Impeachment of Aggie, Togas and Arnelos

[DAVOUT]

The present case is a direct consequence of the decision rendered by The Court in case #7 (Civman2000 versus ManicStarSeed) which will remain a summit of an application of the law to the last letter regardless of any other relevant consideration. Although The Court stated

*At the end of term 6 administration, the executive made a few moves within the game that were illegal. The illegality is not an issue, as all who have witnessed what did occur indicate they would have done the same (or similar)*

It also concluded, adopting the plaintiff argument

*The bill in question would remove the right to bring a case of impeachment for the MPPs signed with Russia, Greece, and Japan. This right is protected in the constitution and may not be taken away by a Senate bill.?*

I am therefore using my precious right to bring a case of impeachment for the MPPs signed with Russia, Greece and Japan. I seize this opportunity to express my gratitude to Civman2000 who made all this possible.

I limit this impeachment call to three members of the Cabinet :
- The President, Aggie, who signed the MPPs
- The Vice-President, Togas, who did not provide the President with the pertinent information enabling him not to fall into illegality
- The Foreign Affairs Minister, Arnelos, who identify the illegality but did not succeed in convincing the President.

Although The Court is perfectly aware of the circumstances, I recall hereunder the main texts describing the origin of the case.

The facts were discovered by the public in a report posted by Arnelos on December 14.
(link : http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=70883)

The same day, Togas recognized the facts:
* What Arnelos says is true, and I didn't even take the time to review it.

I was present at part of the turnchat and failed to notice that the bill that authorized the FAM to sign MPPs was limited to only a few nations. I think all of us failed to recognize this. It was suggested by those present at the chat, after the Romans began invading us, that we should sign MPPs with their allies as a means to keep from being ambushed by their alliance. We did this at the same time as we signed the MPPs with Greece (those damned Aztecs demanded 51gpt for a MPPs, so we declined), assuming this was previously authorized.

Frankly, I feel we did the proper strategic move by nullifying the Roman alliances, but what we did was beyond the authorization of the Senate. I ask that the Senate consider if they would have authorized this action to take place. If not, I believe all of us present would humbly submit to any sanctions the Senate or The Court felt were justified.

I was not present for the entire turnchat, and I left prior to the declaration of war by Rome, but as an active participant in the decision to sign those MPPs I will accept responsibility for the decision with my fellow ministers. Hopefully this action will be understood and excused by our Senate.*


And on December 15, Aggie recognized also the facts, taking on him all responsibility for the illegality committed:

*Sorry I took so long to respond, but I was gone for a day. Now some setting the record straight. I had read the bill and did realize that the Mpp's were not approved. However, considering the declining numbers and interest in the demogame I made a decision to proceed with the necessary MPP, since it was obvious they were needed and would be approved. The only other alternative was to call the chat after less than turn played. This was unacceptable. So I decided to enter the MPP's that were mentioned. At the time I assumed everyone knew the nations mentioned on the MPP bill and these were not them. I apologize to all in the chat who I did not mention it too, ET and Togas particularly. I was wrong in this and should have mentioned it to all. Basically I did not feel the game should be stopped for something whose resolution was common sense and believed all in the chat were of the same mind. So I took the action I did and feel that this is much adou about nothing. For a matter of fact I feel there was no reason to stop the game as early as we did and would have preferred that we completed the 5 turns. However, I do realize many might oppose that decision and aknowledge that it is "technically" illegal what I did. However, though this action did no harm to our nation, I do offer to resign if this action is so horrible(I all fairness the stupidity of assuming we all knew the mpp weren't authorized is my great crime). If the people want me to resign I will, if not we will have a chat on the 18th.
Aggie*

The Constitution said in Article II.5 : The Senate must approve all Military Alliances, Trade Embargos, and Mutual Protection Pacts.
I accuse the following members of the term 6 government : the President Aggie, the Vice-President Togas and the Foreign Affairs Minister Arnelos to have respectively signed MPPs illegally, not to have prevented the signing of illegal MPP, and to have not succeeded in tempting to prevent the illegal signing.
I therefore ask The Court to determine if there are proper and legal grounds to hold a Removal From Office hearing, as per Article V.1.a of the Constitution.

[GodKing]

The court is awair of this and is looking into it.

GK

[DAVOUT]

Does the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech (Article IV.5) incorporate freedom of spelling ?


Edit: Article IV.5

[GodKing]

I hope so....... otherwise I am screwed.....

I spelled "of" as "uv" until about the 4th grade or so.

[Beta]

Originally posted by GodKing
I hope so....... otherwise I am screwed.....

I spelled "of" as "uv" until about the 4th grade or so.

Phonetics rule!!!

(weren't they an early age sea-going civilization???)

[Togas]

Answer of the Accused, Togas

(I am abstaining from all Court decisions and proceedings related to this impeachment.)

Impeachment charges against me should be found without merit for the following reasons:

1) My actions did not consitute an impeachable offense.

At the time of this offense I served as the Vice President. I had no official decision making role at the time, merely an advisory role. I participated in the discussion about the MPPS signed, as did other ministers and senators. I feel bad for giving Aggie, the President, advice that was mistaken due to ignorance, but giving bad advice is not an impeachable offense. Art. V, Sec 3 (a) states that, "An official may be impeached only if he or she has violated the Constitution or a law that was in place prior to the alleged violation."

2) Impeachment is untimely and improper.

I am no longer a minister. Impeachment proceedings are done to remove or censure a sitting official. As I am no longer a minister but a member of the Judiciary, I must ask that Davout explain what remedy he is seeking. If he is seeking to have me removed from the Judiciary, then I would argue that it is improper as my alleged offense has no relation to my role in The Court. If he is asking that I be removed as a minister, I would argue that it is untimely as I am no longer a minister.

3) This impeachment is being sought soley due to the malcontent of a losing party in a Court Hearing.

Davout's argument in Case #7 that impeachment "cannot have any consequences in the present and will have no effect on the future" was ignored by The Court when it found that the pardoning bill was Unconstitutional. Davout, in his frustration, decided to sarcasticly "seize this opportunity to express my gratitude to Civman2000 who made all this possible" and do that which he had argued was futile. The entire proceeding is meant to make The Court and our system of laws out to be a farce. I urge the Judges to find the entire proceeding without merit and to censure Davout for bringing this ridiculous call for impeachment.

--Togas

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by BetaHound

Phonetics rule!!!

(weren't they an early age sea-going civilization???)

I believe so, in fact if my history doesn't fail me I think the Carthaginians were a splinter civ off the Phonecians.

Shouldn't Hannibal get a trade bonus for excellent pronuciation and punctuation then?

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
I limit this impeachment call to three members of the Cabinet :
- The President, Aggie, who signed the MPPs
- The Vice-President, Togas, who did not provide the President with the pertinent information enabling him not to fall into illegality
- The Foreign Affairs Minister, Arnelos, who identify the illegality but did not succeed in convincing the President.

It should be noted that I was not present when these events took place. My orders and the bill clearly stated that these things were illegal and my orders along with the bill were not followed. I am an agrieved party by the action, not its cause.

So you are, of course, joking when it comes to my case. What exactly is my crime, failing to press charges against Aggie?

You cite my crime as "failing to convince the President." Convince him of what? That the MPP's were illegal - he admitted that he KNEW after I had been the one to point it out and provide a full and complete report to the public on the issue. I did my duty - I did not hide the matter from the public.

Failing to press charges against Aggie for violating the orders I wrote is NOT an offense, as the decision of whether to press charges is entirely my own and I am not legally liable for failing to do so. It would also be laughable to expect a minister to press charges against another minister when it was the SENATE'S LAW that was broken. Would you then haul the entire Senate before the Court for failing to press charges against Aggie?

Come on, DAVOUT... this is laughable and you know it (which, of course, is your point).

I fear that by putting up completely laughable charges against myself and Togas, you are attempting to obscure the reality of the issue - the charges against Aggie are very real, not laughable in the slightest. Since you LOST the court case to not allow for the impeachment of anyone, you're putting up laughable charges on as many ministers as you can to make your "point" that this type of thing should have been avoided.

I say "bring it on". You know as well as I do that the charges against myself are downright laughable and even the charges against Togas are without serious merit (he wasn't the acting executve at the chat). Aggie is clearly guilty, but no-one (apparently now other than you) has had the guts to bring him before the Court for it.

Perhaps I just have more faith in our Court... where it seems you (and others) fear the Court so much that you would prefer to pass Senate bills to prevent the Court from doing its job, I have confidence that the Court will do the right thing and see most of these charges just as laughable as they are. Hopefully, the system will WORK and will provide an incentive for laughable charges to not be brought in the future.

Regarding Aggie, however, I don't know for sure how the Court will rule, but perhaps we need to just let them do so in this matter and let the pieces fall where they may.

[Aggie]

Aggie's Response.
The charges against Togas and Arnelos are totally without merit and the case against me is moot. First for Togas, he was not the acting president at that time, he DID NOT make the treaties, I as acting FAM did, so Togas did not violate the law, since he took no action.
Arnelos was not even present and thus could not have taken any action that was against the law. I did break the law and I have explained the reasons elsewhere. However, the impeachment process only has one purpose, to remove CURRENT office holders. No other punishment is prescribed, thus since I am no longer an elected official no punishment can be visited upon me. Even if an amendment was passed allowing punishment you are not allowed to punish except by the rules in place at the time, ie no ex post facto laws.
So I consider these charges nothing short of frivilous and call upon the court to quickly end this issue that should never have been resurected.
Aggie

[Shiber]

Those were the Phoenicians. IIRC they lost their battles with Egypt (which was still at its prime at that time) and went to settle along the mediterranean coast, a little to the north of the area that is now called the Gaza strip. They fought several wars with the Hebrews which had a favorable outcome for the Hebrews.

Back on topic, I have nothing else to add to this discussion at the moment but my sympathy with Togas on this matter.

[DAVOUT]

I would like to bring some answers to Togas

Our actions did not constitute an impeachable offence
.
This case is raised for The Court to decide, in the light of the facts, and of your recognition that, as you said, *as an active participant in the decision to sign those MPPs I will accept responsibility for the decision with my fellow ministers. Hopefully this action will be understood and excused by our Senate.* Unfortunately, the pardon was invalidated by The Court.

Impeachment is untimely and improper

I was in total agreement with this thesis that I have demonstrated before The Court. But The Court stated in the case#7 decision:
*One item directly involving this poll is the issue whether officials can be impeached after their term of office has expired. We recognize this issue but leave it to future courts to make any such decision*.
That The Court could have postponed the answer to this issue and nevertheless decides on the case #7 will remain for long a mystery in the judiciary annals.
I have obviously no answer to your question since I though that this point was one of the reasons why the right to call for impeachment was full of emptiness. But The Court decided that this right should be protected in this particular case. So I respectfully transmit your question to The Court.
Regarding your role in the judiciary, I personally do not make any relation between it and the present case, leaving that to The Court.

This impeachment is being sought soley due to the malcontent of a losing party in a Court Hearing.

I do not see anywhere in the Constitution that frustrated citizens do not enjoy the right to call for impeachment. In fact, I was not so much frustrated than enlightened by The Court, and I acted accordingly. And you know nothing of my intentions. I am sorry that you can fear that all this could make The Court and our system of laws out to be a farce. I did much less in this direction than your claim urging the Judges to find the entire proceeding without merit and to censure Davout for bringing this ridiculous call for impeachment. Must I remind you that The Court meticulously protected the right to call for impeachment?

[DAVOUT]

Mistake, sorry

[DAVOUT]

Arnelos and Aggie,

I think that your comments are addressed to The Court which has now to reconcile the decision to be taken in this case, with the decision taken in case #7.

[civman2000]

I have to agree with Arnelos. The charges against him are incorrect and not important, but those against Aggie (and to a lesser extent Togas as well IMHO) are quite serious. Although of course I respect DAVOUT's right to bring this case before the court, I believe he is overreacting and is insulting the seriousness of this issue.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by civman2000
Although of course I respect DAVOUT's right to bring this case before the court, I believe he is overreacting and is insulting the seriousness of this issue.

What do you mean ? I have the right but I should not have use it?

[Togas]

*sigh*

Perhaps it would be useful if someone from The Court could PM Davout and sit down with him to explain in greater detail what the holding of Case #7 was about. There seems to be a general malfunction in the lines of communication that has driven him to this call for this absurd and reckless impeachment simply because he disagreed with the decision.

Personally, I think Pardoning Aggie was the right thing to do, it just wasn't something the Senate could do. But that's what I would have done if I could and that's what the majority of Apolytonians wanted to do. I took responsibility for my role in the whole silly affair and apologized, but my role was merely advisory and one has to break the law to be impeached, I didn't personally break the law, nor did Arnelos, so neither of us are going to be affected by this.

The one who is affected is Aggie. Davout is going to drag Aggie back into this stupid mess again and for what? To get revenge on The Court for coming to a unanimous decision that he didn't agree with? Come on, this is petty and irresponsible! Davout, if you wanted to make a pointless stand on an issue that is not in dispute you should have just called for my impeachment and left Aggie out of it. You could have made a sarcastic argument and forced The Court to make findings on the issue of impeachment of non-ministers if it would have made you happy.

But calling for impeachment of a guy like Aggie when your intent is not to impeach but to create an issue for The Court is an abuse of our system of law, and a grave injustice to Aggie. I hope that The Court quickly comes to a decision that this farce should be found without merit.

--Togas

[DAVOUT]

It is unfortunately quite common that when somebody says something unpleasant, instead of analysing what he says, people start criticizing his person, his intents, his behaviour. It is quite desappointing from you Togas. You are probably right that I am very petty, and totally irresponsible, and you could have added that I am not clever enough to discuss difficult subjects like this, but why publicy humiliate me like this; is it not hard enough to be so weak all day long ?

[Togas]

Davout,

You're an important member of my team in the PTW Demo Game and a longstanding part of the CivIII Demo Game and I doubt anyone is going to think less of you when this whole silly affair is over.

But I think we all can agree that this needs to be over.

This is not meant to be personal at all. My criticism and argument has to do with a decision that you made, one that I hope you will reconsider as it affects not just you and The Court, it also affects other people.

An impeachment is a public affair as it is ultimately decided by a vote of the people, which is why all of this is public. I suppose I could have tried to convince you to change your mind via PM and in the future I may try to.

I think your point has been made about how absurd an impeachment would be, and in the case of Aggie it does seem absurd to throw out the law that pardons him and the rest of the administration, especially after the administration has left office. I didn't personally write the majority opinion of Case #7 but I agreed with it. We all agreed with it. The real issue was precident: whether the Senate could excuse someone from being impeached via a bill in the future. We all felt that such a policy would violate the Constitution.

Anyhow points made and damage done. Why pursue this any further? I don't think there's a person in our game who wants to see this dragged on. I don't think you really want to see this dragged on, do you? Why put Aggie through this? Why put yourself through this?

Sorry if I seemed offensive or insulting to you. It was responding to being impeached that caused me to seem so hostile, but it had nothing to do with you personally.

--Togas

p.s. Forgive and forget. Let's put back on our Roleplaying Masks and head out to Spain where you can continue to ferret out disloyal citizens and I can go back to giving GodKing a hard time about his poor chamber pot cleaning performance.

[DAVOUT]

No damage still done. The case #7 is not written in the marble. It has a basic technical flaw which is your participating in the decision. It can be rewritten in meeting all aims you described : lets the pardon, invalidates the first part only, and if you so desire stresses the fact that The Court cannot tolerate the Senate excuses someone from being impeached.
Every citizen must serve the community, and the Court also; The Court could best serve the Community in perfecting his decision. After having heard so many complaints that the Demogame was becoming too bureaucratic, I strongly believe that The Court should not continue to apply abstractly our laws; consideration must be given to the Apolytonian circumstances which are what people are interested in.
Would my suggestion be followed, my impeachment case must be given up since I would never have sued executives pardonned by the Senate.

[Arnelos]

DAVOUT,

What you seem to be missing that we seem to be "getting" is that while we'd REALLY LIKE (on a personal level) to side with you and allow the Senate to go beyond its constitutional mandate and pardon ministers who have committed such crimes, we seem to recognize that this would set a horrible precedent for the application of the rule of law.

So we don't want to prevent you from pursuing your Court action - go right ahead. We fought to defend your right to press charges and you certainly have always had that right.

It is YOUR choice whether you will use that right in a responsible or irresponsible manner. We (those arguing against you) and the members of the Court can then continue to pursue the law as it was written.

If you have a problem with the constitution as it is written, you have at your disposal the ability to propose ammendments... not that that is a good idea here... it clearly isn't. Though something being a bad idea hasn't stopped you yet

[civman2000]

What do you mean ? I have the right but I should not have use it?

Of course! Just because you have the right to do a lot of things doesn't mean it's necessarily a good idea to do them. If you really want to go ahead, I can't do anything to stop you, but in my opinion it is something that you shouldn't do.

And if in the future the Court upholds retroactive laws, pardoning will be effectively be possible. We just retroactively give them the power to do whatever illegal thing they did and then there is nothing they can be impeached for.

[DAVOUT]

Arnelos,

A horrible precedent ? I am a bit lost; I understood that the horrible thing was the claim for impeachment. Anyway this is just your opinion, respectable, but nothing more, since you bring no argument or demonstration that a precedent which can have no consequences at all can be that dangerous.

Thank you for not willing to prevent me from pursuing the Court action, but I have really nothing to do : the case is in the hands of The Court.

May I correct you on one point : It is not my choice to use my right in a responsible or irresponsible manner, it was. I have not changed my mind, and I probably will not untill I am given some rational that I can understand. You could possibly help everybody in explaining to the judges that the argument of authority does not work in a democracy.

I have no problem with the Constitution as it is written, only as it is applied. The Court is not ruling in a far away country, in time and space, and need not to mimic the Supreme Court of a 300 millions people country; it is ruling in Apolytonia, with a reduced set of laws, and its use must be as clear and rational as possible. The present case is a perfect example that it is not done.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by civman2000

Of course! Just because you have the right to do a lot of things doesn't mean it's necessarily a good idea to do them. If you really want to go ahead, I can't do anything to stop you, but in my opinion it is something that you shouldn't do.

.

May I summarize ?

You made a case asking the invalidation of a Senate bill on the ground that this bill waived the right to sue the Governement.
Then The Court invalidated the bill, authorizing again the citizens to sue the Government.
Then one citizen (myself) sued the Governement.

And now you tell me that it was just for fun and that I should not have !!

[adaMada]

** If I am speaking out of turn -- for I am merely a citizen of Apolytonia, and not a participant in this case -- please correct me, and I'll quiet myself **

DAVOUT,
I believe everyone (or nearly everyone, anyway) wants to pardon the government -- with the possible exception of yourself. I've not heard anyone say anything different, and that is the opinion I hear scattered throughout the forums.

The problem is that the law that you were defending took away the people's right to hold the government responsible. An individual cannot be prevented from suing the government -- it is contrary to both the spirit and word of the CoL. The court was right to overturn that law.

Having said that, I do not feel that there should be an impeachment over this crime. Firstly, Arnelos had nothing to do with this manner. He informed the public of the mistake that had been made; He basically stopped the chat; and He even went as far as advising the public on the manner. There can be no question (in the mind of anyone that was there) that Arnelos is completely innocent -- and indeed, did a service to the community by bringing the facts forward, when it would have been within his rights to remain silent.

Togas is also guilty of no crime, any more than any other citizen in the chat was. He was serving in no special capacity of the Vice Presidency, and did nothing that many other citizens in the chat did not do. Again, there is no case against him.

Aggie is the hardest case. Clearly, he did break the law. He admits he broke the law, and there can be no excuses for it. Having said that, most of the citizenry do not want to impeach Aggie. A vote of impeachment would signify that the citizens no longer trust him, when it's been made very clear by those who have posted on the issue that there still was trust. I cannot and will not say if he was right or wrong, but I'm confident that any impeachment poll posted by the court will be overwhelmingly defeated by the citizenry.

DAVOUT -- I've nothing against you. Having said that, I disagree with this call for impeachment. I respect your right to call for it, and agree with the court's recent decision, but I don't feel it serves any purpose. This can produce no result. If you wanted to put forth a measure I could support, you could post a Senate bill calling for censure on Aggie for his actions. This would be appropriate, and would serve far more purpose than this case does.

Again, my apologies to the court and all involved if I've spoken out of turn.

-- adaMada

[Panag]

hi ,

great we are going nuts , .......

have a nice day

[DAVOUT]

adaMada,

As always your are polite and non-aggressive, thank you.
You should not worry about Arnelos, Togas and Aggie, if you rely, as much as I do, on the wisdom of The Court. If I am as wrong as you say, which is possible after all, otherwise we would not need a Court, The Court will say the truth.

I have the feeling that I did something against the etiquette. Citizens rights are written in the law, but just for show; using these rights is not correct, not fashionable, not responsible or whatever you like. And you need not to explain or argument, it is just incorrect, full stop. Social pressure, moral harassment, most often it works, sometimes not.

As for your suggestion to post a Senate bill for censure of Aggie, I would rather post a new bill pardonning the Governement, for this bill should never have been invalidated in a reasonnable course of the Justice.

[civman2000]

You made a case asking the invalidation of a Senate bill on the ground that this bill waived the right to sue the Governement.
Then The Court invalidated the bill, authorizing again the citizens to sue the Government.
Then one citizen (myself) sued the Governement.

And now you tell me that it was just for fun and that I should not have !!

Correct, though the way you put it makes it sound bad. Perhaps I ought to clarify my position with a quote from Voltaire:

I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it!

BTW, I will be going on vacation tomorrow morning so will be unable to say any more on this issue.

[DAVOUT]

Ah, I did not know that Voltaire inspired your action.

I am surprised.

He would be too.

[DAVOUT]

To all those showing some interest for the case

It has been stated in several occasions that The Court was obliged to invalidate the first part of the Senate Bill pardoning the Government because not doing so would have set a precedent.

What is a precedent ?

A court decision becomes a precedent when it applies the relevant law in a way different from what has been done so far, generally on the basis of a new reasoning based on original or new circumstances. After that, all the Courts will be able to make or accept reference to the precedent in cases presenting a high degree of similarity with the case which generated the precedent.

How does this definition affect the case #7 ?

The Senate Bill, dated 16.12.2002, reads as follows, and lasted 3 days :

1. We the Senate of the Apolytonian Republic waive rights to bring about any court action against any member of the Term 6 administration for entering into MMPs with Russia, Greece or Japan.
The senate may still pass bills officially censuring any or all members of the term 6 administration. It was an unfortunate and unnecessary event. This bill only applies to actions taken from 1230 AD through and including 1250 AD.

From the definition, we deduct that, if the bill had not been invalidated, a precedent would have been created for cases presenting the following similarities :
- it should concern only the case of illegal MPP
- it should limit the period where faults were committed
- it should enter into effect (in case #7: 19.12.2002) when the Government concerned is no longer in office.

As you know, the punishment, if and when the impeachment is finally voted by the Senate, is the removal from office.

This is the exact nature and value of the horrible precedent.

[notyoueither]

Davout, why are you the only one who cannot see the reason for the ruling?

I am not poking, nor trolling. I am asking. I would like to be enlightened where no one else has enlightened. I live to learn.