Michael Norrish wrote: >And I claim that a "deeming" event *factually* changes the set of >legal fictions that we have to respect.
Deeming is not an event. It is the origin of a counterfactual context. >Sure. But if the scope of the fiction is the registration status of a >particular player, then that will have ramifications in our >game-state, and not elsewhere. You've got scopes and subjects the wrong way round here. Goethe's registration status is the subject of the alleged legal fiction. I claim that its scope is the Proposal that created it. The entire future course of the game does not seem like a valid scope for a legal fiction unless the Rules at the time require it. > Just as, to use one of the Wikipedia's >example, the doctrine of survival can insist that one person died >before another, which will have big effects on the state of the dead >people's estates. The scope of the legal fiction in that case is legal action relating to probate. In any other context, such as a newspaper report, the objective truth prevails. If the doctrine of survival were to be repealed then the truth would prevail in all subsequent legal action, even concerning deaths that occurred prior to the repeal, though the validity of legal actions completed while the doctrine was in effect would probably not be changed. > It is clear that the rules >support the notion of legal fictions, and that they exist. Therefore >they are part of our game-state. The Rules do not support an arbitrary set of legal fictions that are in effect in the game generally. They support certain narrow types of legal fiction that they specifically mention. >Sure it has persistent effect. If in ten years, I call a CFJ on the >question of whether or not someone posted an objection in the sense of >the relevant clause, after they had performed a retraction, then the >court will say that they did not. Only if the Rule creating that legal fiction still exists. If it has been repealed by that time (or amended to remove the fiction) then the CFJ must be judged according to the objective truth. > Moreover some action that is >supposed to occur without objection will have actually occurred. The action that occurred without objection was authorised by R1728 as it was at the time. The operation of R1728, and so the legality of that action, depended on the legal fiction that was in effect at that time. Whether that legal fiction remains in use later has no effect on the validity of the action. >As Murphy says, one might also see ratification as the creation of a >legal fiction. In that case, the language has it that we simply >assert that the game-state changes, but it seems pretty similar. That's entirely different. Here the Rules change the actual gamestate. They do not change the history, of who sent which message, nor do they deem the history to be other than what it really is. All they change is the state of entities that are defined purely by the Rules. >Registrar's report is ratifiable, and if it does not record a >particular registration, and we ratify it what happens to the >game-state then? A person's registration status is an entity defined solely by the Rules, and so the Rules are free to modify it arbitrarily. In this case, upon ratification the person simply ceases to be a Player. That's what really happens, not a fiction. The only awkward bit is the retroactivity. Immediately before the ratification e had been a Player under the Rules and gamestate that then prevailed. The ratification retroactively changes this, so that after the ratification e had not been a Player immediately before. The Rules used to explicitly allow for retroactive effect, and though that's gone we haven't legislated to the contrary either. I think a Proposal could effect a retroactive change to Rule-defined entities, such as a person's registration status. I think using retroactive changes is ugly, and it's certainly unnecessary in this case, so I'd rather we didn't. It's still preferable to a legal fiction, though. -zefram
