Ruling: Bono vs. Atlasia

[John Dibble]

Will Texasgurl be filing a dissenting opinion?

Yes, but at a later time. She had to go.

[John Dibble]

Is this some kind of sick joke or something?

I am utterly disgusted by the complete lack of humanity shown by Justices Kemperor and Dibble.

I won't say any more as I'll just get very, very angry.

This was discussed in the case, actually - it is not the job of the Supreme court to determine whether a bill/law/government action/ect. is noble, just, right, wrong, evil or whatever. The job of the Supreme Court is to determine whether or not such things are constitutional.

Our personal feelings regarding this bill have nothing to do with our decision today - if we allow our personal feelings to affect our decisions, then we are not fit for the job. Even if we had approved of the bill personally, that does not change that it is unconstitutional. If we apply favoritism to bills we like or don't like, that would be an abuse of power. As a Justice, I can not allow myself to abuse power because of my own personal feelings.

[John Dibble]

As a Justice, I can not allow myself to abuse power because of my own personal feelings.

But you seem happy to do it for ideological reasons

It's my job to interpret the constitution. I did that. And don't contend that my ideology isn't part of my personal feelings - it is.

Let me give you a different situation - tsunami relief. I personally and ideolgically oppose government foreign aid - I don't think that's something the government should do. But let's say the Atlasian Senate makes up a bill for relief for the tsunami - I would personally oppose that bill(though before you call me a coldhearted bastard, I have given personally to charitable relief for that, I just oppose government doing it with other people's money, meaning forced charity). However, if a court case was brought up against the bill, I would rule in favor of the bill - it's clearly constitutional by Section 1, Clause 16 of the Powers Amendment. I can personally oppose a bill, but that doesn't mean I won't do the job I was appointed to do. If you can't accept that, that's your problem.

[John Dibble]

Yes it does.

The only part of the bill that pertains to the regions is Article 2.  Article 2 is only a response to the bill past by Migredel that stated that no CHIP program was to reard the fetus as a human being.  i wish the Supreme Court Justices would acctually pay attention to the comings and goings of the government.  If they cannot do this, perhapes we can appoint some competent justices who can.

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It is unconstitutional for the federal government to tell the states(which are part of the regions) what to do with their money. If this was not your intent, that's too bad, but you wrote it in this manner. For this section to be constitutional(disregarding constitutional questions on CHIP programs) you can not require the states to resume their funding for these programs at any level.

You are more than free to write a new version of this bill, but it must conform to the limits imposed on the Senate by the Constitution.

[John Dibble]

My commentary on this ruling

Feel free to add your own commentary on the act in a new section on the wiki page or to make points here, but please do not edit my commentary.

As you can see, I think the Court went crazy with the equal protection argument.

A very good commentary. I agree we may have went a little overboard with the equal protection argument - probably could have used another voice of dissent, but oh well. We're human, we make mistakes. We can reverse the interpretation as a mistake in the future if it becomes necessary to do so.

[John Dibble]

Here's my own view.  The Constitution allows us to provide for "to provide for systems of Insurance and Annuity for Unemployment, Disability, and Retirement."  To me, this allows any type of social insurance and the court interpreted the Consitution too narrowly.  But the real prblem is that the Constitution, by being vague and imprecise, allows them this latitude.  We have no one to blame but ourselves for this disaster.  We wrote that Constitution, we all signed it, and now we get mad when the loopholes get exploited.  Don't get mad, get it fixed.

LOL. But yeah, can't blame us for how it was written.

But, clause 17 doesn't really apply to this bill in the way we interpreted it. Unwed preganancy isn't unemployment, and certainly not retirement, and it would be a stretch to call it a disability. But you say it should mean ANY type of social insurance? I could understand extending it to some other types of social insurance, but ANY? Doesn't fly in my book.

One thing mentioned in the case was about Clause 16. "To provide humanitarian relief of the distress caused by unpredictable events of natural or man-made origin."  Now, as you know KEmperor and I interpreted this as referring to disasters - Texasgurl had a broader interpretation, of course. One thing she mentioned was 'what if a woman gets pregnant and afterwards loses her job?'(though, I mentioned this was not really a relevant question, since the bill applied to the general case of an unwed or teenage pregnancy, not any particular circumstance beyond that) - well, that certainly would count as distress that was not necessarily predictable, but if we used that it would be easy to extend this logic even further it goes to 'what if someone loses their wallet?'  Now, that would make some sort of "Wallet Loss Relief Bill" constitutional, which would be just plain silly. But, even so, regardless of that, the general case of pregnancy is not an unpredictable event - if you are a woman and you have sex, you might get pregnant. Chances are pretty good, so even if that clause did apply to such things as getting fired, the bill itself would be applied to too broad a case - it applied to women who came into a bad income situation or were in it in the first place.

[John Dibble]

Yes it does.

The only part of the bill that pertains to the regions is Article 2.  Article 2 is only a response to the bill past by Migredel that stated that no CHIP program was to reard the fetus as a human being.  i wish the Supreme Court Justices would acctually pay attention to the comings and goings of the government.  If they cannot do this, perhapes we can appoint some competent justices who can.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It is unconstitutional for the federal government to tell the states(which are part of the regions) what to do with their money. If this was not your intent, that's too bad, but you wrote it in this manner. For this section to be constitutional(disregarding constitutional questions on CHIP programs) you can not require the states to resume their funding for these programs at any level.

You are more than free to write a new version of this bill, but it must conform to the limits imposed on the Senate by the Constitution.

At this point I would like to ask if the justice is stupid or simply not paying attention to what I have to say?

As I stated, the section is meant to repeal the law that was passed prior that disallowed any state from including fetus care in there CHIP programs.  I simply stated that those rates should be restored prior to what they were at before that law was passed.  Whether those rates be $0 or $1,000,000 I don't really care, nr does the bill dictate what shall be done after this restoration.  If the justices were nto trying to find excuses to bring my bill down, they would have picked up on that fact.  That is sloppy work on thier part, not on mine. 

Allowing restoration and forcing it are two different things. I interpreted the wording of that bill as forcing it.

And once again, it was you who wrote the bill - we can't read your mind, don't act like we can. You did not expressly write your intent or reasons for that into the bill(nor do I believe was it discussed in the debate of the bill), so we were forced to make an interpretation. As I said, you wrote it, not me, don't blame me if I don't interpret what you write in the way you intended it to be so.

[John Dibble]

Although i obviously do not agree with the ruling in this case i do support my colleagues right to make that decision 100%.
I think the personal attacks are unnecesary and unhelpful.
Everyone needs to just move along and maybe fix the problem in the new constitution.

Thank you Texasgurl, I appreciate your words. Even if we disagree with eachother, having a mutual respect is important.