Your Honor:
In their Closing Statements, and their arguments generally, the Prosecution inappropriately stretches the law beyond previous Supreme Court precedent
.
1. Under Supreme Court Precedent, the Commonwealth must prove bribery in this case
The guidance around Electoral Fraud, and its relation to bribery, is laid out by the Supreme Court in
Commonwealth of Redmont v. Milqy [2022] SCR 10. In that case, the Defendant was charged with both Bribery and Electoral Fraud. The Prosecution, in that case, accesed Defendant Milqy of attempting to pay an individual to drop out of an electoral race. The relevant text of the laws in both that case and now appear to be the same, though the laws appear in a different location due to shuffling over the years. As the text appears the same, the precedent here would provide key guidance as to how the Federal Court should act.
Despite finding that Milqy did indeed offer money to a candidate to drop out of an electoral race, The Court in
Commonwealth v. Milqy found the Defendant
not guilty on both charges. Why?
Simple. The Court found Milqy not guilty on bribery, having found that the offered party neither held public office nor acted in a legal capacity. As the Court notes, the offered party "holding a public office or acting within a legal capacity, must be fulfilled" in order for bribery to be sustained.
The Court then turned to the charge of electoral fraud. The justices were unanimous in their agreement that the only means by which electoral fraud could have occurred would have been if bribery would occurred:
- In the opinion of Justice Drew_Hall, "Having come to the conclusion that Milqy did not, under current law, bribe lawanoesepr, this by default eliminates the charge of Electoral Fraud simultaneously since that charge is dependent on the bribery charge."
- In the opinion of Mhadsher101 "Electoral fraud can only be charged in this case when bribery is proven, so bribery must first and foremost be proven."
- This is reflected in the Court's opinion; the Court found that "the charge of bribery has not been fulfilled. As a result, the charge of electoral fraud has not been fulfilled either."
The Supreme Court did not entertain the infinite stretching of the law to a nebulous interpretation of the word "meddline", as the Prosecution asks here. The Defense asks that this Court act in the same way, and reject this stretch of the law beyond its established and clear meaning.
As such, the prosecution’s second contention – that the defendant somehow “meddled” in the election – fares no better.
“Meddling,” by itself, is not a defined offense in our criminal code. It is a colloquial term, not a charge, and the prosecution tellingly never provided a legal definition for it. In fact, the only context in which
“meddling” appears in our laws is within the definition of
Electoral Fraud, which describes:
“rigging/meddling with an election through, but not limited to: the use of alternate accounts, bribery, and/or threats." This means that
to prove Electoral Fraud via meddling, the prosecution must show a concrete wrongful act – such as ballot rigging with alt accounts,
bribery (addressed and disproven below), or coercive threats.
Simply using the word “meddling” as an epithet is not enough, particularly in light of precedent.
2. Bribery is not Proven
In this case, the Prosecution claims that a general advertisement sent to everyone on the server, and, as at least one public official was online, this means that the public official was bribed. But this is a misreading of the law and precedents.
The message in question was a general appeal to voters at large, not a targeted bribe aimed at any particular public official or office-holder. Simply put, no evidence shows the defendant specifically sought to influence an official in the exercise of their public duties, as required by the bribery law.
Furthermore, the Milqy decision clarified that merely participating in an election (for example, as a voter or candidate) does not place someone in a “legal capacity” for purposes of the bribery statute. Running for office or voting is the right of every citizen – it is not an official duty or a position of public trust. The bribery law was designed to prevent corruption of public servants; even if any government officials happened to see the defendant’s message, there is no indication the message was directed at influencing them in their official roles.
The prosecution has presented no evidence of a quid pro quo directed at any office-holder – no promise like “I will pay Councilor X money so that Councilor X uses their office in my favor.” Absent such targeted corruption, the bribery allegation collapses. To convict on these facts would not only contradict the plain language of the statute, it would also set a dangerous precedent that dilutes the meaning of bribery beyond recognition. I urge the Court to follow the law as written and as interpreted in Milqy: if no public official was specifically targeted, no bribery occurred.
More importantly,
the prosecution has failed to prove any act that would qualify as illegal election interference under our law. The record is devoid of any evidence of the classic forms of election rigging. To illustrate,
none of the following occurred in this case:
- There were no fake or alternate accounts used to alter the vote tally (no ballot stuffing or multi-voting was even alleged).
- There were no threats, intimidation, or coercion directed at voters or officials by the defendant.
- There was no valid bribery of an official, as we have shown exhaustively (the offer was not aimed at influencing any office-holder’s official duties).
Each of those bullet points corresponds to the specific misconduct enumerated in the Electoral Fraud statute. Not a single one is present here.
