SD v Guava 2025 Crim 95
SD v Guava [2025] Crim 95
| Date of judgment | 22nd October 2025 |
| Judge |
Judge Terak |
| Decision | The joint motion to dismiss is accepted. |
| Result | Case dismissed without prejudice |
| Applicable persuasive precedent |
|
JUDGMENT by Judge Terak
[1] On the motion to close the proceedings based on a joint motion by both parties without a Plea Deal at the Trial Stage.
[2] The parties have presented before the court a joint motion to end the proceedings of an ongoing judicial proceedings.
[3] The Parties have reached a settlement agreement, similar in nature to a plea deal but distinctly different, mainly but not solely because a Plea Deal has to be submitted in the Pre-Trial.
[4] The CPA makes a final determination on procedure, it is binding for the conduct of all trials to ensure fairness for all parties brought before a Court.
[5] The CPA does not know a way for a case to be dropped when the Trial Proceedings are already underway, thus the law mandates that the Trial proceedings are needed to be continued.
[6] The joint motion creates an interesting problem.
[7] A trial is an expression of the public need to prosecute a crime, both to prevent its repetition, punish the criminal and serve the public need to determine guilt. A plea deal satisfies this as it makes determination on all of these and has to be accepted by all parties to the trial. The joint motion, paired with a signed settlement might constitute an analogue situation.
[8] The court is empowered to hear any motion brought before it.
[9] Through the close similarities between the joint motion combined with the signed settlement agreement, I order its execution and implementation. Accordingly I order these proceedings closed.
[10] As expressed in the signed settlement, a need for prosecution has been settled for now and upholding the proceedings would run counter to the interests of justice and the rights of the people involved.
[11] The motion by defence to attach prejudice to this motion is rejected. There was no prejudicial element and the mutual agreement between the parties is taken as indicative of a somewhat cooperative stance by the state, meaning no heightened protection from further prosecution is needed.
Ruling on the Motion to Hold the Supreme Court in Contempt of Court
Issued by Judge Terak on 27 September 2025
Introduction to the matter
[A1] A motion has been raised by the Plaintiffs Counsel in Civ. 22 which was supported by the Prosecution by providing legal arguments that support it. The Court shall thus treat it as a joint motion by both sides.
[A2]The same motion with the same arguments was raised in Crim. 95, over which this court presides as well. There the same counsellors are active, thus the court shall consider it a joint motion by both sides for that trial as well.
[A3] Given the motions are verbatim identical and linked between the Courtrooms by forwarding messages the Court shall rule once in a way which shall be shared with both Courtrooms, this ruling unfolding legal effect for both courtrooms.
[A4] The motion was put forward to refer the Justices of the Supreme Court of SimDemocracy(SC) to the Department of Justice for Contempt of Court under Art. 21.1 §1 and 21.3 §§1-4 of the Criminal Code 2020 for acting “in a manner that disrupts judicial proceedings or prejudices the administration of justice”. The Court is therein interpreting 21.1 and 21.3 to refer to the corresponding subsections of the Criminal Code as no such sections exist in the law. Therein the Court is applying Subsection 1 §1 and Subsection 3 §§1-4 of Article 21 respectively.
[A5] The Court takes notice of the language in Art. 21 Subdivision 1 Subsection 3 §§2,3 Criminal Code in that such a referral may result in the DoJ refusing to prosecute the Case and the Court thus receiving the discretional power to appoint an attorney to prosecute the case under the Courts authority.
Factual Finding
[A6] Both cases, despite their differences, given they are dealing with widely different areas of law, share that they have elements their cases relate to connected to cases before the SC. In the criminal matter the case rested on account of an ongoing judicial review of a law that unfolded a direct impact upon the case. In the civil matter the cases rested because of an appeal raised against a court order for a subpoena against the Department of Justice.
[A7] The Court takes notice that at the time of writing a FOI Request by the presiding Judge has resulted in clarity having been established as to the previously secret internal procedure of the Supreme Court as it relates to their procedure, including in how and when to pick up cases.
[A8] In the judicial review of the TCAA a majority of Justices voted to hear the review but finally the Chief Justice, as in line with provided internal procedure decided the Supreme Court would not hear the case. This was, to the knowledge of the Court at this time, in legal order.
[A9] In the appeal proceedings the SC, despite having been noticed by providing information to all 5 Justices, did not acknowledge the existence of the Appeal for an extended timeframe, causing a great delay in the civil trial. Upon repeated questioning and pinging the matter was put upon the SC Judicial Docket and the Chief Justice has personally assured the presiding judge that internal encouragement for a quick decision on standing would be provided, which the court takes note of indeed resulted in the matter having picked up for the oral argument stage at this time.
[A10] The Court further takes notice that the time for proceedings before the Supreme Court is very long and cases sometimes seem to get missed or cases pushed further back on the docket than their judicial relevance might suggest.
The Law regarding contempt of Court
[A11] Firstly the legal basis for a contempt of Court decision needs to be explored.
[A12] Art. 9 §1 of the Constitution establishes the basis for judicial power and sets a scope for it. Judges are to wield power in the interest of the people. This is obviously not meant to mean judgements are to orient themselves upon political ideologies dominant in SimDemocracy nor follow the directions of loud social groups. Instead the will of the majority as manifested in the law and the constitution need to be followed. Further the interest of the people in combination with the Right to a Fair trial serves as a basis for various judicial rights that can be read from this systematic approach to the Constitution.
- [A12.1] It is in the interest of the people to stand before an unbiased court that adheres to the law and applies it without favour. They have the right for a swift trial, or at least a trial as swift as possible. They have the right to be heard before a judge or a justice and not another officer of the state. They have the right to petition the court and it is in the interest of the people that the courts allow and support the work of counsellors to enable citizens to protect their rights.
[A13] Article 21 of the Criminal Code establishes Contempt of Court as a Crime. Article 21 sets out three possible ways to be in contempt of court. The most obvious ones, being in violation/disobeying a court order. The Inferior Court does not have an inherent legal power power to order the Supreme Court, unless in cases of possible violations of basic rights and requests for an issuance of an order to enforce such basic rights, or special legal circumstances. Although, any scenario in which a citizen might seek to request an inferior court to enforce a basic right against the Supreme Court seems rather theoretical like cases in which all Justices intentionally and willfully deny a party's access to the Courtroom without reason or similar blatant cases which probably will not manifest in practice.
[A14] Secondly a person can breach a legal obligation to the Court or fail to perform a mandatory undertaking before the court. A mandatory undertaking is founded on the need to comply with an obligation to the court so the two variants are virtually identical. The question is whether the SC has a legal obligation to the court. The question if the appellant in Civ. 22 has a right to the SC deciding in a timely manner and thus has the SC would be forced to respond to them in given time will not be reviewed here. The basic right to a fair trial can not be viewed as extending an obligation to the SC to respond in a given timeframe as long as the case is put on the rota and voted on by the SC.
[A15] A different case is given if the case is filed to protect a right or interest. In that case unnecessary delay in hearing a case before the SC would directly violate the parties interest in the trial in the first place, thus denying them the chance of even achieving their legitimate goal before the court and thus denying them a fair trial.
[A16] Lastly the SC could have acted in a matter that either disrupted proceedings or prejudiced the administration of justice.
[A17] Disrupting Judicial Proceedings means acting in a manner which interferes with the orderly conduct of the Court or the Judicial Proceedings. This clause is meant to protect the Proceedings themselves in the Courtroom. It can cover conduct in adjacent channels that has the potential to spill over or directly affect the ongoing proceedings (for example: mass pings of the party or the court access role, vandalising of court documents or even stuff like hacking a party to prevent their participation, abuse of permission to mess with a courtroom or even deleting the room, the list is long). Simply not acting is not covered here as disruption is a positive act to interfere with the court. Failure to act is a passive action, it is a not doing, but no disruption caused from it alone.
[A18] The act of prejudicing the administration of justice includes any action that influences the court's perception of a matter or influences the integrity of the judicial process. This last variant is the broadest of them all. As a form of conduct is able to prejudice the Court or a party standing before the court, contempt of court is fulfilled.
[A19] The Contempt law needs to be seen now under the rules of the constitution. The standards for contempt of court, by the letter of the law, are extremely low. Even speaking out of order in court could be seen as contempt of court for disrupting judicial proceedings. Thus the constitution needs to be applied to limit the very broad scope of the contempt rules.
[A20] Only a breach that actually touches upon the basic rights of the parties or breaches the public's interest in the function of the Court can be qualified as contempt. To return to the example, a person speaking out of line need only be reminded of the order of the court, not held in contempt. They have not breached any parties rights nor violated the peoples interest in the court and its order.
Applying the Law
[A21] The Supreme Court received petitions in both cases and did take a very long time deciding in each matter. So much is an obvious fact. The question now is, whether this fulfills contempt. In both not hearing and refusing to even acknowledge the existence of a petition the court harmed the ability of the parties to make their case before the court. It needs to be said here that not the decision not to hear a case is the problem, but the fact that taking such a decision takes months, as this drags out trials to such a point that the parties and the court need to re-familiarise themselves with the case, harming lines of argument and reasoning. Further, in case of the criminal trial, detention is suffered during pre-trial detention, and in case of the civil case, missed pay is suffered or the potential winnings from using or enjoying the rewards from the case if won. Preventing unjust detention or intentionally withholding a person's owed payments is against the system of the law as expressed through the constitution and the laws of SimDemocracy. It thus is in the public interest that such laws are upheld, pre-trial detention limited to the necessary timeframe for a regular trial and payments potentially owed paid out. Given the SCs delays harmed the parties abilities to make their cases in court and caused extreme delays before the court, materially, the SC has influenced the conduct of a trial not before them, and thus prejudiced the trials, thus being in contempt of court.
On the standing of a motion to hold the SC in contempt of court
[A22] It is highly questionable whether the SC can even be held in contempt of court, not because of some form of immunity but because of simple questions of standing.
- [A22.1] For this question In re TheReak Contempt of Court [2023] SDSC 2 seems extraordinarily relevant. In it, Justice Literal (now the AG and petitioner in this matter) held that the accused need not be a party in a trial to be held in contempt of it. Or at least that is what the applicable precedent derived from it claims. And this is where matters become hard to untangle.
[A23] Formatting in the CLI has a box at the head of each decision and verdict or ruling that captures applicable precedent. This system is copied for the purposes of the Secretary Name National Archives. In this box it recorded that it is binding precedent a person need not necessarily be a party to judicial proceedings to be held in contempt of court. Both the CLI and the Archives concur that this is the recorded precedent. Applying this results in an easy decision, the SC can be held in contempt no matter if they are a party or if they aren’t a party.
- [A23.1] Reading the actual opinion of the Justice causes concerns for this case though. For clarities sake I will cite the relevant section here: “The Criminal Code defines direct contempt of court as “acting in a manner that disrupts judicial proceedings or prejudices the administration of justice.” I need not decide what constitutes acting in such a manner in this case. Importantly, I see no reason to construe this definition to limit who may be held in contempt of court to only those who are parties to ongoing proceedings.”, the attentive reader will note that the SC was very vague in their actual decision here as it was a prima facie matter. Given the actual text needs to be binding, not just the summary, the court is not bound by the box at the top but instead by the actual language of the Decision rendered. The summary of the precedent on top does not unfold legally binding effect.
[A24] To recapitulate. A person did still possess a court access role and used it to post in a court room out of order. Thus the person directly disrupted a judicial proceeding in front of the court using access as if they were a party. The Justice was extremely vague in their ruling. But taking a look at the circumstances and the facts of the case the decision needs to be understood to mean that, while speaking in a courtroom, a person can be in contempt of court without being a party to the actual proceedings, meaning a person with admin permissions that has access, or a person still holding a court access role, can be in contempt if they abuse their access.
[A25] Secondly the section of the law is cited, the rules for contempt of Court have changed in the last years though and can not simply be applied 1 to 1 onto this case. The Senate has passed the Criminal Code (Amendment) Act to clarify what being in contempt means and to limit the procedure judges can employ, limiting the previous broader scope. This replaced the previous rules. See Art. 1 §1.1. of the Act. Thus any ruling under the previous law can only apply as far as the general procedure has not changed.
[A26] The new Art. 21 Criminal Code in its Subdivision 1 Subsection 2 clarifies against whom such a case can be brought. §1 of Subsection 2 clarifies that the court may only initiate Contempt of Court proceedings for Contempt of Court in the face of the court for people who are a party in the trial, so the parties, their counsellors, the witnesses and other parties called upon the court. Not bystanders. Thus the legal basis for In re TheReak Contempt of Court [2023] SDSC 2 has been withdrawn by the Senate. New rules were instituted that were intended to not only amend, but replace the previous.
[A27] Thus the previous Court decision needs to be considered moot in its ruling as so far as it held that non-parties can be held liable for contempt of court in the face of the court.
[A28] This leaves the Rule in Subsection 3 §1. This opens the broadest possible avenue for holding someone in indirect contempt of court. It allows the Court to find anyone in contempt of court as long as the act did not occur directly before the court. Given the vast breath of this law, it needs to be judicially reduced to its intended meaning.
- [A28.1] Let's think of an example case. It involves high profile members of the legal community and there is active discussion about the case in the general and court-general chats. As part of this legal and factual discussion members present their opinions and exchange ideas about trial strategies. Since all of these comments, theoretically, could influence the trial, the Judge might decide to hold the speakers in contempt of court since they could influence both their own judgement and the conduct of the parties before the court. That is clearly not the intended way this law should be applied. Thus its application needs to be reduced in line with the judicial powers as outlined above.
[A29] It seems a measure of proximity needs to be applied. The closer the action potentially in contempt and the greater the influence the matter had on the case the greater the possibility to hold a person in contempt of court. Applying this standard to the matter at hand. The SC not picking up a case or not acknowledging a matter causes delays in a trial. Besides that there is no influence on the parties or the Court from the Justices of the SC. Their inaction did materially reach the standard for contempt of court but only barely.
[A30] Further the following needs to be considered. The Constitution gives the SC the power to set their own procedure. This includes how and when to hear cases. As long as they do rule and not abdicate their judicial duty by effectively derelicting their offices to violate their duties they are within their right to decide not to hear a case or how they rule on it. Thus they were within their legal right, which is the interest of the people to uphold as outlined above. Further all of this was communicated mainly through the SDSC Rota, thus not unfolding a relevant cognitive impact on most people and even the observant reader only took notice of these decision by looking for them.
Decision
[A31] Thus I determine the distance between the (in)action to be great enough for the SC to not have the ability to influence the trial criminally and thus be called to be held in contempt on this matter. The SC is not held in contempt.
Extrajudicial Notes
[A32] The fact the Appeal of the AG was missed even though the Justices were pinged, as was the Secretary, and only picked up after repeated pings by the Court in the Judicial Chambers, hints at an organisational failing within the court and I urge the Justices to review where their internal administration failed to register an appeal and take the necessary actions to prevent a repeat.