status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3760
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 3760 ===============================
If an Officer's report is CoE'd, and the Office changes hands
before the deadline for CoE response, then the original publisher
(not the new officer) is REQUIRED to respond by R2201.
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Caller: G.
Judge: omd
Judgement: TRUE
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History:
Called by G.: 23 Jul 2019 16:47:41
Assigned to omd: 23 Jul 2019 16:47:41
Judged TRUE by omd: 08 Aug 2019 04:35:17
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Caller's Arguments:
Official duties pass with the office even if the office changes in the
middle of a legal process (e.g. if the ADoP changes in the middle of
an election, the new ADoP finishes the election).
In terms of responding to CoEs, R2201 reads in part:
The
publisher of the original document SHALL (if e was required to
publish that document) or SHOULD (otherwise) do one of the
following in a timely fashion:
This is written in the past tense (if e *was* required) which implies that
even if the office changes hands, the requirement stays with the original
publisher. Alternative possibilities are that the duty moves with the
Office, or that it becomes a SHOULD for the original publisher (because once
e resigns e is no longer required to publish the document).
The answer may depend on whether "response to a CoE" is an official duty
(R2143):
An official duty for an office is any duty that the Rules
specifically assign to that office's holder in particular
(regardless of eir identity).
which may depend on whether the "publisher of the original document" is
read as being "the [Officer]" (i.e. the publication is associated with the
office) versus "the person who held the office and actually published it".
By my reading, it is equally reasonable to say "the original publisher was
the ADoP (because that's who the duties trace to in the Rules)" as it is
to say "the original publisher was Murphy (because that's who held the
office at the time)" so I'm not arguing for either outcome in particular.
It's worth noting a knock-on effect of this judgement - if the duty stays
with the Office not the original publisher (i.e. the new officer is required
to respond) then someone can deputise for the Office to respond. If the
duty stays with the original publisher, deputisation can't be done.
I don't know if that's a bug or a feature.
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Judge omd's Arguments:
In general, the Rules assign duties to officeholders, not offices
themselves. This rule is proven by two exceptions – cases where the
ruleset wants to know which office (if any) a given duty corresponds
to.
One is a clause the caller already cited, though for different
reasons. From Rule 2143 (Official Reports and Duties):
An official duty for an office is any duty that the Rules
specifically assign to that office's holder in particular
(regardless of eir identity).
The other is from Rule 2160 (Deputisation):
1. the rules require the holder of that office, by virtue of
holding that office, to perform the action (this requirement is
fulfilled by the deputy performing the action);
Interesting, the latter clause previously read:
(a) The rules require the holder of that office, by virtue of
holding that office, to perform the action (or, if the
office is vacant, would so require if the office were
filled). This requirement is fulfilled by the deputy
performing the action.
The parenthesized subclause would be the strongest suggestion that
duties are assigned to the officeholder: if they were assigned to the
office, they wouldn't cease to exist when the office is vacant, so
there would be no need for a hypothetical. However, this subclause
was removed by Proposal 7804 ("Fixed Easier Deputisation"), for
unknown reasons. [see sidebar]
Even without that, though, both clauses take pains to exclude duties
that don't correspond to the office but happen to be assigned to the
same person that holds the office. If duties belonged to offices,
that wouldn't be necessary, and they could be worded much more simply
– e.g. Rule 2160 could say "that office has an official duty to
perform the action".
Given that, there's no reason to disturb the plain meaning of the
clause about CoEs:
The
publisher of the original document SHALL (if e was required to
publish that document) or SHOULD (otherwise) do one of the
following in a timely fashion:
"The publisher of the original document" is whichever person published
the document, and "e was required to publish that document" if, at the
time of publication (I assume "was" refers to the time of
publication), some rule required em to publish it. Any later changes
affecting the requirement, including changes of officeholder, don't
make a difference.
TRUE.
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