REQUEST FOR ELECTIONS TO CONSTITUENT CORTES, DECLARATION THAT THE PRIOR JUDGMENT IS NOT A RULING OF THE COURT AND IS INCONGRUENT

God Knows Appellant · Dec. 6, 2024

BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF SAN CORDOVA

In San Marcos, capital of San Cordova

NEW PETITION UNDER ARTICLE V: REQUEST FOR ELECTIONS TO CONSTITUENT CORTES, DECLARATION THAT THE PRIOR JUDGMENT IS NOT A RULING OF THE COURT AND IS INCONGRUENT, CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE, AND RULING ON THE SUPERVENING INDEPENDENCE OF VALÉNTIA

Petitioner: GOD KNOWS (political party)

Respondents: María Campos, in her capacity as Chancellor of San Cordova; the Government and constitutional authorities of the Union of San Cordova; and the "Democratic" Conservative Party (DCP), without prejudice to the individual determination of responsibility of any person.

Related decision: Judgment of Bukaneros and Opposition against Chancellor María Campos.

---

I. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

1. The central request is elections. God Knows asks the Court to order free elections to constituent cortes by universal suffrage, to be held within thirty (30) days of its judgment. Everything else in this petition either removes an obstacle to those elections, protects the conditions in which they are held, or answers a question the Prior Judgment left unanswered. A people that has been promised a vote only once every ten years cannot be asked to wait longer for the institutions it challenges to decide when, and whether, they will be replaced.

2. This is not an appeal. Article V provides that the rulings of this Court "take direct effect and are not subject to appeal." God Knows respects that rule and does not ask the Court to review the operative part of the Prior Judgment. That part decided one thing: that the appellant had not shown that Chancellor María Campos herself acted illegally.

3. It is a new petition. Article V allows "any party" to come before this Court on three separate grounds: that a law in force is unconstitutional, that a cabinet member or elected officeholder is acting illegally, and that a constitutional amendment is invalid. The Prior Judgment dealt only with the second ground, and narrowly. It expressly left open the questions raised here.

4. The Court said so itself. It stated that it did "not determine today whether San Cordova's constitutional structure should be reformed, whether its amendment procedure is excessively rigid, or whether the powers of the Chancellor should be reduced," and that "those are not the questions properly presented by this proceeding." A question the Court said it had not decided cannot have been decided with the force of res judicata . This petition presents those questions properly.

5. Four matters give the petition its urgency.
- (a) The Prior Judgment is not a ruling of the Court. The Supreme Court has five justices and Article V requires them to rule by majority. The record of the Prior Judgment bears the vote of one justice. The most important constitutional challenge ever brought before this Court was disposed of by one-fifth of its members. That is not a ruling "by majority" and it is not a democratic decision.
- (b) The Prior Judgment is incongruent, and God Knows had asked for the opposite. God Knows expressly requested "a judgment that is congruent and that addresses each of its requests one by one." The Prior Judgment answered a question nobody had asked and left almost every request unanswered. Because congruence is one of the most important principles of any legal order, its violation reveals a grave deficiency of the judicial system itself.
- (c) A supervening fact. As a consequence of the Prior Judgment, which closed the last lawful avenue for constitutional correction, the people of Valéntia have declared themselves an independent nation. That fact did not exist when the Prior Judgment was given and has not been considered by any court.
- (d) The people have never been asked. The constitutional order, the privileged position of one party, the entrenchment of one economic doctrine and the office that oversees the courts have never been put to a vote. Every week of delay shrinks the electorate and strengthens the hand of the incumbent.

6. Relief requested in summary. God Knows asks the Court to:
- (a) order elections to constituent cortes within thirty days, with an impartial electoral authority and interim safeguards;
- (b) declare that the Prior Judgment is not a ruling of the Court within Article V and has no effect of res judicata ;
- (c) declare that it is incongruent, that this is a grave deficiency of the judicial system, and adopt corrective rules;
- (d) decide on the merits, by a recorded majority of the five justices, the questions the Prior Judgment left open, including every request of every party that was not addressed;
- (e) rule on the new situation created by the declaration of independence of Valéntia and prevent its escalation; and
- (f) in the further alternative, declare that no rule of finality can extinguish the constituent power of the people.

7. The petition is made in good faith, in peaceful and lawful terms, and with full respect for the presumption of innocence of every person mentioned.

II. STANDING

8. Article V grants the right to appeal to "any party." God Knows is a political party representing citizens for whom religious conviction is an essential part of individual and community life, and it supports the right of all political and social minorities to present their positions, including the SDPU, the Independentist Force of Valéntia and Legatus Taurii. It is a proper party.

9. God Knows is also directly affected by the provisions under challenge: by the power to regulate political parties and to designate extremist organisations (Article VIII), by the constitutional privilege given to one party (Article XV), by the ten-year electoral cycle (Articles VI and VII), and by an amendment procedure (Article II) that prevents any party outside the Congress from ever obtaining institutional change.

III. THE PRIOR JUDGMENT AND WHAT IT DECIDED

10. The question the Court asked. The Prior Judgment framed the case as an Article V claim "that a cabinet member is acting illegally, with Chancellor Maria Campos as the challenged officeholder," and posed one question: whether the appellant "has established that Chancellor Maria Campos herself has acted illegally under the Constitution."

11. Its statement of jurisdiction. The Court said the case "belongs to the second category" of Article V. It said it could interpret Articles III and VIII "where necessary to determine whether the Chancellor acted unlawfully," but that this did not give it authority, in that proceeding, to alter Article II, redistribute the powers of Article VIII, order new legislative elections or initiate a new constitutional process. It described those requests as extending "beyond the legal question properly before the Court."

12. The holding. The Court held that "No sufficiently specific unlawful act by Chancellor Campos has been established that would justify her removal under the claim presently before the Court," that the appellant had "failed to establish that she was" acting illegally, and denied the appeal.

13. What it expressly declined to decide. The Court said it was asked "to determine illegality, not the possibility that lawful constitutional powers may someday be abused," and in its Holding stated that the structural questions quoted in paragraph 4 were not before it.

14. Its own reasoning separates the structural questions. It said the arguments on Article II, Article XV and Article XVII "primarily challenge the design of the Constitution itself rather than identifying unlawful conduct by María Campos." That is a statement that those arguments belong to a different kind of claim: one directed at the validity of constitutional provisions and amendments. Article V gives the Court jurisdiction over such claims. They were not decided in the Prior Judgment and are brought now.

IV. THE PRIOR JUDGMENT IS NOT A RULING OF THE COURT, AND IT IS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC

15. The facts on the record. Article V provides that "its justices shall rule by majority." The Supreme Court has five justices. The Prior Judgment as it appears in the record is headed "Justice 1 – Deny." It records the opinion and vote of one justice and no vote of the other four.

16. One vote of five is not a majority. In a court of five, a majority requires at least three concurring votes. One vote is one-fifth, or twenty per cent. Even on the most generous reading of "majority" (a majority of those who vote), a majority presupposes a collegial process: that the other justices were convened, read the written claims of the parties, deliberated and had the opportunity to vote. Nothing in the record shows that. A decision taken by one justice is the opinion of one justice.

17. Consequence: no ruling, no direct effect, no res judicata . Article V gives direct effect and finality to "rulings" of "the Court." The opinion of one justice is not a ruling of the Court. It therefore has no direct effect, no finality and no force of res judicata . The finality clause cannot protect it, because that clause protects rulings from appeal and this petition does not appeal anything: it asks the Court to decide, as the Constitution requires, what has not yet been decided.

18. The decision is anti-democratic. God Knows uses the term deliberately and for five reasons.
- (a) Decision by majority is the minimum content of any democratic process. This Court is the guardian of the democratic guarantee of Article III. For it to dispose of a challenge to the whole constitutional order with twenty per cent of its votes contradicts the principle that it is asked to protect.
- (b) The asymmetry is striking. The DCP defends before this Court a threshold of 87% of the seats of the Congress and more than two thirds of the Senado as a guarantee of "near-unanimous national consensus." Under that standard the people may not change a single article without overwhelming consensus, yet their challenge to the entire order was rejected by one justice.
- (c) Without questioning the integrity of any justice, the structure matters: under Article VIII the office whose conduct was under review appoints the justices. In that setting collegiality is the only safeguard of independence, and a decision without it removes that safeguard.
- (d) Under Article V the Court rules on the claims of the parties of San Cordova. In the procedure of San Cordova, which consists of the written claims of every party and a subsequent judgment, that means a judgment of the Court, not of one member, that takes up every claim. The Prior Judgment does not mention the filings of Legatus Taurii, the Independentist Force of Valéntia, the SDPU, the DCP's requests for declarations, or the complaint of God Knows.
- (e) Citizens were told that the Court had spoken. Four of five justices had not. A judicial decision draws its authority from the collective responsibility of the court that gives it, and that authority cannot be borrowed by an individual opinion.

19. Relief requested on this point. God Knows asks the Court to (a) declare that the Prior Judgment is not a ruling of the Court for the purposes of Article V and has no effect of res judicata ; (b) order that this petition be decided by the five justices; and (c) order that the decision on this petition record the vote of each justice by name and be adopted by at least three concurring votes, so that the same defect does not recur.

20. Subsidiary effect. If the Court were to consider that the opinion of one justice can be a ruling, everything that follows in this petition would remain open, because the Prior Judgment, even so read, did not decide the matters raised here.

V. WHAT THE PRIOR JUDGMENT DID NOT DECIDE, AND THEREFORE CANNOT BAR

21. Res judicata requires an identity of parties, of object (what is requested) and of cause (the legal ground). It covers only what was actually and necessarily decided.

22. The Prior Judgment decided only that the appellant did not prove a specific unlawful act by Chancellor Campos in the exercise of her powers. It did not decide: the validity of Articles XV, XVI and XVII as constitutional amendments; whether Article II can be applied to prevent the election of a constituent assembly; whether the powers of Article VIII are compatible with Article III, effective suffrage and judicial independence, including the Chancellor's power to appoint judges; the validity of the amendment creating the Attorney General; any criminal investigation; any interim measure; the detention of believers and demonstrators; any request of Legatus Taurii, the Independentist Force of Valéntia, the SDPU, the DCP or God Knows; or anything arising from the declaration of independence of Valéntia.

23. Different object and different cause. The Prior Judgment concerned the removal of a named officeholder for illegal acts. This petition seeks elections, declarations of invalidity and conforming interpretation, a judicial criminal investigation, interim safeguards and a ruling on a supervening territorial situation. Object and ground are different.

24. Different parties, to the extent applicable. If God Knows was not an appellant in the Prior Judgment, there is no identity of parties, and its claims cannot be affected by a decision to which it was not party.

25. A judgment that does not address a request does not reject it. An omitted request remains pending. Silence is a gap in the judgment, not a decision on the merits.

VI. THE INCONGRUENCE OF THE PRIOR JUDGMENT, AND THE GRAVE DEFICIENCY OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM THAT IT REVEALS

26. A congruent judgment was expressly requested. In its complaint God Knows asked the Court, at the outset and in so many words, for "a judgment that is congruent and that addresses each of its requests one by one," and warned that "anything less would violate the right to effective judicial protection." That request was made before any decision was taken. The Court therefore did not fall into incongruence through ambiguity in the pleadings or surprise. It was told what was required and delivered something else.

27. Congruence is one of the most important principles of the legal order. A court must decide what the parties ask, all of it, and no other question in its place. The principle needs no outside authority: it follows from Article V itself, which lets any party bring a claim and makes the Court its final arbiter, and from the promise of effective participation in Article III. It serves five functions. (a) It gives content to the right to have one's claim decided: a party that files a claim but need not be answered has been given a formality. (b) It keeps the court within its role: it decides the controversy the parties present, not the one it would prefer. (c) It makes the judgment predictable for those who must obey it. (d) It is the foundation of res judicata itself, because nobody can know what has been decided if the judgment does not correspond to what was asked. (e) In a system without appeal, as Article V provides, it is the only guarantee that the first and only decision answers the claim.

28. The Prior Judgment violates congruence in four ways.
- (a) By omission. It left unanswered almost every request of every party. Sections V and X of this petition set out what was not decided. Silence on a request is the classic form of incongruence by omission.
- (b) By substitution. The appellants asked for declarations on the constitutional order, elections and the validity of provisions. The Court replaced that claim with a different and narrower question, whether the Chancellor "herself" had acted illegally, and then answered that question. A court that decides a question nobody asked has not decided the question that was asked.
- (c) Internally. The Prior Judgment acknowledges "serious allegations," "significant powers" vested in the Chancellor, that the Court "may be sympathetic," and that it may interpret Articles III and VIII "where necessary." It never says whether it was necessary, never says what was found of the allegations, and ends by deciding nothing about any of them. The reasoning points toward an examination that the operative part never makes.
- (d) By lack of reasons. It relies on a "previous precedent" without naming it, reaches a conclusion on the material submitted without saying what was considered or what was lacking, and does not respond to a single argument of the DCP, the Independentist Force, Legatus Taurii, the SDPU or God Knows.

29. Why this is a grave deficiency of the judicial system, and not a mere error. Where appeal exists, an incongruent judgment can be corrected. Article V removes that possibility: rulings are final and not subject to appeal. In such a system congruence is the only safeguard of the right to effective judicial protection, and when it fails there is no remedy at all. The failure is therefore not an isolated slip by one justice. It shows that the system, as designed, can reject the most serious constitutional challenge in its history without answering it.

30. What the Prior Judgment reveals about the system. Without attributing bad faith to any justice, God Knows submits that the Prior Judgment reveals six defects of the judicial system of San Cordova:
- (a) there is a single and final instance, with no mechanism to correct omissions or errors of the Court itself;
- (b) the justices are appointed by the office whose conduct they are asked to review (Article VIII), and Article XIV excludes any independent prosecutor or auditor that could counterbalance it;
- (c) there are no known rules on quorum, deliberation or recorded votes, which allowed a decision to be issued with one vote of five;
- (d) there is no rule requiring the Court to identify the precedent it applies, to consider the material submitted by the parties or to answer each request;
- (e) there is no procedure for a supplementary judgment on claims the Court omitted; and
- (f) finality and res judicata are applied so that the first omission becomes permanent, which turns a defect of form into a defect of substance.

31. The consequence for this petition. A judgment that is incongruent cannot have the effect of res judicata on what it did not decide, and cannot be invoked to prevent the Court from deciding it now. The Court is asked to do three things. First, to say that the Prior Judgment is incongruent by omission, by substitution, internally and for lack of reasons. Second, to recognise that this is a grave deficiency of the judicial system. Third, to adopt, as final arbiter under Article V, rules ensuring that its judgments are adopted by majority with recorded votes, are reasoned and are congruent, together with a procedure to supplement a judgment that omits a claim.

VII. THE NEED FOR ELECTIONS

32. Elections are what Article III promises. Article III states that "the right to vote shall belong to every adult resident." That right has meaning only if it can be exercised often enough, and on questions important enough, to change the course of government. Under the present order citizens vote once every 120 months, for chambers that cannot amend the Constitution without the consent of a bloc of 13% of the Congress, and they are never asked about the constitutional order itself. A vote that can decide nothing that matters is a vote in form only.

33. Only an election can measure consensus. The DCP argues that the 87% threshold ensures that the Constitution changes only with "near-unanimous national consensus," and that the petitioners' inability to reach it "merely proves that their proposals lack the broad consensus required." That argument assumes the Congress measures the consensus of the people. It does not: it measures the composition of one chamber, elected under the very order that is being challenged. The only instrument that measures the consensus of a people is a free and competitive election. The DCP cannot at once invoke consensus and resist the only means of verifying it.

34. The constitutional order has never been put to the vote. So far as the record shows, the people have never been asked whether they accept a party named in the Constitution (Article XV), an economic doctrine fixed in it (Articles XVI and XVII), or an office that oversees the courts (the Attorney General amendment). Those provisions were adopted by a Congress in which one party is the only one represented. The Constitution begins "We the people of San Cordova." It is entitled to the people's judgment.

35. Every week of delay shrinks and distorts the electorate. Article III gives the vote to adult residents. Citizens who leave the country lose the vote they were promised, and the exodus described in the filings makes the electorate smaller and less representative every week. Delay also gives the incumbent time to use the powers of party regulation, designation of extremist organisations, police and pardon (Article VIII) to shape the field before the vote. An election postponed is an election tilted.

36. Elections are the answer on which every party converges. The Bukaneros, Legatus Taurii, the Independentist Force of Valéntia, the SDPU and God Knows each asked, in one form or another, for free elections. The DCP's brief does not say why the people should not be asked. Elections are the one remedy that every filing shares and the only lawful alternative to action outside the constitutional order, which is where the declaration of independence of Valéntia shows that unanswered claims end up.

37. Elections do not decide for the people. The Court is not asked to choose a government, an economic model or a territorial outcome. As Legatus Taurii put it, the Court is asked not to govern in the place of the people but to restore the legal conditions under which the people may govern themselves. Any party, including the DCP, may win. A party that believes it enjoys the confidence of the people has no reason to fear their vote.

38. Why constituent cortes. An election to the ordinary chambers under the present rules would return the people to the same structure: the same veto of Article II, the same privilege of Article XV, the same concentration of powers in Article VIII. The question the people must answer is constitutional, so the body they elect must have a constituent mandate. That is the primary relief requested. In the alternative, if the Court prefers to order elections to the Congress of Deputies and the Senado, as the Bukaneros and Legatus Taurii asked, God Knows asks that they be held within a short period fixed by the Court, and that the elected chambers receive an express mandate to open a constitutional review in which the people decide whether the Constitution is to be amended or replaced.

39. The elections are not an amendment and do not need the majorities of Article II. Article II regulates how the constituted organs may amend an existing text. It says nothing about the people electing an assembly to write or revise a constitution. To read it as forbidding that would contradict the first sentence of the Constitution, by which the people establish it.

40. Feasibility. Both chambers are directly elected under Articles VI and VII, so electoral machinery already exists. Article III already requires that adult residents be identifiable. The Court can designate an impartial electoral authority answerable only to it, fix the timetable for nominations, campaign and polling, and apply the existing electoral rules to the extent that they are compatible with free suffrage. Thirty days is a maximum; the Court may fix a shorter period.

41. Conditions of the election. The elections must be free, competitive and equal for every party. They require freedom of expression, association, assembly and conscience throughout the campaign, no use of public funds or powers for the benefit of any party or candidate, an impartial electoral authority, and the interim safeguards in Section IX.F. The Court should also determine the rules under which citizens who recently left the country may take part, as the Independentist Force of Valéntia asked.

42. Why the Court, and why now. Article V makes the Court the final arbiter and gives its rulings direct effect. No other organ can act: the Congress cannot amend the Constitution without 87% of its seats, which a bloc of 13% can deny, and the Chancellor holds the powers that elections would put at stake. If the Court declines to order elections, no organ of the Constitution can. The Prior Judgment described these questions as "not the questions properly presented." They are presented now, and the Court is asked to decide them.

VIII. SUPERVENING FACT: THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF VALÉNTIA

43. The fact. After the Prior Judgment, the people of Valéntia (the Kingdom of Valéntia, “Regne de Valéntia”, historically the “Terra de Valéntia i de lo Ratpenat”) declared themselves an independent nation. God Knows brings this to the Court as a supervening fact. A fact that arises after a judgment is by definition not covered by it. It is a new circumstance that raises new questions under Articles I, III and V.

44. What the Independentist Force of Valéntia asked. The Independentist Force filed in support of the Bukaneros appeal. It did not ask for independence by judicial decree. It asked the Court to "restore the conditions of genuine political choice" and to protect "the people's ability to decide." Its prayer contained seventeen requests, among them: recognition that the constitutional guarantee of participation protects effective, not merely formal, participation; recognition of the interest of the people of Valéntia in determining their constitutional future by peaceful and democratic means; a declaration that advocacy of independence or of other constitutional change cannot be treated as illegitimate activity; free and competitive elections in which competing constitutional programmes may be presented; the establishment or restoration of a lawful mechanism through which the constitutional future of Valéntia may be publicly debated and democratically determined; a prohibition of discriminatory restrictions on peaceful constitutional advocacy; recognition of the interests of Valentian citizens who emigrated to Magna Taura, Sveria and other countries; and judicial supervision. It also asked, by an additional petitum , for the judicial investigation of allegations of conduct by the Chancellor against minority communities. The Prior Judgment answered none of it.

45. The causal link. The Court is not responsible for the choices of a people. But a court of last resort that declines, without reasons and by the vote of one justice, to say whether the constitutional order leaves any lawful way to reconsider itself, leaves political communities with a stark choice between permanent acquiescence and acting outside the order. The Independentist Force put the point in terms: the duty of the Court "is to ensure that the Government cannot close the constitutional door through which the people may peacefully determine that future." The door was left closed, and the declaration of independence followed. The Prior Judgment is therefore not only incomplete. Its practical effect has been to push a peaceful and lawful claim out of the constitutional channel in which it had been presented. This is the practical cost of the incongruence described in Section VI.

46. The principles that apply. God Knows does not ask the Court to endorse or condemn independence. It asks the Court to apply three principles drawn from the Constitution itself and from reason:
- (a) Popular sovereignty is the premise of the Constitution. The Constitution begins with the words of the people, and Article III gives every adult resident a share in the determination of government. A people that holds the constituent power cannot be denied a peaceful means of deciding on its political status.
- (b) A constitutional order must offer a lawful and peaceful way to reconsider itself. If it does not, it leaves communities no choice but to act outside it. Article II, with its 87% threshold, makes the lawful way unreachable.
- (c) Disagreements between communities that cannot be settled by decree are settled by negotiation in good faith and by the free vote of those concerned. Neither silence nor force can substitute for either.

47. What follows for San Cordova. The declaration raises questions that only this Court can answer under Article V as final arbiter: the status of the territory and of residents under Articles I and III; the use of the powers of Article VIII (martial law, declaration of war, command of the armed forces and police, intelligence, extremist designations, regulation of parties) against Valéntia or its citizens; the fate of persons detained or investigated for peaceful advocacy; and the manner in which the question is to be resolved democratically. God Knows asks the Court to:
- (a) declare that these questions are justiciable under Article V;
- (b) declare that, pending a democratic settlement, the powers of Article VIII may not be used against Valéntia, its authorities, its citizens or its political organisations for the peaceful advocacy or exercise of self-determination, and that no resort to force, martial law or war may be used to resolve the question;
- (c) declare that the rights of Article III of every adult resident remain in force, and that no person may be punished or labelled extremist for peaceful advocacy of independence, union or any intermediate arrangement;
- (d) declare that the constituent cortes requested in this petition, or a supervised consultation convened by them or by the Court, shall have competence to address the territorial question through an agreed democratic procedure with a clear question, equal conditions for all positions, and negotiation in good faith of the result;
- (e) rule on each of the requests of the Independentist Force of Valéntia, including the participation of Valentian citizens abroad, in accordance with the rules the Court determines; and
- (f) include in the judicial investigation requested in this petition the allegations concerning conduct against minority communities, subject to the presumption of innocence.

48. God Knows' position. The legitimacy of the future of Valéntia belongs to the people concerned. Those who wish independence, those who wish union and those who wish something between must all be free to present their case and to vote. That is the only position consistent with the principle that no one may decide for the people what the people must decide for themselves.

IX. THE NEW CLAIMS ON THE MERITS

A. Article V, third ground: the invalidity of Articles XV, XVI and XVII

49. Article V empowers the Court to decide the claim that "a constitutional amendment is invalid." The Constitution does not define invalidity. The only coherent reading is that an amendment is invalid when it contradicts the premises on which the Constitution rests: that "We the people of San Cordova... establish this Constitution" (Preamble) and that the right to vote belongs to every adult resident (Article III). The text is not limited to procedural defects, as the DCP suggests when it says that the petitioners "do not challenge the procedural validity" of any amendment. If it were, the third ground would have no content beyond what can be seen from the record of a vote.

50. Article XV states that "This amendment recognizes the Democratic Conservative Party as a key party of San Cordova." Read together with Article VIII (the Chancellor regulates political parties and designates extremist organisations) and with the fact that the DCP is the only party represented in the Cortes, it places one organisation in a constitutionally privileged position, incompatible with the political equality that gives Article III its meaning. The DCP's own answer confirms the problem: it says the article "reflects the factual reality of the DCP's role in securing the Union." If the status has no legal effect, the article is empty. If it has legal effect, it breaches political equality. Either way it cannot stand as written.

51. Article XVI entrenches a retirement policy against ordinary legislation. Article XVII goes much further. It fixes a particular economic doctrine as constitutional, prohibits new regulation across large sectors (artificial intelligence, banking, arms exports, automation, fossil fuels, vehicle emissions), forbids welfare and redistributive programmes, states that no person has a constitutional entitlement to government economic support, and declares void any contrary law. The effect is to remove entire areas of policy from every future electorate and legislature.

52. That is not an amendment of the Constitution. It is the substitution of the people's will with the will of the majority that adopted it. A constitution that rests on popular sovereignty cannot use its amendment clause to declare that, in these matters, no future people shall decide. The DCP says Article XVII is "a bulwark against the exact socialist and interventionist policies that the Petitioners openly desire." That is an admission that the article is a partisan programme and not a neutral constitutional principle. Free speech and due process protect individuals from the State; Article XVII does something different, because it decides in advance the economic policy of every future government.

B. Article II cannot be used to prevent the people from electing a constituent assembly

53. The arithmetic shows that the threshold does not measure consensus. With 350 deputies, 87% of all seats requires 305, so any bloc of 46 deputies, about 13%, can block every amendment. In the Senado, more than two thirds of 266 seats requires at least 178, so 89 senators can block; and when the Senado is reduced to 100 seats, 34 will suffice. The clause that no amendment may be proposed while another remains under debate sets no limit to the duration of a debate, so a majority that controls the agenda can keep any proposal under debate indefinitely.

54. The DCP's reasoning is also circular. It says that the petitioners' inability to obtain 87% shows that their proposals lack consensus. The only way to measure consensus is a free election, and the petitioners ask for exactly that. A threshold that a small bloc can use to block every change gives that bloc a veto, and Article XV tells the Court which party the Constitution itself treats as key.

55. Article II governs how the constituted organs amend a text. It does not and cannot govern whether the people may elect an assembly (Section VII).

C. The ten-year cycle, the powers of the Chancellor and Article XIV

56. A ten-year (120-month) electoral cycle in both chambers (Articles VI and VII) is incompatible with an effective vote under Article III. The electorate has one opportunity in a decade to replace the Congress and none in between to correct a decision of the Chancellor, because the only confidence mechanism can be exercised by the Chancellor's own majority.

57. The powers listed in Article VIII (armed forces, police, domestic and foreign intelligence, martial law, declaration of war, pardons, designation of extremist organisations, regulation of parties, banks, businesses and monetary policy) are concentrated in one office, chosen by a majority of the one chamber that the electorate renews every ten years. A confidence mechanism that only the Chancellor's own majority can exercise is not a check on the Chancellor.

58. Article XIV , by providing that no power is held by civil servants, removes the last layer of independent control: it excludes an independent auditor, prosecutor, electoral administrator or regulator. It also means that the Chancellor cannot attribute to subordinate officials decisions that the Constitution makes personal acts of a cabinet member.

D. Judicial independence and the Chancellor's power to appoint judges

59. Article VIII gives the Chancellor the power to appoint judges. Article V makes this Court the final arbiter, including over the Chancellor's conduct. The two provisions cannot both be applied literally without making the Court's independence conditional on the goodwill of the officeholder whose conduct it is asked to judge. No one may be judge in his own cause.

60. The recent amendment renaming the Minister of Justice as Attorney General and giving that office oversight of the justice system, the courts and constitutional affairs deepens the problem. It was adopted by a Congress in which one party is the only one represented, during the pendency of proceedings that challenge the constitutional order. God Knows asks the Court to declare that the Chancellor's power to appoint judges cannot be exercised so as to compromise this Court's independence, that the Attorney General has no power of direction, supervision, instruction, appointment, disciplinary control or budgetary control over any court in respect of its jurisdictional function, and that the circumstances of the adoption of that amendment be examined.

E. The criminal track

61. Article V allows a claim that a cabinet member or elected officeholder "is acting illegally." Conduct that constitutes a criminal offence is illegal conduct. The Prior Judgment decided only that the appellant had not proved a specific unlawful act. It did not examine, and could not have rejected, a request that the Court itself direct a judicial investigation with its own powers of production and preservation.

62. God Knows asks the Court to open an investigation, directed by a justice or body answerable only to the Court, into the allegations in its earlier filing: offences against fundamental rights; continuing misfeasance in public office; embezzlement and diversion of public funds; commission by omission in the migration and humanitarian crisis; membership and direction of a criminal organisation, including the corporate liability of the DCP; and offences against the democratic order and the administration of justice. The request is made subject at all times to due process and the presumption of innocence. It is made now because the persons whose conduct must be examined control the police, the intelligence services, the armed forces, the records of the Chancellery and the power of pardon. The criminal track runs in parallel with the elections: it does not wait for them, and they do not depend on it.

F. Interim safeguards

63. Until the constituent cortes are installed, God Knows asks that the existing authorities continue only to carry out ordinary administration and that: (a) neither the Chancellor nor the Congress of Deputies propose or approve constitutional amendments; (b) the Chancellor not appoint, dismiss or transfer any judge; (c) the Chancellor grant no pardon; (d) the powers to designate extremist organisations and to regulate political parties not be used against any party, candidate or organisation taking part in the elections; (e) the police and intelligence services not detain, surveil or harass candidates, party members or demonstrators for the peaceful exercise of their rights; (f) public funds not be used for the benefit of any party or candidate; (g) all records of the Chancellery, the police, the intelligence services and the border authority be preserved; and (h) the safeguards for Valéntia in Section VIII be observed.

64. These measures fall within Article V. The Court's rulings "take direct effect," and a ruling that ordered elections but left the authorities free to use the apparatus described against the electoral process would be ineffective.

X. THE POINTS RAISED BY ALL PARTIES THAT THE PRIOR JUDGMENT LEFT UNANSWERED

65. Six parties filed submissions and none received an answer to any request other than whether the Chancellor had been proved to have acted illegally. God Knows asks the Court to decide each of the following.

A. The Bukaneros appeal

66. The Bukaneros asked the Court to declare that Article III protects effective and not merely formal participation; that the concentration of executive, police, military, intelligence and party-regulatory powers must be interpreted consistently with democratic accountability and, to the extent necessary, be declared unconstitutional where it operates without adequate safeguards; that Article XV is incompatible with political equality; that Articles XVII and II cannot permanently deprive the people of the ability to decide fundamental questions or to exercise their constituent power; and to order free elections for the Congress of Deputies and the Senado, a constitutional review process, and a declaration that no foreign government may impose its outcome. The Prior Judgment says it may interpret Articles III and VIII "where necessary," but never decides whether it is necessary, and decides none of the eleven requests. God Knows adopts all of them.

B. Legatus Taurii

67. Legatus Taurii asked, in addition, that the concentration of military, police, intelligence, emergency and party-regulatory authority be subject to heightened scrutiny; that the power to regulate parties be exercised consistently with political equality and democratic alternation; that Article VIII be read as subjecting martial law and other emergency powers to effective judicial and constitutional limitation ; that any provision making the rights of Article III merely formal be declared void to the extent legally permissible; and that the legitimacy of any new constitutional settlement derive from the people of San Cordova and not from any foreign government. The question of emergency powers is the most urgent: an unreviewable power to declare martial law and war, held by the officeholder under investigation, can be used to suspend every other guarantee. God Knows asks the Court to declare that martial law and emergency powers are subject to prompt judicial review, may not be used to suspend elections, the Court or the rights of Article III, and may not be used against peaceful political activity.

C. The Independentist Force of Valéntia

68. Its seventeen requests and its additional petitum are addressed in Section VIII.

D. The Social Democratic Progressive Union

69. The SDPU, though in the form of a political petition, raised points that were equally ignored: the right to free elections and an elected legislature; an independent judiciary; freedom of the press, speech, assembly and association; the right of workers to organise and bargain collectively, and of trade unions to represent them without intimidation; and a social safety net (health, education, pensions, unemployment assistance, housing). These are not issues of mere policy. Article XVII prohibits compulsory welfare, wealth-redistribution and income-transfer programmes and declares that no person has a constitutional entitlement to government economic support, and Article XVI entrenches a specific retirement policy. The effect is to make the SDPU's programme unlawful to enact even if it were to win every seat in an election, which empties the vote of Article III of content on the questions that matter most to working people. Article XVI itself, which protects a retirement policy, shows that the Constitution does not regard social protection as foreign to its purposes; a ban on every other form of protection is a partisan choice and not a constitutional principle. God Knows asks the Court to declare that the guarantees of speech, press, assembly, association and union freedom are protected by Article III, and that Article XVII cannot be applied to prevent a freely elected legislature from establishing social protection.

E. The Democratic Conservative Party

70. The DCP asked the Court to dismiss the petition, to declare Articles II, VIII, XV, XVI and XVII valid and "immune from judicial nullification," to declare Article II "absolute," and to reject any consideration of foreign statements or of migration. The Prior Judgment decided none of these requests. God Knows asks the Court to reject each one, for the following reasons.
- (a) "A Constitution cannot be unconstitutional." Article V itself provides for the invalidity of a "constitutional amendment." The Constitution labels Articles XV, XVI and XVII as amendments. The DCP's argument would erase the third ground of Article V.
- (b) "No procedural defect." Article V does not limit invalidity to procedure (Section IX.A).
- (c) "A judicial coup d'état." The petitioners ask for elections, not for a seizure of power. The Court would not govern. The only party in this proceeding asking the Court to protect an institutional order from any possibility of change is the DCP, the party named in Article XV.
- (d) "Article II is absolute." No provision of the Constitution says so. A rule of amendment that is absolute is not a rule of amendment but a rule against change, and it contradicts the Preamble.
- (e) "Constitutions protect liberty from majorities." Constitutions protect rights, not particular economic doctrines. Article XVII does not protect individuals from a majority; it protects one economic programme from every future majority.
- (f) Foreign statements and migration. God Knows agrees that no foreign monarch can dictate the constitutional order. The petitioners rely on the departure of citizens as a fact showing a crisis, not as a source of authority. The DCP's reply that migration is "a policy issue for the Congress of Deputies" refers it to the very body whose majority sustains the Chancellor.
- (g) Silence. The DCP's brief says nothing about the detentions of believers, the designation of extremist organisations, the appointment of judges by the Chancellor or the power of pardon. The Prior Judgment is equally silent. God Knows asks the Court to decide these matters in its judgment.

F. God Knows

71. The Prior Judgment did not address any of the twenty requests of God Knows. Beyond those already set out above, it did not address: the alleged unequal treatment of believers in education and public life; the detention of a large number of believers for demonstrating peacefully; the combination in one office of command of the police, designation of extremist organisations and regulation of parties; the publication of the amendment creating the Attorney General, the record of its vote and its debate; the forensic audit and the financing of the DCP and its linked foundations; the preservation and sealing of records; and the declaration that any pardon of offences under investigation in which the Chancellor is a suspect is void. God Knows asks the Court to decide each of them.

XI. SUBSIDIARY CLAIM: NO RULE OF FINALITY CAN EXTINGUISH THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE

72. God Knows has shown that the Prior Judgment is not a ruling of the Court, that it is incongruent, and that, even if it were a ruling, it does not bar this petition. In the further alternative, and only if the Court were to read the Prior Judgment, Article II or the finality clause of Article V as preventing every possible remedy, God Knows submits that such a reading would be invalid for the reasons that follow. They rest on natural law and on the principles of constitutional legitimacy that any legal order claiming legitimacy presupposes.

A. The text of the Constitution itself

73. The Constitution begins: "We the people of San Cordova do hereby establish this Constitution." The people are the author and the authority. Article III gives the vote to every adult resident; Articles VI and VII provide for elected chambers. The Constitution therefore presupposes a sovereign people who delegate power. It does not create a sovereign over them.

74. A positivist reading that closes every door produces this circuit: the people may vote only every 120 months; the only party in the Cortes holds the confidence chamber; amendment requires 87% of the seats of that chamber; the Chancellor appoints the judges; one justice of five can dispose of a challenge to the whole order; the Court's rulings are not subject to appeal; and res judicata then prevents the same question from being raised again. If every element is read as absolute, there is no lawful means by which the people could ever correct the system. That is not the interpretation of the constitution of a free people. It is the description of a closed circuit, and the declaration of independence of Valéntia shows what happens to a people who find themselves inside one.

B. Natural law

75. Sovereignty belongs to the people and is inalienable. In the classical liberal tradition the people entrust power to government as a trust, and it remains subject to the purpose for which it was given. John Locke wrote in the Second Treatise of Government (Chapter XIII, § 149) that when the legislative acts contrary to the trust placed in it, "there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative." Jean-Jacques Rousseau held in The Social Contract (Book II, Chapter I) that sovereignty, being the exercise of the general will, cannot be alienated.

76. An unjust law is not law. The principle runs from Cicero through Thomas Aquinas, who held in the Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 95, a. 2) that an unjust law is not a law but a perversion of law. In the twentieth century Gustav Radbruch gave it modern form ( Gesetzliches Unrecht und übergesetzliches Recht , 1946): where the conflict between positive law and justice reaches an intolerable degree, the statute must yield to justice. God Knows does not suggest that San Cordova has reached that point. It invokes the principle for its general lesson: a rule can lose its claim to obedience when it is used to prevent justice from ever being done.

77. The right of a people to lawful self-government is prior to the Constitution, not granted by it. Constitutional rules have authority because they serve the people, not the other way around. A rule of amendment that can never be satisfied, a finality clause that can never be corrected and a vote that can never be exercised on the constitution itself, taken together, serve the order and not the people.

C. Application

78. The finality clause of Article V is a rule of procedure, not of immunity. "Its rulings take direct effect and are not subject to appeal" prevents the losing party from taking the same case to a higher forum. It does not say that a ruling is irrevocable, that it exhausts the questions it does not mention, or that the Court may never decide a fresh claim on a different ground. A rule of repose exists to serve justice by ending disputes. It cannot be turned into a means of ensuring that the central dispute is never decided.

79. The people were not a party to any judgment that dispossesses them. Res judicata binds the parties to a case. No judgment between a party and a Chancellor can bind the whole people on the question of whether they may exercise their constituent power. That power is not a claim that the people have brought and lost. It is the premise of the whole Constitution.

80. This Court is the "final arbiter of the law of San Cordova." The law of San Cordova includes the principle stated in its first sentence. The Court is not asked to disregard the Constitution but to read it as the people's instrument: to apply Article II to the constituted organs that it regulates, and to recognise that it cannot bind the people who made it.

81. No violence, no usurpation, no foreign dictation. God Knows does not ask the Court to take power, to transfer it to any party, to rely on any foreign government, or to suspend the rule of law. It asks the Court to do what Article V entrusts to it: to say what the law is and to open the way for the people to speak, by free elections, supervised by an impartial authority, within a short and fixed period. The Court would not be governing. It would be restoring the conditions in which the people may do so.

82. Precedent and consistency. If the Court considers that its previous precedent on individual proceedings has any bearing on this petition, God Knows asks the Court to state that precedent expressly and to distinguish or overrule it to the extent necessary.

XII. ADDITIONAL MATTERS OF LESSER IMPORTANCE LEFT UNANSWERED

83. In addition, and as matters of lesser importance that God Knows does not wish to omit because the Prior Judgment left every one of them unanswered, the Court is asked to decide the following. Each is brief, and each can be answered in a single reasoned paragraph.

84. The contradiction between Articles XVI and XVII, and the "responsibility" to work. Article XVI provides that the existing retirement policy "shall remain in force and shall not be reduced, suspended, repealed, or replaced by ordinary legislation." Article XVII prohibits "income-transfer programs" and denies any constitutional entitlement to government-provided income or support. A retirement pension is an income transfer. Either Article XVI is an exception that Article XVII does not recognise, which shows that the supposed principle of economic liberty is a selection of what the DCP wishes to protect, or the two articles conflict and the Court must resolve the conflict. The DCP's brief does not address Article XVI beyond asking the Court to declare it valid. Article XVI also imposes on every able-bodied citizen not only a right but a "responsibility" to remain employed until physically incapable. Combined with Article XVII, a person who becomes physically incapable has no constitutional protection of any kind, which is incompatible with human dignity. God Knows asks the Court to resolve the conflict and to declare the conforming interpretation.

85. The double role of the DCP. The DCP filed "as a constitutionally recognized key party of the Union" together with "the Constitutional Authorities of the Union." It is at once a litigant, a direct beneficiary of the provisions under challenge and, in its own words, a party with a role in "securing the Union." Its brief speaks for the State and for itself without distinguishing between them, which is the fusion of party and State that the petitioners denounce. A party that claims a role in "securing" the State claims a role in the security apparatus that Article VIII places under the Chancellor. God Knows asks the Court to declare that the DCP and the State authorities are separate, and that the DCP's role, its financing and the channels through which it is exercised be examined by the investigating organ requested in this petition.

86. The exception for "force, fraud, or theft." Article XVII allows regulation "where necessary to prevent force, fraud, or theft," and the DCP states that protecting citizens from government theft is "the highest duty of the law." God Knows agrees. The DCP therefore cannot object to a forensic audit of public funds or to an investigation of embezzlement and corruption, which are the very mechanisms by which the law protects citizens from theft.

87. The migration and humanitarian crisis. The Bukaneros, Legatus Taurii, the Independentist Force and God Knows each referred to the departure of thousands of citizens to Magna Taura, Sveria and other countries, and the DCP replied to it. The Prior Judgment says nothing. The petitioners rely on that departure as a fact showing a crisis, not as a source of foreign authority. It is also directly relevant to Article III, since citizens who leave lose the vote they were promised and the electorate becomes smaller and less representative. God Knows asks the Court to have the investigating organ examine the official reports of the border authority and migration institutions on the volume and causes of the exodus, including the early warnings received by the Chancellor's cabinet.

88. Persecution for religious or political conviction. If the detentions of believers and demonstrators are shown to be widespread or systematic and directed against a group identified by religion or political conviction, they must be examined as persecution, one of the gravest offences known to the criminal law. God Knows asks the Court to have the investigating organ examine the administrative and police files on those detentions, to treat as urgent the release of anyone held solely for reasons of conviction, and to protect from retaliation any official who provides information.

89. Precautionary measures. God Knows asks the Court to authorise the investigating organ, to the extent proportionate and necessary to secure the evidence, to examine the DCP's accounts, list of donors, contracts and financial relations with public authorities and regulated businesses, and to order measures against flight and concealment, including retention of travel documents and temporary freezing of party accounts to the extent that the forensic audit requires. The persons under investigation hold the resources and information of the State and cannot be allowed to leave with them.

90. Equal treatment of believers and of all convictions. God Knows accepts that public schools may teach the history of religions and ethics from a neutral and objective perspective. Its objection is to the discriminatory exclusion of believers, not to a common curriculum. It asks the Court to examine the rules, administrative instructions and practices that may have produced unequal treatment on grounds of religion or belief, and to guarantee that God Knows and other religious and non-religious organisations may peacefully defend their proposals without discrimination.

91. Interpretive principles and the transition. Legatus Taurii and the Bukaneros asked the Court to declare that the Constitution must be interpreted consistently with human dignity, political equality, democratic accountability, limited government and the sovereignty of the people; that elections be held under conditions guaranteeing the peaceful transfer of governmental authority; and that the newly elected institutions begin a constitutional review process. God Knows adopts these requests and asks the Court to answer them, and to retain jurisdiction to supervise compliance.

92. A brief answer is enough. God Knows does not ask for a lengthy treatise on each of these points. It asks only that each receive a reasoned answer, even a short one, as congruence requires.

XIII. PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, God Knows respectfully requests that the Supreme Court of San Cordova, sitting with its five justices:

A. Preliminary matters

1. ADMIT this petition and declare the standing of God Knows as a "party" under Article V.

2. DECLARE that the Prior Judgment, which records the vote of one justice of five, is not a ruling of the Court adopted "by majority" within Article V, and that it has no direct effect, no finality and no force of res judicata .

3. ORDER that this petition be decided by the five justices, and that the judgment record the vote of each justice by name and be adopted by at least three concurring votes.

4. DECLARE that the Prior Judgment is incongruent by omission, by substitution, internally and for lack of reasons; that congruence of judgments is a fundamental principle of the legal order and of the right to effective judicial protection; and that its violation, in a system where rulings are final, constitutes a grave deficiency of the judicial system.

5. DECLARE , in the alternative, that the Prior Judgment decided only whether Chancellor María Campos had been shown to have acted illegally under the claim then presented, and that it does not constitute res judicata in respect of the matters set out in this petition; and that, to the extent it is capable of being read otherwise, it is so vague, incongruent and unreasoned that it cannot have that effect.

B. Elections (the central request)

6. DECLARE elections to constituent cortes by free universal suffrage, in accordance with Article III, and ORDER that they be held within thirty (30) days of the judgment, in accordance with a timetable fixed by the Court, which may set a shorter period.

7. DECLARE that the elections are not an amendment of the Constitution, that Article II regulates only the amendment of the Constitution by the constituted organs, that it cannot be used to prevent the people from electing a constituent assembly, and that it is not "absolute."

8. DESIGNATE an impartial electoral authority, answerable only to the Court, and ESTABLISH the guarantees necessary for free, competitive, equal and transparent elections, including freedom of expression, association, assembly and conscience throughout the campaign and the rules under which citizens who recently left the country may take part.

9. DECLARE that the constituent cortes shall derive their legitimacy from the people of San Cordova, that no foreign government may impose or determine their outcome, and that they are free to decide whether the Constitution is to be amended or replaced.

10. IN THE ALTERNATIVE to request 6, ORDER free, universal and competitive elections for the Congress of Deputies and the Senado within a short period fixed by the Court, and DECLARE that the elected chambers have an express mandate to open a constitutional review in which the people decide whether the Constitution is to be amended or replaced.

11. DECLARE that the authority of the Constitution derives from the people of San Cordova, that their constituent power is inalienable and is not extinguished by Article II, by the finality of any ruling of this Court or by any provision of the Constitution, and that no rule of finality may be applied to prevent the people from exercising it by peaceful, electoral means.

C. Interim safeguards

12. ORDER the interim safeguards in Section IX.F for the period until the constituent cortes are installed, and DECLARE that any appointment, dismissal or transfer of a judge and any pardon made by the Chancellor in breach of them is void for conflict of interest.

13. ORDER , as an interim measure, that the DCP abstain from proposing, voting for or promoting any amendment of the Constitution until the constituent cortes are installed or the Court gives judgment, whichever occurs first; that no amendment adopted in breach of that order take effect; and RESERVE the power to review any amendment ex officio under Article V.

14. SUSPEND , as an interim measure, the exercise by the Attorney General of the functions described in Section IX.D in relation to the judiciary, and ORDER that the Attorney General take no part in these proceedings, in the criminal investigation, in the administration of this Court, in its staff or resources, or in the designation of the investigating organ.

D. Constitutional matters

15. DECLARE the invalidity of, or require a conforming interpretation of, Articles XV, XVI and XVII, as amendments that contradict popular sovereignty and the political equality guaranteed by Article III; in particular DECLARE that Article XV confers no privilege that contradicts political equality and that Article XVII cannot be applied to remove from future electorates and legislatures the power to decide fundamental questions of public policy, including social protection; and RESOLVE the conflict between Articles XVI and XVII.

16. DECLARE that Articles II, VIII, XV, XVI and XVII are not "immune from judicial nullification," and DISMISS the contrary requests of the DCP.

17. DECLARE that the ten-year cycle of Articles VI and VII, the concentration of powers of Article VIII and Article XIV must be interpreted consistently with the effective suffrage guaranteed by Article III, and that Article XIV does not prevent the creation of an independent electoral authority, auditor and prosecutor.

18. DECLARE that martial law and the other emergency powers of the Chancellor are subject to prompt judicial review, cannot be used to suspend elections, this Court or the rights of Article III, and cannot be used against peaceful political activity.

19. DECLARE that the guarantees of speech, press, assembly, association, conscience, worship and union freedom are protected by Article III, and that the power to designate extremist organisations and to regulate political parties may not be used against peaceful political, religious or other conviction.

20. DECLARE that the Chancellor's power to appoint judges cannot be exercised so as to compromise this Court's independence, and that the renaming of the Minister of Justice as Attorney General and the attribution of oversight of the justice system to that office are invalid to the extent that they contradict Article V and the separation of powers, or, alternatively, REQUIRE a conforming interpretation under which that office has no power of direction, supervision, instruction, appointment, disciplinary control or budgetary control over this Court or any other court in respect of its jurisdictional function.

21. ORDER the publication, with the judgment, of the text of that amendment, the record of the vote and the record of the debate.

E. Correction of the judicial system

22. ORDER , in the exercise of its authority as final arbiter under Article V, that its judgments be adopted by majority of the justices with recorded votes, be reasoned, identify the precedent applied and the material considered, and answer each request of the parties.

23. ESTABLISH rules of procedure on quorum, deliberation and the publication of votes, and a procedure to supplement a judgment that omits a claim, and DECLARE that the finality clause of Article V cannot be invoked to prevent such a supplement.

F. Valéntia

24. DECLARE that the questions arising from the declaration of independence of Valéntia are justiciable under Article V.

25. DECLARE that, pending a democratic settlement, the powers of Article VIII may not be used against Valéntia, its authorities, its citizens or its political organisations for the peaceful advocacy or exercise of self-determination, and that no resort to force, martial law or war may be used to resolve the question.

26. DECLARE that the rights of Article III of every adult resident remain in force and that no person may be punished or labelled extremist for peaceful advocacy of independence, union or any intermediate arrangement.

27. DECLARE that the constituent cortes, or a supervised consultation convened by them or by the Court, shall have competence to address the territorial question by an agreed democratic procedure with a clear question, equal conditions for all positions and good-faith negotiation of the result.

28. RULE on each of the seventeen requests of the Independentist Force of Valéntia, including the participation of Valentian citizens abroad under rules to be determined by the Court.

G. Criminal and rights matters

29. DESIGNATE an investigating justice or a body answerable only to the Court to direct a criminal investigation into the allegations in the earlier filing of God Knows and the additional petitum of the Independentist Force of Valéntia, subject at all times to due process and the presumption of innocence; ORDER the creation of a judicial police unit answerable only to that organ; and ORDER the investigative measures requested, including the forensic audit, the production of files and the preservation and sealing of records.

30. DECLARE that no pardon may be granted by the Chancellor in respect of offences under investigation in these proceedings in which she is a suspect.

31. ISSUE the appropriate orders for the cessation of all persecution or arbitrary detention based on religious or political conviction, and for the release of persons detained solely for such reasons.

H. Additional matters (Section XII)

32. DECIDE each of the additional matters in Section XII, and in particular: DECLARE that the DCP and the State authorities are separate, and DIRECT that the DCP's role in "securing the Union," its financing and its channels be examined by the investigating organ; DIRECT the investigating organ to examine the border and migration reports and the police files on detentions; PROTECT from retaliation any official who provides information; AUTHORISE the precautionary measures requested, to the extent proportionate; and GUARANTEE equal treatment of believers and of all convictions.

I. Remaining matters

33. DECIDE each request of the Bukaneros, Legatus Taurii, the Independentist Force of Valéntia, the SDPU, the DCP and God Knows that the Prior Judgment left unanswered, individually and with reasons, as God Knows requested from the outset.

34. RETAIN JURISDICTION to supervise compliance with the judgment, the electoral timetable and the interim safeguards.

35. GRANT such further relief as is necessary to restore effective constitutional government, democratic accountability and the rights guaranteed by Article III.

Respectfully submitted,

GOD KNOWS
Procedural Representation and Defence Counsel
In San Marcos, San Cordova