In re EO 122-04 & League of Servers 2026 SDSC 9
In re EO 122-04 & League of Servers [2026] SDSC 9 (formerly [2025] SDSC 30)
| Date of judgment | 19th March 2026 |
| Justices |
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| Held |
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| Ruling | 5-0 |
| Applicable precedent |
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MAJORITY OPINION by Justice TheLittleSparty
(With Chief Justice Ed, Justice Ivy Cactus, Justice Terak, and Justice Muggy concurring)
Introduction
[1] This petition, as presented to the Court originally on July 25th, 2025 has had a long and storied path to land unfortunately on my desk today, Monday the 16th of March, 2026. Several Supreme Court Justices have sadly been lost to the pursuit of an answer to this question, first Justice Syndicality in his great age and wizened status was dragged out of the Supreme Court Building, down the street, and there on the steps of the Senate Building suffered execution by gunfire. Shortly thereafter, his replacement (another Woke Communist mind you) Justice Literal was presented with this case as his first and as it would happen only Supreme Court case of his tenure. He would sadly be summoned before the Senate, only to return to our chambers to commit suicide via two handgun rounds to the back of his head. The handgun was never recovered, nor was it ever quite understood where the handgun originated as he, in his particular flavor of woke communism, was strongly opposed to the right of private citizens to keep and bear arms1. After this state of affairs was resolved to a degree, I was saddled with what I affectionately have come to regard as the Hell Case of the Century. I personally carry no desire to take my own life, and due to the Senate’s enormous and unjustified hatred of myself (three attempts to impeach me from this office, none yet met with success) it should be assumed that my death must necessarily have been orchestrated by the Senate in an effort to further their malicious and malodorous designs.
[2] As presented, this petition fundamentally asks two questions albeit in a circuitous and largely moot route due to the litany of case law resolving both of the items posed. In any case, a critical question of nuance arises through multiple submitted amicus briefs, of which this decision resolves to address:
- [2.1] From Ppatpat - “Did the President’s action of joining the League of Servers lead to the Charter of the League of Servers coming into effect in SimDem?”
Summary of the Petition
[3] The Petitioner asserts that, in fact, the enactment of EO 122-04 did enact the Charter of the League of Servers, establishing SimDemocracy as a member state and party to that organization. The Petitioner then asserts that the enactment was unlawful due to there being multiple sections of the Constitution which contradict the Charter of the League of Servers, and that previous case law as well as general understanding is that the Constitution of SimDemocracy triumphs over all other law in so far as law which affects the operation of SimDemocracy and her citizens.
Summary of the Response
[4] The Respondent also asserts that the enactment of EO 122-04 did enact the Charter of the League of Servers, establishing SimDemocracy as a member state and party to that organization, but that the action fell within the constitutional purview of the Executive both in concept as an act of foreign policy, and in practice as carrying out the directives of the Charter were within the right of the Executive to order subordinates to conduct.
The Ambit of the Petition
[5] Two distinct vectors appear through which SimDemocracy’s admission as a member state to the League of Servers and party to its Charter must be assessed, first the internal vector of SimDemocracy’s Constitutional questions, and second the external vector of the Charter’s own rules and regulations.
[6] First, there are dual questions regarding first the powers of the Presidency to conduct foreign policy, and second the interaction between multilateral international law and SimDemocracy’s Constitution. Both of these questions have been suitably addressed through previous case law. While the President’s power to conduct foreign policy without legislative intervention was at the time of this petition enshrined in the Constitution, but tempered by the Senate’s ability to contradict such arrangements via regular legislation which they could pass at any time, as per Reference re Treaties [2021] SDSC 4, which stated:
- [6.1] “Treaties ratified solely by the President may only dictate the government in relation to foreign affairs, and may not overrule legislation, [18]”
[7] As a rather pointed example of this in practice, signed into law on the same day as this petition was filed, the now repealed War Powers Act 2025 directly contradicted the Charter of the League of Servers, as the act explicitly granted the President the power to conduct foreign actions without meeting the requirements for such established in the Charter.
- [7.1] Of note, the Charter of the League of Servers explicitly restricts the ability of member states to declare wars or to sanction either itself or others in conflicts without League approval. This contradicts the Constitutional power of the Government of SimDemocracy to declare war or conduct sanctions at its own discretion.
[8] This is further reinforced even more explicitly in In re War and Peace Act 2024 [2024] SDSC 1
- [8.1] “[21] It thus becomes clear that the President may only agree to treaties which fit within their already existing authority. Treaties agreed to by the President may under no circumstance violate SimDemocracy law, something which is also true for all other kinds of foreign affairs, declarations of war and peace or otherwise.”
[9] Put together, these reinforce the existent fact that the Constitution of SimDemocracy is a higher law than any international treaty.
[10] There then rises the second vector, that being the external vector of the Charter’s own requirements for SimDemocracy. In this case, the Charter requires that parties to it agree to comply with binding resolutions generated by the League of Servers. As SimDemocracy is governed solely by its own Constitution, and given that the League of Server’s external binding resolutions are not explicitly bound to obey SimDemocracy’s Constitution, this question of priority absolutely and immediately defaults to SimDemocracy’s Constitution taking precedence.
- [10.1] Of note, where the power to negotiate and sign treaties is a power granted by the Constitution, such powers cannot be used generally to change or supersede the Constitution itself, excepting the explicit process of amendment.
[11] This then creates the interesting question, that because the President is bound to conduct treaties which do not contradict SimDemocracy’s existing law, can SimDemocracy ever comply with the League of Server’s membership requirements? The simple answer here of course is that no, a treaty agreed to by a President cannot contravene SimDemocracy law, meaning that SimDemocracy never met the League of Servers’ membership requirements, meaning that the membership never came into force and thus that it’s terms were never legally binding.
Decision
[12] Because SimDemocracy’s Constitution and other laws trump treaties arranged by a sitting president, and because SimDemocracy never met the League of Servers’ membership requirements, SimDemocracy was never and could never be a member of the League of Servers under the established Charter.
[13] As such, any action carried out by a president (or carried out by a subordinate under presidential direction) which contravened SimDemocracy’s established law at the time of the action, taken in pursuit of compliance with a League of Servers obligation, resolution, or other direction, is retroactively null and void.
- [13.1] Any individual impacted by such actions reserves the right to seek remedy through the courts upon request.
[A1] As a post-script, I would like to highlight that Justice Ivy Cactus objected not to my introduction as a whole, but to my original wording of this line in particular where I had previously asserted “woke communism” generally to be opposed to the private ownership of firearms, whereas Justice Ivy Cactus asserts this to be a symptom of “libtardom” in particular, and as such was amended.
CONCURRING OPINION by Justice Muggy
[A1] I write in part for the bit, just like my fellow Justices, as I feel like this decision is the appropriate place to do so, but also to expand upon some thoughts reached by the majority, while simultaneously presenting my own wild ramblings.
[A2] To begin, it is of my opinion that the majority overlooks the ability of the Senate and citizenry to make a piece of legislation equal to the Constitution through vote and referendum. While it seems unorthodox, it would essentially be like an amendment to the Constitution, which is fully within the rights of the Senate to do. So long as it conforms to the Bill of Rights, and further, Terms of Service, there does not exist a world in which the Senate cannot make a co-equal statute to the Constitution through passage in its own chambers and consequential referendum.
[A3] There exists limits to the Senate’s ability to supersede the Constitution, however, as any statute, whether co-equal to the Constitution or not, must conform to the Bill of Rights, and if not, must permissibly infringe on the rights of the citizenry as laid out in Article 29 of the Constitution, and as upheld by a competent court through judicial review, with the numerous tests laid out in the past acting as their guidance.
[A4] An argument certainly exists where if a treaty or statute that is made co-equal to the Constitution massively impairs the ability of the State of SimDemocracy to function, being its ability to effectively enforce the law, the rights of the citizenry, or ensure the continued existence of the State, it may violate the so-called “spirit of the Constitution,” but I digress, for that is a question for a future court to answer, and not a midnight concurrence to.
[A5] Generally, the majority errs in its assessment that the League of Servers Charter, as enacted by Executive Order, infringed on the powers and authority of the executive and the President. Any restriction presented by the League of Servers Charter on executive power should be considered as the President willfully not exercising their authority to carry out certain actions, like declaring war, and not an outright infringement on executive authority. Even so, like any Executive Order, future Presidents can (and did) simply ignore the restrictions placed on their authority by said Executive Order, as the President cannot limit those who proceed him, requiring statutory or constitutional provisions doing so.
[A6] The majority also overlooks that it is not the purview of this Court to define whether an external organization recognized the State of SimDemocracy as a member state of its organization. We may be the arbiters of issuing opinions on statute, which includes treaties, whether passed by the Senate or not, but we are limited to questions posed to us as they pertain to our own jurisdiction (see [8] of Reference re Treaty of Nolandia [2025] SDSC 16). It is my opinion, and of the opinion of this Court through the majority as well, however, that internally, as we did not meet the criteria for membership, any actions taken in pursuit of compliance with the charter that contradicted statute or the Constitution, are null and void.
[A7] For the above reasons, I respectfully concur.
CONCURRING OPINION by Chief Justice Ed
[B1] The majority correctly finds that EO 122-04 cannot bring the League of Servers Charter into effect, and that SimDemocracy's Constitution supersedes any treaty. I write separately to address an inaccuracy in [7.1].
[B2] The law at the time allowed the President to unilaterally enter into treaties, provided they did not overrule legislation nor exceed the President's own existing authority. The majority finds that the Charter's restriction on the Government's power to declare war on, and to sanction the League, violated these requirements.
[B3] At the time, the power to initiate hostilities rested solely with the President. A President agreeing not to declare war against the League falls squarely within their own authority and contradicts no law. The President is simply choosing, within their own authority, not to exercise that power in a particular way. The sanctions point alone however is sufficient to sustain [11] and thus the decision. I concur.
CONCURRING OPINION by Justice Terak
[C1] While I agree with the majority in this ruling, two points need to be expanded upon, as they come up in this decision and are important pieces of theory, even if they do not impact the material consequences of this ruling. (The careful reader might recognize them from [15] and [19], given I raised these points before my colleague was confirmed upon the bench though, these points deserve to be presented in their original arguments here as well).
[C2] Legal authority is derived from the population and crystalized in the state as an instrument of the public's will. As such the text of the constitution, as the foundation of the state, needs to be able to be amended and changed as the population demands. Such is expressed in the Senate's decisions, subject to confirmation by the voting population of SimDemocracy. As it is the population of a State from which it derives its power, any violation of this general principle would be a violation to the very idea of a democracy. Thus the Public takes a role as a legislator of its own kind, the constitutional legislator.
[C3] The Constitution is just a vehicle to express the constitutional legislators' will on how the state should be formed and how the complex rules of interrelation that make up a community should be governed on the broadest level. As such, the constitution can at any point be amended. But amendment, as an action, is just the changing of a text. The Power of the Constitutional Legislator goes beyond that. For if it should decide to replace all parts of the whole, is the product the same thing it was before such a change? While I do not strive to answer the question of the Ship of Theseus fully here, the question does yield an answer to this theory. When the constitutional legislator is able to replace all parts of the whole, it also has to be able to replace the whole itself.
[C4] In practice this means the constitutional legislator has the ability to replace the constitution if it so wishes. But can this only mean one text can be replaced by another? No, in theory the effect of the constitution could be spread amongst multiple equal texts, as long as there does not arise a systemic conflict between them. But the power of the constitutional legislator goes further still. Given its power to fundamentally govern the powers and instruments of state, it is also able to join with another. To merge its own instruments of power with another and create a new set of doctrines to govern the new. In theory SimDemocracy could merge with other, equal, entities out there to form a new polity. Such a body might decide to have a new highest law but keep the constitution below that still, allowing for the persistence of the current hierarchy of law, with merely a new high order being added between the constitution and the Terms of Service.
[C5] Given how far ranging such a change would be, it would require the same process that a full replacement of the Constitution would require, especially upholding the protections of the constitution at the time of the conduct of such a process.
[C6] Secondly, as Justice Muggy has correctly adopted, Justice TheLittleSparty overreached in [11]. The Supreme Court does hold ultimate judicial power within SimDemocracy, but not beyond that. It is this court's power to declare that this server never legally adopted the charter of the LoS and none of its legal artifacts ever unfolded an effect upon SimDemocracy. It is another question though if the LoS wants to see our membership as never having existed in the first place or a rescinded after the fact. It is not within this court's power to make such a declaration for an external party beyond its sphere of competence. Such a determination will have to be made by the competent authorities of the LoS. Where such a decision claims to unfold an effect upon SimDemocracy though, be it now or in the past, such notion is quashed through the majority in this ruling.
CONCURRING OPINION by Justice Ivy Cactus
[D1] I agree with the court’s main conclusion, but write separately to affirm and outline some important historical notes in reference to certain positions taken by my colleagues in their concurrences, as well as by the court itself.
[D2] In [28], Justice Terak writes of a hypothetical scenario where SimDemocracy passes a treaty in the form of Constitutional law, allowing it to take equal Constitutional footing with other, more traditional, provisions of the document. Indeed, he states that such a law could make SimDemocracy beholden to an international body, if it so chooses.
[D3] This is certainly right because, of course, it has happened before! The case that first comes to mind is “The Alliance” passed between SimDemocracy and DemocracyExperiment (as outlined in Reference re Treaties [2021] SDSC 4). In said verdict, the court outlined that “[a treaty] could also be passed as a Constitutional Amendment, with all the powers and restrictions that the process entails.”
[D4] An important thing to note here is the “restrictions.” Our Constitution has a multilayered format, with the Bill of Rights placed above the rest of the document. It would stand to reason that a treaty, even one passed with Constitutional power, could not be used to violate rights unless such language was explicitly added to the Bill of Rights itself (or, indeed, the new treaty - if handled correctly, although that is not the route I would go down).
[D5] This all being said, the LoS charter was not a Constitutional amendment, it wasn’t even passed by the Senate! As such, the treaty can not sign away nor take initiative on anything that is outside the immediate control of the President and the executive under their command. The Chief Justice calls out Article 9e, which prevents member states from sanctioning others. I disagree with the assessment that the problem lies here. Enacting sanctions on other States is a matter of foreign policy, and as such the President has the authority to initiate or not initiate it, it is within the President's authority, then, to promise that he will not. It is for the same reason that [7.1] is wrongly decided.
[D6] That being said, there are major issues with the treaty that make it unconstitutional. Article 9 section g states that member states must give passage to league dignitaries if necessary. This would require SimDemocracy to give passage to any person(s) the league sees fit— regardless of any current laws. This is clearly not a power within the President’s sole purview, as both the Senate and the Judiciary can, at times, prevent people from entering (or remove people) from SimDemocracy. The President is not allowed to sign away abilities that rightfully belong to another branch. Likewise, Article 9j would prevent the Senate from passing a law which restricts certain types of treaties and results in SimDemocracy from exiting the treaty under certain circumstances. It would likewise, comedically, prevent certain forms of a verdict such as this. This is clearly outside of the powers of the President alone, and as such the LoS EO was never legal.
[D7] I agree with Justice Terak’s points about whether the foreign organization recognizes us or not being outside of our purview, and the points made by both him and Justice Muggy broadly. There are subtleties where I diverge, that need not be outlined in the concurrence, but are likely to crop up later in a, for lack of a better term, more “coherent” verdict.
[D8] All that being said, the Executive Order itself was, clearly, not within the powers of the President to sign, and as such I concur.