seems like it would be wise to get the A-X to weigh in and look at the potential precedent being set in terms of the definition of "voluntarily" for the purposes of the law.

I don't think it is a dramatic decision given the law at hand. I don't see where it says the Chancery has to consult the Attorney General. It says the SoS SHALL reactivate not seek advice from the A-X. However, I did open this decision up to debate by giving it 24 hours instead of simply acting.

El.Lex E.14.1. The Secretary of State shall reactivate the citizenship of the individual upon confirming that the individual can be contacted at the same e-mail address previously on file with the Chancery, or otherwise verifying to the Secretary of State's satisfaction the identity of the applicant as a former citizen.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

You are not mandated to consult anybody, and you can do as you wish. It was just well-meant advice.

[Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB]

Thanks. I may have sounded snippy so I apologize. I did reach out to the A-X on your advice.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

No worries. Hope it works out.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

- I agree that it would be very helpful to have the wiki fully updated with the different bills that have passed, specifically for incidents like this. It is a big task though, since it's been years since it was done, so it's a big ask for the Scribery. I think GV is working on some big projects right now, but maybe that could be his next one, if he's got the energy.

Just chiming in with a bit of news. Gödafrïeu Valcádac'h yesterday submitted his resignation as Scribe of Abbavilla, while retaining his role as Royal Archivist. The Attorney-General has received a volunteer to take over the Scribery already, and an announcement should be made soon. So: wait to see who that is and then give them helpful suggestions.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

My main suggestion would be to ask the government to fund a $100 stipend to pay someone to bring everything up to date.  But they should also edit the Organic Law page to remove the phrase "and editing this to make my point again since no one's fixed this yet" from the preamble, which I added a couple of months ago when I was trying to draw attention (http://wiki.talossa.com/index.php?title=Law:2017_Organic_Law&oldid=27212) to the Lawspace issue.  Oh, and they should work with the wiki administrator to make sure that only the Scribe has access to that edit power on the wiki: currently there's a long list of ordinary citizens in the Scribe group (http://wiki.talossa.com/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=Scribes) who shouldn't be there -- obviously, since I couldn't attract attention by leaving messages and editing even the very constitution of our nation -- and the Administrator group also has the power to edit laws at will (and they shouldn't, especially since that group has also swelled in size: http://wiki.talossa.com/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=sysop).  A lot of little things, but dangerous ones if unattended for more years.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Oh, and they should work with the wiki administrator to make sure that only the Scribe has access to that edit power on the wiki: currently there's a long list of ordinary citizens in the Scribe group

You see, AD has got us coming and going. When I first got admin rights on the Wiki a month ago, I noticed that big list of people with Scribe privileges, but deliberately didn't whittle it down because it contains people who are unfavorable to the current Government and the last thing I wanted was Scandal! Power-Mad Government Removes Citizen Rights on Wiki! in the next S'chintéia or whatever. I must admit I didn't notice the vandalism when I moved the 2017 OrgLaw to the Scribespace, though. But you'd have to be a pretty pathetic waste of human material to be laughing and crowing about your ability to commit vandalism, in the first place.

Responsible officials can do nothing right when they're "gun-shy" about being mocked, humiliated and publicly jeered at by a certain member of the public for whom that is the "fun" that he likes to have in Talossa. It's generally safer not to do anything and hope he won't "get" you this week.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Seriously, the question of who has what privileges on the Wiki will have to be decided by the Minister of STUFF and whatever Wiki Administration staff he decides to appoint once the new Government officially takes office. It just remains to me to point out the deplorable bad faith required to point out how many people had scribe status when (a) AD actually gave most of those people the privileges which I just took away, and (b) he had no issue with the Wiki being a mess when the now-LCC leader was MinStuff and doing nothing with it.

It takes a very special kind of jerk to refuse to help the Scribe when the Scribe called for help - eg. over updating the Digest of Laws - but actually commiting vandalism to make the Scribe's job more difficult wasn't any problem at all. Such behaviour is positively un-Talossan, and shameful.

[Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB]

But they should also edit the Organic Law page to remove the phrase "and editing this to make my point again since no one's fixed this yet" from the preamble, which I added a couple of months ago when I was trying to draw attention

This is a dirty trick and completely counter-productive. Shame on you.