Lawsuit: Pending ColonelKai v. Crown, Case 5 (Ch. 2025)

As the Chancery deliberates on whether or not to hear this case, we find ourselves at a loss as to what claim is even being made in the first place. Could Plaintiff explain to the Court, very precisely, how the Ministry's policy is allegedly in violation of the Constitution?

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
Bench of Chancery

May it please the court that the arguments requested by the honorable chancellors are attached within this message.

1. Application of Law & Constitutional Statutes in Relation to Constitutional Rights
The constitution of Alexandria states that the rights and freedoms of the people as laid out within it are to be applied "only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law that are justified in a free and democratic society." This means, in the inverse, that, a law may only restrict, to a reasonable degree, these rights, as long as they can be justified in a free and democratic society.

The plaintiff makes the argument - and this is both the most critical and the expected point of contention in this case - that this means, that such reasonable limit primarily includes the application of democracy, freedom and the constitutional rights of other citizens. It means, that in the pursuit of these, as long as these three ideals can be achieved to a reasonable and practical degree, the impact on the rights should be minimized.

This is further supported by legal interpretation of such conflicts in multiple real life jurisdictions. In fact, the jurisdiction from which I presume the line in question was taken, the Constitution of Canada, [source], has an established test for this named the Oaks Test, which very explicitly states [source];

Step 1 - The government that infringed the Charter right must explain the objective of its impugned law or conduct. The objective must be pressing and substantial.

Step 2 - The government must demonstrate that the law or policy is rationally connected to the pressing and substantial objective. If the law or policy is arbitrary or serves no logical purpose, then it will not meet this standard.

Step 3 - The government must demonstrate that the law or policy is minimally impairing of the Charter right. This means that the law must impair the Charter right as little as possible or is “within a range of reasonably supportable alternatives.”

Step 4 - The government must demonstrate that the beneficial effects of the law or policy are not outweighed by its negative effects on the Charter right in question. This is generally known as the proportionality requirement.

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The 3rd step of the Oaks Test further reinforces the plaintiff's point that when the government is wishing to achieve a goal inline with the views of a free and democratic society, they must do it in a manner that achieves the goals with minimal impact on the rights. This is the core tenet around which the plaintiff's argument revolves.

2. Failure of Parliament in Specifying the Electoral System, Responsibilities of Ministry
The constitution states as following; Members will be elected according to a closed party list voting system defined by Parliament.

To this day, no definition to the knowledge of the plaintiff has been given royal assent. However, this is not a lawsuit against the parliament, and the plaintiff does not seek to find any wrongdoing in that regard.

However, this does mean that - though any argument presented here could be argued against any parliamentary statute which would enact the same limitations challenged here today - the specifics of the election in absence of a parliamentary direction is left to the Internal Affairs Ministry. Therefore, while the plaintiff does not challenge the Ministry's ability to dictate the specifics of the election system due to practicality reasons, as we would all like to see the election happen prior to the heat death of our universe, we believe that any policy which comes out of the Ministry are challenged to the same standards outlined in section 1 if not further as the exception clearly only allows for laws to make infringements.

It could be satisfactory to say that as the policies of a ministry are not laws, and that they cannot infringe upon these rights in any capacity, we will argue how even a parliamentary statue of the same effect would not satisfy the exception granted by the constitution.

3. The Commonly Accepted Definition of a Closed Party List Voting System
The constitution, as stated earlier, states the following: Members will be elected according to a closed party list voting system defined by Parliament.
As the definition of a closed party list voting system has not been defined by the Parliament, the only available venue is to look at the commonly accepted definition of the term; and its many practical uses in real life examples. Most importantly, I would like to bring to the attention of the court the ability for independent candidates to run.

The main point which defines the system is the fact that parties submit lists of candidates which get voted by the people as a monolithic slab. The Internal Affairs Ministry has taken this concept, and as we have demonstrated in our filing, have created a set of policies which essentially outlaw independent candidates to run.

However, that is often not the reason for nor effect of the usage of such a voting system. It is often to create a fully proportionally represented system where many parties, even those smaller, are represented, and often, parties are required to enter a coalition in order to be able to form a government. "Advocates for proportional representation argue that an election is like a census of opinion as to how the country should be governed, and only if an assembly represents the full diversity of opinion within a country can its decisions be regarded as legitimate." [source]

Furthermore, implementations of closed party list voting system often have specific provisions to allow for independent candidates. Belgium foregoes the requirement for list submissions to be made by parties, and so does Turkey, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and South Africa.

We believe that this establishes well that having parties be the only candidates is not a requirement for the system.

Furthermore, if it is of concern to the Interior Affairs Ministry that allowance of independent candidates may result in a large number of frivolous candidacies being declared, they could have solved this impact by bringing signature requirements forward as a necessary step for all lists to be submitted. This differs from party requirements in two ways; 1. Requiring the candidate to gather two more people to not only have their names be associated with a political organization but further have to have responsibilities within this organization - as the three-member requirement for parties come from certain positions requiring to be filled by the policies - is significantly harder than getting twice that in signatures considering the size and environment of our nation. 2. This requires that a candidate must associate their name with a political party, and essentially bars them from having "independent candidate" as a self-declared label. This limits the political speech of aspiring independent candidates as what they are associated with is essentially forced, and further violates the 6th and 9th right of candidates.

4. Conclusion, Policies Violate Constitutional Rights
As it has been established by our arguments that in the belief of the prosecution;
1. When the government is wishing to achieve a goal inline with the views of a free and democratic society, they must do it in a manner that achieves the goals with minimal impact on the rights.
2. The Internal Affairs Ministry's Policies effectively bar independent candidates from entering the ballot.
3. Barring of independent candidates is not a requirement to achieve constitutionally mandated terms.

As the inability to be able to enter the ballot is in violation of "The right to participate in and run for office", and the inability to choose association while doing so is in violation of the "Freedom of political communication, press, and media" and "Freedom of association";

We respectfully claim to the Honourable Chancellors of the Kingdom of Alexandria that the aforementioned policies of the Internal Affairs Ministry are unconstitutional.

We further request that we be able to amend our filing to be able to include the violations of the 6th and 9th right.

Respectfully Submitted to the Courts,
This 28th of April, 2025.