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In re Build the Wall Act 7 2026 SDCR 35

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In re Article 7 of the Build the Wall Act [2026] SDCR 35

Date 13th April 2026
Judges
  • Chief Judge Matt Cheney
  • Court of Review Judge Tech Support
  • Court of Review Judge Zepz367
Held
Ruling 2-1
Applicable precedent

MAJORITY OPINION by Judge Tech Support

(With Judge Zepz agreeing and Chief Judge Matt Cheney dissenting)

Introduction

[1] This case arises from the petitioner seeking that Article 7 of the Build the Wall Act be found as unconstitutional for violating the right to liberty and security of the person.

Petitioner’s Argument

[2] The petitioner begins their argument of why Article 7 is unconstitutional by stating that the right to liberty is “quasi-absolute” with “minimal exceptions”, these exceptions being the ToS of Discord, and certain constitutional exceptions. The petitioner goes on to list out the due process for liberty to be deprived and how Article 7 fails to follow this due process. The petitioner then goes on to cite In re Fair Use of Alternate Accounts Act 2025 (In re FUA3) and that courts should hold a tendency against infringing rights, which should be applied to protect liberty.

[2.1] The petitioner further cites In re Appeal of Summary Ban “mc uighilin” [2025] SDSC 2, stating that a right to appeal does not constitute due process and that it violates a right to a fair hearing as the accused is presumed guilty rather than innocent. The petitioner finishes their argument by asserting that liberty does not just apply to citizens, but to all people within the bounds of Simdemocracy and thus Article 22 of the Constitution protects all people, not just citizens. They ask the court to “not create a class of second class citizens” and request that Article 7 be struck down as unconstitutional.

Respondent’s Argument

[3] The Respondent, representing the State of SimDemocracy, begins their argumentation with a theatrical spiel about their time on SimDemocracy, before speaking about how the petitioner is misguided with their arguments before going on to begin theirs. The respondent starts by stating that “The Constitution prioritises the rights of SimDem citizens”, they cite the preamble to the Constitution, which states “whereas we must protect the rights of our citizens” and states that the language is not vague, and that the rights of SimDem citizens carry more weight than non-citizens or those seeking to enter.

[3.1] The respondent cites Article 29 of the constitution, the protection of rights, stating that the constitution authorises the state to infringe upon certain rights when it protects the rights of other individuals, they list the Right to Personal Safety (Article 24) as one of those. The respondent then cites Nighteye v LordDeadlyOwl [2020] SDSC 5, which they state as setting clear precedent of when permissible infringement of rights is constitutional. The respondent then speaks about how the immigration process is a necessary tool to fulfill the duty of protecting its citizens, it has a preventative focus to stop society’s worse (such as doxxers and raiders), before they enter, and that without this system SimDem would be exposed and in violation of Article 24’s guarantee to personal safety, they list certain preemptive actions as legitimate to aid public safety and cite Writ of Habeas Corpus - Vro_No [2025] SDIC 21 which notes the immigration process as a neutral ex ante security measure. This case is also cited in the next argument made, which is that the immigration process is a civil and or administrative matter, thus the standards needed to determine criminal guilt and the same level of due process are non-applicable.
[3.2] The respondent argues that In re FUA3 is inapplicable as it concerns citizens, not non-citizens, and that immigration only applies to non citizens seeking entry, they also state that it involves criminal implications, they state that immigration is not criminal and does not strip away rights. Finally, they state that the balance of harms differs significantly, they summarise stating that FUA3 does not apply to the immigration process .The respondent also argues that Panzzrr is inapplicable, as the case was criminal and about an already present citizen, they reaffirm their previous arguments, they then state why it is distinguishable from Panzzrr. The respondent’s second to last argument is that the right to liberty does not grant a right to enter, that it protects freedom of action within the server, and does not establish a right to access, they state that “no constitutional provision creates a right to enter”, and would be unfeasible by eliminating the state’s ability to control membership and would expose citizens to risk. The respondent’s final argument is that the state retains authority to detain those who are accidentally admitted and that it does not make the situation a criminal matter, they state that an erroneous admission is a procedural failure, and not a legal determination, the corrective action is remedial not punitive. The state then summarises its argument.

Considerations

[4] The first and most important consideration before the court, is the issue of whether or not somebody accidentally accepted into the server is actually a citizen. Citizenship on SimDemocracy is both incredibly broad, and considerably vague in areas. The main definition of what qualifies as a citizen within the Constitution comes from Article 13, which states that: “§3. One need only maintain a presence in any given core territory to be considered a citizen of SimDemocracy.” When reading this section plainly, it would become apparent that somebody accidentally accepted in, would be classed as a citizen.

[5] Of course a major counter argument to this point, is the idea that the intention of the person was not to accept the immigrating person into the server, and that for all intents and purposes they exist in a state of limbo within the area of the discord server that they are detained. The majority rejects this argument, the idea that once accepted into the server, you are actually not in the server, is both confusing and also a stretch. It is neither the fault of the court’s, nor the immigrating person that they get accidentally accepted, but once they are in, they are in.

[5.1] Furthermore, the Constitution backs up this point, within Article 13 of the Constitution, which states that:
§5. The confinement of accounts joining the Core Territories and The Colonies to a specific area for them and the implementation of an application for accounts joining the Core Territories and The Colonies to enter the Core Territories and The Colonies, which shall be managed and operated by the competent authorities as prescribed by law, shall be lawful and exempt from Part 6 and Article 29 [of the] Constitution.
 §5.1. In exercising their powers under §5, the competent authority may be given the power to accept or reject accounts attempting to join, though they must act in a lawful manner.
[5.2] Both the text, and the intent here are clear, the existence of the screening of immigrating persons exists as its own “specific area”, outside of the core territories, with the channel where they are detained existing within the core territory, and with that not applying to the “specific area”, the majority feels that once accepted, they are in.
[5.2.1] In §5.1, it is stated that the “competent authority may be given the power to accept or reject accounts attempting to join”. What can be inferred from this is that the competent authority cannot retroactively remove somebody, once you are accepted, you are a citizen of SimDemocracy, and thus the rights from the Constitution apply. Meaning that you can only be removed from the server: lawfully by your own accord, whether through leaving the server or requesting a touch grass order, or through a competent authority who are allowed to issue a judgement removing you from the server.
[5.3] One last point for the court on this debate, is that the court makes no contention on the idea of a “right to enter”, the matter at hand is one of detention after being accepted.

[6] For the reasons listed above, the court believes that citizenship is granted to those accidentally accepted by the authorities at the border.

The Right to Liberty

[7] The first avenue that the court will examine is that of the right to liberty and security of the person. The constitution states that the right to liberty is that: 

Ҥ1. Every person shall have the right to liberty and security of the person.
§2. No person shall be deprived of their liberty unless the following due process is observed:”
[7.1] The petitioner argues that the right to liberty has been violated as none of the due process outlined by the Constitution is followed. It is of course true that none of the due process is observed, however with the issue at hand being unique, it creates a lot more nuance which will be further examined.
[7.2] §2.1 of the right to liberty and security of the person states that: “§2.1. The lawful suppression, detention, muting, fine, or ban of a person after conviction by, or on order of a competent court through the authorities as prescribed by law.” The main thing of note with this is the stating that “detention”, of course where you are arrested or detained, a main point of contention within the case, requires an order of a competent court through authorities prescribed by law. When applying a textualist reading, as set out with the Golden Rule of English Common law and in line with the precedent of Kingred, it is clear that the due process required for an exception to liberty is not being followed.
[7.2.1] Under this reading, it is clear that a person accidentally accepted cannot just be simply detained, but that a warrant from a competent authority is required.

[8] One major argument made by the respondent throughout, is that the due process stated in the constitution does not apply in this case, a repeated argument made by the respondent is that the immigration process is not a criminal process, but rather a civil and or administrative process. Of course, it is true that the immigration process is not a criminal process, as no verdict is rendered on criminal guilt, nor a criminal punishment is imposed.

[8.1] However, what remains clear to the majority around the issue of the due process stated in the constitution is that whilst the matter may not be criminal, that also does not mean that due process simply does not apply because it is not the same as the criminal due process. The facts are plain and simple, to detain somebody, you still need a reason to do it, and that reasoning must be approved by a judge.
[8.1.1] The border authorities detaining somebody, without proper authorisation in any situation, is a plain violation of due process. Alongside this, it is also a violation of §5 of the right to liberty and security of the person. §5 is stated as that: §5. No person may be subject to cruel or unusual punishment, nor shall they be subject to punishment grossly unproportional to their conduct. To detain somebody without approval from a judge, is cruel and unusual regardless of if the matter is criminal, civil or administrative, a matter being administrative does not mean you can simply detain somebody without approval.

[9] For the reasons listed above, the majority is satisfied that the right to liberty as guaranteed by the Constitution has been violated by Article 7 of the Build the Wall Act.

Equality Before The Law

[10] The Petitioner touches on another argument they make at the end of their argumentation, which is about how the section of the law in question creates a “second class of citizens” in line with binding precedent from the summary decision in In re §9 of the Treaty of Exploe [2026] SDSC 10 will now examine the text in further detail and apply the relevant test. The text of Article 7 of the Build the Wall Act states that: 

§1. Detainment shall refer to giving the immigrating person the ‘arrested’ role until the immigrating judge has come to a verdict.
§1.1 If the Immigration Officer is satisfied pursuant to Article 2 §1, they may make a Decision to Deport, and if the Immigrating Person is dissatisfied with the decision, they may request a hearing with an Immigration Judge pursuant to Article 4, who may perform such a hearing in a courtroom.
§1.2 If a Decision to Deport or Deportation Order is made in this case, the Immigrating Person may be kicked from the server. Otherwise, they must be released once their detention is accepted.

[11] Utilising relevant precedent from In re Synd Hire Birdish Pls Act [2025] SDCR 31, it is clear to see an unequal treatment of two or more groups, those who are accidentally accepted and detained, and those who aren’t.

[11.1] The first point of note now is if separate groups are being formed based on a standard? And they clearly are, the separate groups are those accidentally accepted, and those who are not. Which allows us to move on to the first limb of the test, which is if there is a reasonable basis for the state to make these groups distinct.
[11.2] The second limb of the test rests on whether or not the standard set by the statute is pursuant to the said goal, the solution isn’t pursuant then the solution is baseless as the distinction is arbitrary and simply used to treat groups differently.
[11.3] The final limb of the test determines whether or not the standard set by the statute is proportionate to the basis, or the goal of its passage. It becomes an overreach of jurisdiction if this is grossly extreme, overly burdensome on the state (it inhibits their ability to uphold the rights’ of others) or is simply unproportional.

[12] With this test from the Supreme Court laid out, we can now proceed with applying it to determine if Article 7 violates equality before the law. If one part fails, then we know equality is being infringed upon.

[12.1] The basis of distinction in this test, as has been stated previously in [11.1] is the detention of those accidentally accepted by the border authorities. Considering that the aim of the statute is to protect the rights of others and their right to personal safety, it passes the first stage of the test.
[12.2] Now for the second stage, we examine if Article 7 of the statute is pursuant to the basis, or the goal, which is to protect against the infringement of the rights of others and their right to personal safety. The statute passes this limb of the test as it allows for an appropriate authority to detain the individual once accidentally accepted, limiting their ability to infringe upon rights and violate others’ right to personal safety.
[12.3] When examining the final stage of the test, it becomes clear that the statute fails this last part of the test. The statute allows for the competent authority to detain an individual without gaining approval from a judge, thus infringing on their right to liberty, as touched upon previously and thus the state is inhibiting its ability to uphold their rights. Furthermore, by detaining all accidental joins, the state is immediately prejudicing these people. By detaining them, they are rebuttably presuming that they have something to hide, or may commit a crime, or may be an alternate account. Thus the statute has failed the final stage of the test.
[12.4] With Article 7 failing the test set out, it is clear that there is an infringement of the right to equality before the law. Whether or not this is a permissible infringement will be set out in the next part of the majority’s decision.

Permissible Infringement

[13] With Article 7 having violated the right to equality before the law, by creating a separate class of peoples, it is now time to examine another one of the respondent’s arguments, whether or not this violation is permissible infringement. Within In re Fair Use of Alternate Accounts Act [2026] SDSC 1 we find the test for whether or not a statute is permissibly infringing upon rights, in a test which contains four steps.

[13.1] One thing to note is that by this time the respondent’s arguments begin to contradict each other, they both argue for permissible infringement as established within Nighteye, but also argue against the usage of In re FUA3, which establishes the test to find permissible infringement, the majority does not buy into the argument that In re FUA3 is inapplicable, as we have established the belief that these people being accidentally accepted are citizens.

[14] The first stage of the test to find permissible infringement once again comes from In re Treaty of Exploe, the first tool involves seeing whether or not the infringement was done along protected characteristics. If it does, it would be a contradiction to Article 17 §2 of the Constitution and thus would be impermissible.

[14.1] The second limb of the test comes from In re FUA3, as has been alluded to earlier, which comprises four steps.

[15] Now is for the determination of whether or not the statute permissibly infringes on the right to equality before the law, by applying this test.

[15.1] When applying the first stage of the test, it is clear that the statute does not infringe upon protected characteristics, as citizenship is not a protected characteristic, thus this means that the statute passes the first stage of this test, and moves on to the next stage, which involves the test from In re FUA3.
[15.2] First the reason to infringe upon the right to equality before the law must be examined, for infringement to be permissible it must be protecting one of the three listed rights from In re FUA3, those being a problem threatening other people’s rights, the rights of society as a whole, or simdemocracy’s continued existence on the platform.
[15.3] The second stage of the test involves determining if the solution to the infringement solves the problem at hand. If the infringement does not protect one of the three listed categories, it is not permissible and no further analysis is needed. The Supreme Court states a preference for examining this against empirical results, and using reasonability or a rationality basis test if it is a speculative application.
[15.4] After this, the court will examine if there is an equally or more viable approach that has a much lessened infringement of rights.
[15.5] Finally, the court will weigh the severity of the infringement against the supposed problem at hand. If permissible infringement simply causes more people’s rights to be violated, or allows for more egregious violations, then there is no use allowing it.

[16] With the FUA3 test laid out, we can now move on to applying it in the case of article 7 of the Build the Wall Act. The court also keeps in mind, in line with precedent from the case and from the petitioner’s argument that the presumption of the court is to be that these violations of rights are not allowed.

[17] Anyways, it is time to apply the test through the lens:

[17.1] Firstly, is there a legitimate reason for the violation of Article 7 of the Build the Wall Act? The majority in this case, does believe so. The guise of the statute is to prevent alt accounts, or potential raiders or doxxers from obtaining access to the rest of the server, where they can violate key rights such as privacy and personal safety. The State is sufficiently justified in wishing to prevent this from happening.
[17.2] Next is to determine if the solution actually solves the problem at hand, and in this case, it certainly is. Removing the ability of these people to interact with the rest of the server is sufficient, removing the accounts before they get a chance to do any damage by detaining them fulfills this criteria.
[17.3] Now is this solution necessary? There may be more effective ways to accomplish the goals in mind, but the solution that they have implemented certainly isn’t suboptimal and it accomplishes its desired effect, as such in line with FUA3 the court will defer to the state and move on to the final stage of the test.
[17.4] Finally, is the solution proportional to the problem? This is the first of these with nuance and issues which are necessary to address. Firstly, the right to personal privacy is certainly threatened by one doxxer, that is not up for debate. But is the potential of one person committing a heinous action enough to justify stripping an entire group of people of their ability to access the server? The answer is no. The ability and solution for the state to detain all people they’ve accidentally accepted and then remove them from the server is not proportional to one incredibly bad actor committing a heinous crime.
[17.4.1] This is further seen considering the extensive protections SimDem already has in place, including certain pieces of legislation and the border before entry into the server as well. Alongside this, the court is not content with the state’s process of having people who are detained after accidental acceptance, having to prove their way out goes entirely against the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, which furthers the court’s belief that this is not a proportional process.
[17.5] Thus, the court is satisfied that article 7 of the Build the Wall Act has failed the permissible infringement test set out in In re FUA3, of course there are certainly solutions to this current failure, but that is not for the court to decide, but rather the legislation.

[18] With the statute failing the test, the court is satisfied that the statute violates equality of the law by creating a second class of citizens, the detainees, and that it is not a permissible infringement. This also closes one of the respondent’s further arguments in relation to permissible infringement through Nighteye as well.

vro_no’s Writ of Habeas Corpus

[19] An interesting loose end for the court to speak about is that of Writ of Habeas Corpus - vro_no [2025] SDIC 25, which is frequently referenced by the respondent throughout their argumentation, alongside it being a point of contention during deliberation. The arguments in which the writ was cited have already been discussed in great detail earlier, but as it has important precedent, the court will address the writ itself in more detail.

[20] Firstly, the respondent had argued when speaking about the immigration process as a necessary tool to protect the rights of citizens cited a specific part of the writ, which states that: 

“A certified agreement limiting punitive sanction to a two-month ban does not immunise the petitioner from generally applicable, prospective emergency gatekeeping. The latter is a neutral, ex ante security measure applied to all applicants during a declared emergency….”
[20.1] The key argument here is that of the immigration process being a “neutral ex ante security measure”, the key point here lies within the test, and is why to this court the writ does not apply. The section of the quote with importance is “ex ante security measure applied to all applicants during a declared emergency”. Of course, SimDem is infrequently in a declared emergency, and one thing that exists regardless is the apply to join feature and the possibility of accidental acceptance. Alongside this, another mention of emergency appears earlier, if the system being an ex ante security measure is true, it seemingly only applies during a declared emergency. Another key thing is this writ was for somebody who was not accepted into SimDem whether intentionally or by accident in this circumstance.

[21] The second point in which this writ was used by the respondent was in relation to the immigration process being a civil and or administrative matter, which the court has talked in detail about previously, thus will not be talked about again.

Verdict

[22] In conclusion, Article 7 of the Build the Wall Act is unconstitutional, as it violates both the right to Liberty and Security of the Person, alongside the right to Equality before the law.

Remedy

[23] Article 7 of the Build the Wall Act 2025 is struck down in its entirety.

Dicta

[24] The court thanks both parties for their lengthy submissions to this case, which were a great joy to read.

DISSENTING OPINION by Chief Judge Matt Cheney

[A1] My disagreement with the majority is centered around their interpretation of acceptance into the server. To hold that a misclick is sufficient to vest an immigrating person with the full array of constitutional rights afforded to us all ignores the nature of our laws and reality of our border security.

[A2] The Supreme Court established in In re Article 3, Section 3 of the Citizenship Act [2021] SDSC 2 that our Constitution allows everyone the chance “to get citizenship equally and fairly, and not that every person is automatically given SimDemocracy citizenship.” That distinction is very important, our full rights should only be granted to those who have successfully entered our jurisdiction while passing all legally implemented security measures.

[A2.1] Citizenship is something achieved through a process of verification, the majority’s holding that a misclick bypasses the State’s Constitutional duty to ensure election integrity and the safety and security of our citizens, is an inherently undesirable outcome under the KingRed test. The applications are there for the sole purpose of filtering raiders, doxxers, and others with nefarious intent. The majority’s opinion turns a border “wall” into a revolving door of who gets to be the day's luckiest security threat.

[A3] Rights in SimDemocracy require more than just an acceptance button, they are the wheels that allow our experiment to continue down the road we are on. When applications are enabled, acceptance into our experiment is contingent upon passing the scrutiny of a Border Officer, and no misclick can endow an individual with all the rights of citizenship.

[A4] For the above reasons, I dissent.