Request for Treaty and Voting Rules Interpretation

[Harvey Steffke]

I would like the Commonwealth Court's thoughts on the following:

First, the following line from the Small Commonwealth Ongoing recWar League Treaty:

8. This treaty may be modified by the agreement of 3/4s of signatory nations.

Many of our treaties have lines similar to this one - I chose it specifically because it was the treaty that I is a current discussion topic.

My question on this is: does the Court see this line as requiring 3/4 of ALL signatory nations in agreement for a modification to pass, or just 3/4 of the votes from signatory nations that bother to show up and vote? Or, said another way, if a nation doesn't vote at all, is it counted against the quota of agreement?


Next, on to abstain votes. All of our charters are silent on what proper voting procedure is, which has worked well enough until now, but it does leave room for doubt that perhaps the Court can shed some light on.

I have always viewed an abstain vote as the vote assigned to a party that doesn't issue an actual vote, and to actually enter an abstain vote is the political equivalent of saying "I see this and I am not going to vote on it, and I thought saying so in this way would be nicer than just ignoring the voting process and not voting at all." However, in several micronational governments in the past, based on the way quotas based on active populations were set up, an abstain vote was a functional nay vote, in the sense proposals needed a certain quota of active citizens approving to pass, and not voting or issuing the abstain vote was the equivalent of voting against it since the procedures only counted votes in approval vs. any sort of vote not in approval, including not voting at all.

What is the Court's stance on this, and how does this stance interact with the first question, above?

[Malliki Tosha]

I, on behalf of the Court, accept this application and will call it "Harvey v. Primate", if that is okay with the claimant.

[Harvey Steffke]

Hmm. Well, okay.

[Malliki Tosha]

I don't think the Assembly wants the Court to go around saying this and that and just generally "having views". The reason why I'm so formal is that I want to set good precedent, and I want the Assembly and the signatory nations to trust the Court. Also, the "versus" format is standard, even if you don't have a conflict. You say what you think, whatever that may be, Erik says what he thinks, whatever that may be. We hear what you say, and then make up our minds, which can be what you think, what Erik thinks or what we think.

[Erik Mortis]

As I stated elsewhere, "sadly, I don't think the court has jurisdiction over this treaty."

The recwar treaty does not claim the CC as a prerequisite, and nations that may have signed the recwar treaty have not signed the CC treaty. And thus can't be held by any ruling of this court.

One could argue the assembly has power to address this issue, as it was created by the GM treaty, but the court does not.

[Malliki Tosha]

That should perhaps have been addressed in the Commonwealth Court Convention. It says that the Court has the jurisdiction to interpret the treaties of the Commonwealth, "subject to the treaties themselves", which isn't exactly a clear provision. I think the CC's treaty interpreting powers should be put in the General Membership treaty, so it applies to all treaties. Then individual nations can sign the Court treaty and add arbitration and additional judicial powers if wanted. I see some pitfalls along the way, like the Court interpreting 3/4ths majority to mean one thing when it comes to the treaties it does have jurisdiction over, while the other treaties are treated differently.

[Erik Mortis]

If you add it to the General Membship treaty, then it REQUIRES that people to sign both treaties, otherwise it makes no sense.

[Malliki Tosha]

Mmm I'll think about it some more.