Petition for Declarative Relief - Application of 47RZ28

[Dr. Txec dal Nordselvă]

Cort will come to order.

The Cort issues the following ruling:

At issue is the interpretation of Organic Law Article XV Section 1 as it applies solely to 47RZ28. The petitioner/plaintiff has not proven to the satisfaction of the Cort that the Organic Law places any obligation upon the King to proclaim every amendment which passes the Ziu and the people, nor has the petitioner demonstrated that the King does not have the discretion to refuse any amendment as he sees fit. The Organic Law clearly and deliberately uses the word "may", not "shall" or "must" or "without refusal." Simply put the Organic Law puts no obligation on the King to proclaim the amendment, he has the discretion to do so or not to do so.

The Organic Law in Article XV Section 1 deliberately excludes the King from the amendment process right up to the final point, the proclamation, meaning the King May pass an amendment into law (passively or actively) or may refuse to do so. In this case, by excluding Royal Assent up to this point, the Organic Law empowers the King to refuse to proclaim an amendment, even if is has met all other requirements. To say at this point that the King's opinion doesn't matter, it becomes law anyway, is removing the King from the process, a concept which we hold to be incompatible with the Organic Law nor is in the spirit of the Organic Law.

Again, amendments that were "proclaimed" are not on trial here, the issue is can the King refuse to proclaim an amendment that has passed all other stages. Given the word "may" and the lack of Royal input in the process up to this point, we hold that nothing in the arguments made or in law convinces us that there is an override on Royal Assent or an obligation placed upon the King to issue such a proclamation.

The actions of the King are organically sound. The petition is dismissed in its entirety.

Concurring: Justice dal Nordselva and Justice Cjantscheir.
Dissenting: Justice Edwards.

Cort is adjourned.

[Owen Edwards]

DISSENTING OPINION:

The dissenting opinion holds that the weight of tradition is entirely with the petitioner, and tradition is, in lieu of known intention, the chief constitutional interpretive framework of any civilized society. Tradition is, as they say, a fence around the Torah - it is the unwritten but enacted law for the interpretation of the law.

The word "may", cited by the majority opinion, has been the apparent basis of the King's decision over the years not to proclaim amendments; he has understood that they become law without his proclamation. The King's own 9-year-long praxis is what renders his behaviour in this case inOrganic. The dissenting opinion sympathizes with the King's former praxis, as "may" indicates an optional action; "must" indicates a requisite, and we would expect that if Organic amendments required proclamation from the King, the language of the Organic Law would make it clear how that proclamation (and any associated veto) worked.

Equally, where the majority opinion references the "spirit" of the Organic Law as necessarily tending to offering the King a veto (as the monarch is an integral part of the constitution), this very argument seems to the dissenting opinion to tend in the opposite direction. OrgLaw III.2 clearly states that the material powers of the monarch are democratically granted, and find their font of power within the people; the majority opinion seems to think that the framers of the OrgLaw intended for the monarch to be able to entirely and permanently defy democratic power thereafter. Perhaps they did, though I find it hard to believe that Dan Laurier or Eif/Art Verbotten intended such.

Finally, the dissenting opinion also holds that the Cort's decision endangers the entire body of this nation's law over the last 9 years. The dissenting opinion holds that the King has acted Organically when he has chosen to either proclaim laws actively or permit them to pass into law actively, up until the event dealt with in this case; the majority opinion, despite its claims to the opposite, implies that the King's "passive" proclamations over the years have been inOrganic. If this is in fact the case, then many matters of legal importance - including the way the Uppermost Cort itself functions and is constituted - are deeply clouded by this Cort's decision.