Roe v. Attorney General ZuWo

[Foucaulf]

Members of the Supreme Court of Atlasia,

I petition for writ of certiorari regarding a case for which I am now registered as defense counsel.

My client, "Jane Roe" of Amhest, Massachusetts, is a physician providing special care and abortion services. As the Region of the Northeast lack any statute regarding abortion, she has been free to offer her services since registering her business. On October 11 of this year, she had concluded an operation on a customer, hereforth left unnamed, when she was contacted by federal investigation authorities. She received notice from federal authorities that, under Section 2 of the Late-Term Abortion Restriction Act, she will be barred of her license until five years from the day of notice.

My client, having never been warned or notified of this law throughout her practice, filed a claim against prosecuting authorities, namely the Attorney General. Pursuant to Article I, Section 5 of the Third Constitution, the Senate has no power reserved to make law on grounds of abortion, or indeed on grounds of any restriction of medical procedure. Clause 32 of Section 5 fails to apply in this case, given lack of any clause relating to medical procedure, the closest of which being clause 13 on providing research to "medical disorders."

Having denied hearing of the case in lower courts due to judicial inactivity, my client wishes to appeal to the Supreme Court. We argue that the Late-Term Abortion Restriction Act in its entirely lacks constitutionality and should be deprived of any regulatory effect.

Regards,

x Foucaulf, LL. D OoP, Esq.

[Foucaulf]

Justices of the Supreme Court of Atlasia,

I apologize for the delay in filing my brief, but I was occupied with my several other jobs; legal practice in Atlasia does not pay very well, due to the very low demand for it.

The case now under consideration in the Supreme Court concerns the unconstitutional detainment and revoking of license of my client, a doctor providing abortion services. I argue that Sections 1 and 2 of the Late-Term Abortion Restriction Act, under which my client was charged, is unconstitutional due to it assuming a federal power not expressly detailed in Article I.5 of the Third Constitution.


I. The scope of the Senate's enumerated powers

My argument necessarily invokes a history of Atlasian precedent on the Senate's powers, referenced in cases such as Fritz v. Ernest, Peter v. Atlasia and Junkie v. Atlasia. Though these cases were decided under past Constitutions, they are admissible for two reasons. First, the Supreme Court has employed their usage in precedent under the Third Constitution (see TheRileyKeaton v. Atlasia). Second, in the push to ratify the Third Constitution with haste, Article I.5 of the Third Constitution is exactly the same as that under the Second.

Jurisprudence on the nature of the Senate's powers is first found in Fritz v. Ernest, but the decision itself is spottily written. Its principles were instead articulated in detail by Chief Justice Sam Spade:

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Both citations come from the Junkie v. Atlasia ruling. To repeat, precedent has established two necessary criteria for the constitutionality of Senate statute: the granting of affirmative power fitting with the plain meaning of the Constitution.

Junkie v. Atlasia focuses on the elucidation of the first criterion, the granting of affirmative power. Its decision affirms that a clause in the Constitution on the Senate's powers exists independently of all others. Were there overlap and conflict, "Rather, each provision supplements the other respective power."

This criterion by itself, however, cannot be sufficient. A clause can be subject to wild interpretations; to provide an abstract example, clause I.5.30 of the Constitution, on regulations for protections of employment, would not intuitively be sufficient to justify a transition to a fully socialist economy, even if one argues that such a bill does necessarily protect the employed. This is why all precedent has evoked an idea of plain meaning.

While a definition of this principle has not been elaborated upon, we have seen it in practice in cases like Peter v. Atlasia:

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Or South Park Conservative v. Atlasia, in two different ways:

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Would that not include people in these establishments, the restaurants, the cinemas, the libraries? Would the prohibiting of smoking, a potentially dangerous activity not only to one's self but others around that person, protect the health of "those in employment"? We can't imagine any other interpretation other than that.[/quote]

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Other examples can be drawn from precedent, notably Sam Spade's. The common trend in these rulings, however, is that the plain meaning of enumerated powers is all that which is explicitly recognized in the text and hence self-evident.

This is seen in Peter, where Sam Spade see the clause's plain meaning as evidently granting the power of punishing fraud, but only that. This is also seen in SPC, in which Marokai refers to the article's self-evident nature, and Sam Space uses the exact words in the clause to delineate the Senate's powers. Another application is in Junkie, where Sam Spade's decision hinges on the separation of the word "tax" from others in clause 1.

The argument that follows hinges on this interpretation of plain meaning in the Constitution.

[Foucaulf]

II. Lack of enumeration of the power to restrict abortions

The Third Constitution details 31 expressed powers to the Senate, in addition to a "necessary and proper" clause. Any one of those 31 powers, if found to authorize the Late-Term Abortion Restriction Act, should be sufficient to justify its constitutionality. However, the principle of plain meaning implies we must look at the clauses carefully, with reference to the words explicitly recognized in them.

The Late-Term Abortion Restriction Act, clause 1.1, declares the following:

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This clause, the foundation of the entire act, is a statement authorizing the power to restrict a medical procedure, without reference to any other principle. Is there any clause in Article I.5 whose plain meaning allows for this? Looking at the clauses granting power on medical procedures or even "Public Health," we see one provisioning for medical research (13), the quarantine of diseases (14), regulation for those in employment (30), and preservation of nature (31).

The only clause among those four to authorize powers of regulation, a category to which the powers of restriction exclusively belongs, is article 30. But it is also self-evident that the article does not have as its goal the management of the admissibility of medical procedure, and hence we have ran out of clauses.

Defendants of the act may claim that the necessary and proper clause allows the power to restrict abortions to emanate from clauses 13 or 14. Such an argument quickly falls apart. The necessary restrictions implied to fully execute clauses 13 or 14 are restrictions on medical procedures that would not resolve or worsen medical disorders or contagious diseases.

Another argument is to claim that I argue the Senate has not the express power to restrict any medical procedure, a responsibility that is necessary and proper in some vaguer sense; they may reference a positive right enumerated in Article VI. The argument remains that the medical procedures we intuitively want to restrict are those that cause unexpected harm and suffering. A wide range of them would be covered by clause I.5.7, on the punishment of Fraud. That clause provides, I believe, a sufficient range of interests for the Senate to pursue.

Any penalty for the performance of abortion in Section 2 of the Act is obviously nullified due to the unconstitutionality of Section 1.

Conclusion

The argument above is an argument for the Senate not being constitutionally empowered to act to restrict abortions; it is agnostic on whether the Regions have the power. That is a fact of the case I represent, which deals with a federal prosecution of an abortion provider, rather than that of an abortion seeker.

Nevertheless, Atlasia has seen throughout its regions a trend of social liberalization. The immediate conflict facing us is that what is permissible by the Regions is still forbidden by the Senate, such that disobedience of the supremacy of Federal law remains a crime. To protect the interests of Atlasian citizens, we must demand a close reading of the Constitution to resolve these conflicts.


Respectfully,

x Foucaulf, LL. D OoP, Esq.

[Foucaulf]

I also thank the Court for their extensive ruling and careful deliberation on the matter. The Justices have produced a landmark ruling, one which I advise future legislators to consider carefully.