Well, that's a very good point, Bromo. In fact, unpopular decisions by the RA (example: voting the Jurisdiction Act) tend to be reverted by the SC when the public opinion swings strongly against the RA's decisions. You're very right in noticing the (existing) precedent here.
On the other hand, the point of having a "Philosophical Branch" is exactly to go beyond a strict legalistic interpretation of the laws (which the RA certainly applied in this case) and also apply a moralistic/philosophic interpretation. I'm fine in having the SC reviewing this case on a moral point of view.
What I'm not fine is with the constant allegation that the RA was "too harsh" or "too quick" to act. With due respect to Alex, whom I love as a person and appreciate the enormous amount of work he has done for the CDS, the RA did not act harshly or quickly; in fact, if I weren't a member of the RA, I would now be claiming an answer from them to explain to the public how the RA could have possibly allowed this issue of the payments to drag for 6 months and not do anything about it! As said, about 13 people were waiting for L$54,000 or so to be paid for ages, and it's not fair to allow the Chancellor to delay those payments just because Alex is a very nice person...
It's a question of principle. The law has to apply to nice people too, not only to people we dislike. It's very tough when it happens, but I don't see any other way to show that the law applies to everybody — specially in cases such as this when the reputation of the CDS overall is questioned.
And yes, Arria, the community might be small, but it doesn't mean that we're not serious about it! There are, obviously, limits. I thought that the CDS only owned a few L$, since we have seen that every month, L$5000 are spent in Advertising and Promotion, and I thought that most people had been paid out of it. So I believed truthfully that there were just one or two pending payments, and that would have been "tolerated", even if technically owing a single L$ would be more than justified as a matter of principle. But there is a trade-off. Owing L$1 to one person is not the same thing as owing L$54000 to 13! The amount of money owed made the whole issue way more serious than we thought...
Now, Bromo, you suggest that the RA reviews their decision on its own, without SC interference. It might happen. The decision was made without access to all data, namely, that the payments were "under way". It's completely different to enact a decision based on an assumption — that the Executive didn't wish to pay anyone and refused to do so, in spite of all the pressure, and finally a bill establishing a deadline by the RA — and later on, after the fact, reviewing the decision and noticing that the only failure was a lack of communication, not a willingness to disregard the RA's laws. Both Sudane and Alex explained that the payments were in fact ordered and accepted for payment before the deadline, just due to unavoidable delays and a posteriori explanations the RA was informed that people were, indeed, paid.
I'm prepared to move a motion on the next RA to review the RA's decision and convert it into a reprimand instead: that the RA (and the public) cannot be left in ignorance of the intentions of the Executive in matters as serious as these. If Alex's payment order to Sudane had been made public — even if the payments were never done! — the RA would obviously have made a different decision. Keeping the RA and the public "in the dark" is a very bad idea, specially because the RA has no other choice but to make decisions based on the few scattered facts that people tell them, or publicly post somewhere.
It's too late to revert the "harm"; but it can be mitigated. It was definitely established that there was no intention to ignore the RA's laws. Only communication failed. It's so very easy to see this a posteriori. But walk in the RA's shoes for a while: if you had absolutely no idea, no communication, no response, no availability of any member of the Executive to ask what was going on, what would you do? Or perhaps the better question is not what you would do, but how would you feel about it?
As a RA member, I'm doubly hurt. First, for having to make an unpopular decision against a member of the community which I adore since the first day he came to the CDS with his amazing dance animations; but secondly, because the RA apparently is not worth the minimum of attention to get a single IM or email about the issue and was basically kept in the dark about everything. The first issue is a personal one and perhaps not so important (except for myself). The second one is a serious problem, since it means that it can happen again.
It's crucial that the RA is fed all relevant information to make proper decisions. The rest of the citizens, whatever their role in Government, NGOs, or other organisations, cannot fail to communicate properly through established channels, or even informally with strict authorisation to publish the information publicly. We have to become better at this!
