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                               CFJ 905

"The wording of R1442 in P2834 will prevent any player from casting
 votes on Proposals."

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Judge:             Blob
Appeal Justices:   Michael (CotC), favor (J), Steve (S)

Judgement:         TRUE
Final Judgement:   FALSE

Eligible:    Andre, Antimatter, Blob, Chuck, Crito, elJefe, favor,
             General Chaos, KoJen, Macross, Michael, Morendil, Murphy,
             Oerjan, Steve, Swann, Vanyel, Zefram

Not eligible:
Caller:      Harlequin
Barred:      -
On hold:     -

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History:
  Called by Harlequin, Sat, 1 Mar 1997 23:54:33 -0500 (EST)
  Assigned to Blob, Tue, 4 Mar 1997 10:39:38 +0000
  Judged TRUE, Fri, 7 Mar 1997 12:33:11 +1100 (EST)
  Published, Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:12:40 +0000
  Appealed by Steve, Fri, 7 Mar 1997 14:49:21 +1100 (EST)
  Appealed by Murphy, Thu, 06 Mar 1997 22:19:50 -0800
  Appealed by Zefram, Fri, 7 Mar 1997 15:20:09 +0000 (GMT)
  Appealed by favor, Fri, 7 Mar 97 09:27:05 EST
  Appeals process begun, Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:51:00 +0000
  favor OVERTURNS judgement, Thu, 13 Mar 97 16:36:38 EST
  Steve OVERTURNS judgement, Fri, 14 Mar 1997 15:03:09 +1100 (EST)
  Michael OVERTURNS judgement, Fri, 14 Mar 1997
  Appeal published, Mon, 17 Mar 1997 12:25:00 +0000

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Appeal proceedings

Justiciar's judgement:

As Justiciar, I Judge this Statement FALSE, and find for the reversal
of the original Judgement.  Since P2834 failed, the wording of R1442
in it never prevented any Player from doing anything.  And my view of
time and causation allows me to say that even at the time this CFJ was
initiated, the statement was false (i.e. I believe that statements
about the future often have definite truth values, even in the
present).

I will leave it to the other Justices to decide if they want to say
Wise Things about the role of R114 in this matter...

Speaker's judgement:

I overturn Blob's Judgement and find the Statement FALSE.

This making of this CFJ has raised a number of interesting issues
concerning the interpretation of R114, about which more below.
Perhaps disappointingly, the truth of the Statement itself can
be decided without any detailed examination of those issues.
For as Justice Favor points out, unless one has strong metaphysical
objections to the idea that propositions about the future can have
a truth value (which I do not), it seems unproblematical to observe
that as P2834 actually failed, it was not the case when this CFJ
was issued that the amendment of R1442 in P2834 would actually
prevent anything.

I have not yet come to any final conclusions on the most interesting
question (raised by Zefram) to have arisen out of the making of this
CFJ, namely, whether Rule 114 would have prevented P2834 from
amending R1442 had it been adopted. That could only happen if the
adoption of P2834 would have resulted in a situation in which no
combination of moves at all could have revived the Proposal system.
(I grant for the sake of argument that P2834 would have kiled the
Proposal system had it passed.) In response to Zefram's question,
I asked whether the delivery of a Judgement to the effect that
P2834 had not in fact the killed the Proposal system would be
sufficient to revive the Proposal system.

This takes us into thorny legal territory. After all, I granted for
the sake of the argument that P2834 would kill the Proposal system
if it were adopted. Taking that concession at face value, wouldn't any
Judgement to the contrary fail to be in accordance with the Rules?
I suppose that is one available view. If it is correct, then arguably
the delivery of such a Judgement might not be legal and hence not
count for the purposes of R114. In that case, R114 might well have
prevented the amendment of R1442 had P2834 been adopted.

On the other hand, I believe, and I have argued extensively elsewhere,
that in many CFJs more than one Judgement might be permissible. If
P2834's effect on the Proposal system were not granted as an obvious
matter of fact, but rather as the outcome of some putative CFJ,
then the overturning of such a Judgement, or the delivery of a contrary
later Judgement, cannot be dismissed in advance as simply illegal.
After all, Judgements do get overturned.

My provisional conclusion on Zefram's question is therefore this: that
whether R114 would have blocked P2834's amendment to R1442 depends on
how obvious you think it is that P2834's adoption would have killed
the Proposal system. If you think that conclusion to be very obvious,
then you're more likely to regard any Judgement to the contrary as
simply mistaken.

There are many further questions to be debated. For example: are
obviously mistaken Judgements binding, at least until they're
Appealed? What I've tried to do here is just to set down my thoughts
on the subject at this time. We need to develope a much clearer
understanding of the effectiveness of Judgements than we presently
possess.

CotC's judgement:

Like the other Justices, I see no problem in allowing the statement to
have a truth value now even though it had no definite value when the
statement was made.  It is the case that the Proposal did not have the
given effect, so the judgement must be FALSE.

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Original Judgement: TRUE

Reasons and arguments:

This is a reasonably straightforward judgement.  It seems pretty
clear, taking the proposed version of 1442 on its own, that it would
forbid voting. It says in part:

      The casting of any votes may only be achieved by the spending
      of VTs, as specified below.

But then the specified method is missing (the rest of the rule
describes "casting" VTs, which cannot be the same thing. As there is
no specified method, spending VTs is impossible. As votes may only be
cast by spending VTs, we must have that votes cannot be cast.

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Evidence:

P2834 says, in part:

Let Rule 1442 ("Using Extra Votes") be renamed "Using VTs" and be
amended to read:

      The casting of any votes may only be achieved by the spending
      of VTs, as specified below.

      A Player casts a VT by notifying the Assessor that e is
      doing so, at the same time specifying the Proposal upon which
      the VT is cast, and the VT itself. VTs may only
      be cast on a Proposal during the Voting Period of that Proposal.

      If, at the moment the Player casts a VT, e possesses at
      least one full VT not in Limbo, then the VT is legally
      cast, and one VT of the Player is put in Limbo until the
      end of the Voting Period of the Proposal specified.

      Votes may not be made with partial VTs.

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(Caller's) Arguments: (none)

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