D. N. Vercáriâ
Group: citizens
(4498 posts total)
(last post: March 15, 2008 - 16:51)
Citizen #26:
Dieter N Vercáriâ | > Hello Dieter,
>
>
> > > That the Dean needs to appoint someone immediately after being sworn it, implies to me that the position is vacant and needs immediate staffing.
> > >
> > > Are we reading the same article here?
> >
> > Yes. But it's confusing me that Art III, Sec. 2 is intertwined with Sec. 1 which IMO is talking about measures that are to be taken immediately after the declaration of independence.
> >
> > Thus Sec. 2 seems to suggest something that *the first Dean ever* shall have to do immediately. No section of Article 3 mentions what is supposed to happen in case of regular Dean elections (Section 4 a just mentions the 6-months term of the Dean).
>
> Which sounds like a provisional constitution to get the ball rolling.
> I'll need to see the rest of this article wherever it may be found.
>
> > > I see nothing mentioned regarding continuity of the vice dean's post.
>
> > But the opposite thereof isn't mentioned as well.
>
>
> If both are missing, the only description for the Vice Dean's position is that it is appointed by the Dean and removable by the Dean and the Council.
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> There is nothing else.
Indeed.
> I would tend to stand by my previous summation that the position is vacant because the one person who could fill it didn't. There is no other provision to fill the post. In this case the Dean has the power to fill the position rather easily so someone should just tell Chris to formally announce that Lisa is Vice Dean.
I don't want to sound like a nitpicker, but it's not explicitely said that an incoming Dean has either to appoint or to reconfirm a Vice Dean (or any other officer that is appointed by the Dean), if the Vice Dean (or other officers that are to be appointed by the Dean) have not been removed by the outgoing Dean, did not stand down volunteerly, or haven't been forced to stand down.
> >So maybe we'll have to add this bit of lacking precision by reading something into Article III that actually isn't there.
>
> No, not at all.
> These laws, no matter how good or bad they are, are made by the legislature and it is their job to fix them ultimately.
>
> In this case I would try talking to the authors about what they were trying to establish with this position, namely its basic job description and simplest duties. From that we could suggest some better verbage to cover holes we've just blasted through it.
>
> What you are suggesting is called "Legislating from the bench" and we should always try to avoid doing that. Our job is to first defend what is written, and only after all else fails should we start interpretting things.
I didn't mean to recommend legislating from the bench, but now I see that it sounded like this. I like the way how you clarified what we are supposed to do.
Justice D.
- D. N. Vercáriâ |
