In re EO 145-03 2026 SDCR 5
In re Executive Order 145-03 [2026] SDCR 5
| Date of judgment | 11th January 2026 |
| Judge(s) |
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| Held | Petition Dismissed |
| Ruling | 3-0 |
| Applicable precedent |
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MAJORITY OPINION by Judge Hmquestionable
(With Chief Judge Muggy and Judge Ppatpat agreeing)
Introduction
[1] This case is a Judicial Review of Executive Order 145-03, which reads:
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Whereas party announcements is rarely used, Whereas party announcements was more active when the 'subscribe' feature was used, Whereas we need a minimum member count to avoid hitting the limit on servers that one channel can subscribe to, §1. Executive Order 136-08 and Executive Order 136-10 are hereby repealed in their entirety. §2. The channel currently titled “party-announcements” shall continue to exist under this Executive Order. §3. If a party has 8 members or more (which shall be measured using the number of people that have the party role on discord), the Party Leader may ask the Discord Supervisor to subscribe to party-announcements from the announcements channel in the party server.
§4. Nobody shall be able to speak in party-announcements without using the discord subscribe feature. |
[2] The petitioner alleges that this order violates Articles 17 and 18 of the Constitution, which protect Equality before the Law and Freedom of Expression respectively.
Equality before the Law
[3] We will first consider the matter of Equality before the Law. As this Court previously held in In re Article 4 s2. of the Government Proceedings Act [2025] SDCR 13, there is a 3-step test for determining whether something violates Article 17 protections.
- “[13.1] First, we test if the policy or law causes dichotomy. That is to say, multiple ways of handling cases which are not differentiated from each other by way of a standard which is strictly adhered to.
- [13.2] Secondly, we test if the standard used is one based on a protected characteristic.
- [13.3] Finally, we test if the standard used is reasonable, taking into account the objective of the policy or law.”
[4] We will now apply the test. The first limb of the test, whether there is a dichotomy of choice, is satisfied. There is a standard of having “a party [with] 8 members or more” before the Discord Supervisor is allowed to subscribe to the party’s announcements channel. The petitioner has not shown that the standard is not being adhered to, and we will hence not assume that to be so.
[5] The second limb of the test is also satisfied. The number of members in a party is not a “protected characteristic” under Article 17 §3 of the Constitution. It is important to note that “political beliefs” does not protect having a low number of members in a party, it simply makes discrimination based on the objectives, policies, or other beliefs of a party a banned classification.
[6] The third limb of the test is satisfied as well. The “objective of the policy” is stated in the preamble, which reads: “Whereas we need a minimum member count to avoid hitting the limit on servers that one channel can subscribe to,”.
[7] Despite Petitioner’s claim that “There additionally does not seem to be a current need to limit the amount of parties allowed to have their announcements broadcast in #party-announcements because we are not at the limit of allowed channels followed”, we are not satisfied that this is so. The article “Discord Account Caps, Server Caps, and More” states that the maximum number of channels that may be followed is 10. Furthermore, the Executive Order states that the minimum is “to avoid hitting the limit”. Hence, we can conclude that the objective of this classification is to prevent the party-announcements channel from reaching 10 followed channels.
[8] Is differentiating between parties based on their member count an appropriate way to do so? We find that it is. The number of members in a party is a neutral way to differentiate between parties, and when the objective of the policy is simply to avoid hitting a limit, it is reasonable to classify parties in this manner. Hence, the third test is satisfied and there is no violation of equality before the law.
Freedom of Expression
[9] We note that the citation of Freedom of Expression is largely inaccurate in this case. Petitioner’s argument under Freedom of Expression is that since the party is not allowed to forward messages to party-announcements, there is a violation of Freedom of Expression. We wish to clarify that Article 18 actually protects the right to speak their mind, and not the right to say it in any specific place. Instead, the petitioner’s argument would be better done under Liberty and Security of the Person. This argument is hence dismissed as well.
Verdict
[10] In conclusion, the Executive Order does not violate Equality before the Law or Freedom of Expression. The petition is hence dismissed.
MAJORITY OPINION by Chief Judge Muggy
(with Judge Ppatpat agreeing)
[11] I believe that the majority is completely correct, and in this concurrence, I wish to elaborate on my views on what a possible argument under Liberty and Security of the Person mentioned in [9] would be, and how this Court could answer that.
[12] Firstly, I believe that simply not being able to speak in a channel like #party-announcements being an argument for an illegal infringement of norms Right to Liberty and Security of the Person would be completely erroneous.
[13] A normal SimDemocracy user not having access to an announcements channel is simply due to them not achieving a status, whether that be an office, party position, or other means to speak in announcement channels, that allows them to speak in said announcement channels.
[14] The purpose of announcement channels has always been for public officials to sufficiently fulfil their duties to the people, which includes being able to announce things in general chat, where it will eventually get buried and no one will end up seeing it.
[15] In this case, the state did not have to give parties a platform at all, and the only reason they’re able to announce things is because they’re parties. Sure, an individual may be making those announcements, but it is through the party that they do so, and if it doesn’t have a sufficient member count, then it won’t be able to announce things in #party-announcmeents. Not to mention it’s a reasonable restriction as to not reach the limit on how many servers a channel can follow, because then no new parties will be able to get in anyways.
Citations
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