On Wed, 2026-04-22 at 15:34 +0100, Katherina Walshe-Grey via agora-
official wrote:
> On Wed, 2026-04-22 at 15:25 +0100, Katherina Walshe-Grey via agora-
> official wrote:
> > I call a CFJ on the following statement: "If the office of Prime
> > Minister is vacant, the Speaker CAN exercise powers under Rule 2614 as
> > if e were the Prime Minister, even if, in the past 4 days, a person who
> > was at that time the Prime Minister sent a message to a public forum."
Arguments (so as not to leave Trigon in deep water):
The relevant rule text in Rule 2614 is this:
If the Prime Minister has not sent a message to a public forum in
the preceding four days, the Speaker CAN exercise eir powers under
this rule as if e were the Prime Minister, and notwithstanding any
rule that would prohibit a single player from holding both
offices.
By my reading, the exact text of the rule is unclear: when determining
whether any particular public message counts for this paragraph, "the
Prime Minister" might refer to the person who is currently the Prime
Minister, or it might refer to the person who was the Prime Minister at
the time. So the unclear text of the rules must be augmented by the
traditional four factors of "game custom, common sense, past judgements,
and consideration of the best interests of the game".
Game custom and past judgements do not provide elucidation; Emergency
Regulations have only existed for a few years, are rarely used, and do
not have an extensive body of custom or case law. I briefly skimmed the
archives and did not find any previous occasion where the Speaker has
ever attempted to exercise these powers.
Common sense suggests that the intent of this paragraph is for the
Speaker to be able to act decisively in an emergency in case the Prime
Minister is unable to do so, perhaps by reason of absence from the game.
By this interpretation, the intent would have been for the Speaker to be
able to exercise these powers when Prime Minister is vacant. This also
serves the best interests of the game: it is beneficial to Agora for one
of its two figurehead leaders to always be able to exercise these powers
in an emergency.
As none of the four factors lean towards a FALSE judgement while two
suggest TRUE, I argue the CFJ should be TRUE.
~qenya
