Mayor resigns after granting himself immunity in Mount Augusta criminal trial

The mayor of Mount Augusta, citylion, resigns just prior to a likely successful recall vote against him concluding, but not without one final use of his controversial mayoral powers.

You can also read the short version of this article.

Before they escaped his grip, citylion made a dramatic final use of his mayoral powers — he unilaterally passed a law allowing him to grant immunity from prosecution, and spared himself from an active criminal trial.

While the trial was slowly progressing through the courts, citylion faced a new hurdle: a recall vote.

In Mount Augusta, recall votes allow the citizens to express their dissatisfaction with an office-bearer and ultimately remove them from office if enough voters agree.

Before the vote against the mayor could conclude, citylion penned an open letter to the city which he later relied upon to resign from office. In it, after a lamentation on not meeting every mayoral goal, citylion said that Mount Augusta “still left a mark in history, together”.

When he resigned, citylion’s recall vote was set to pass unanimously. He was the only person to oppose the vote, but his voting registration had lapsed.

Disgraced mayor grants himself immunity

Just prior to his resignation, citylion granted himself the ability to pardon and grant effective immunity to any person for specified actions. This includes prospective “pardons” that grant immunity against any future trial.

He used a “mayoral decree” provision that allowed him to circumvent the direct democracy in Mount Augusta to unilaterally grant himself the new pardon power.

Putting it to immediate use, citylion granted several pardons for “all previous actions and alleged crimes at the Hjaltland Industries building”. These wide-ranging pardons apply to:

• citylion
• Ibis1804
• Jovaz, current Mount Augusta delegate to the Forum for International Diplomacy
• Waffle4Breakfast, current Mount Augusta judge
• man_page
• KingCold64, former Mount Augusta judge
• Et6546
• UnrealJesus
• RhoLex_
• WarcorpTM
• Ahrimanazu, current Mount Augusta registrar
• Scramble0, current member of citylion’s government.

Those pardoned match those who were being pursued in ongoing litigation by Hjaltland Industries. But there are a three more persons named in the pardon — two members of citylion’s government and citylion himself.

The plaintiff, through tankbuster44, alleges that the defendants griefed the Hjaltland Industries store within Njordomir’s building. tankbuster44 leases the store space from Njordomir.

On a “day of rage” organised by citylion, a throng entered the Hjaltland Industries store and griefed it, placing a large amount of cobblestone and lighting a number of fires.

The Gazette understands that the “day of rage” was motivated by citylion’s unhappiness with Hjaltland building a skybridge and illegally bounty hunting in Mount Augusta, and for failing to remove a “fortress” from Mount Augusta. tankbuster44 claims that many of the properties whose skylines intersected with the skybridge consented to its construction.

The purpose of including the extra two government members is not clear. But citylion clearly included himself to escape any liability for his actions.

“Those present at the protest clearly decided on their own volition to partake. They were angry at the actions of the Hjaltland government. I did not coerce them,” citylion said in his defence.

But he has not expressly stated that he was not personally involved in the griefing effort.

Instead, he said that not “one single instance of me placing blocks within Hjaltland’s rented space” was shown to the Court.

He is partially correct. In fact, over 15 instances of him placing blocks was shown.¹

The willingness of his accomplices is also questionable. Some claim that the property had been seized by citylion, making the destruction lawful as it was at his request.

But this is simply not the case. The seizure bill, also passed unilaterally by citylion, requires that seizures be publicised within 24 hours. No seizure has yet been publicised.

And, in any case, the Bill of Rights provides that no government official may “under any circumstance, seize the property of Augustan residents”.

For this reason, the plaintiff dropped charges against all but citylion.

With no further legal avenues available under Mount Augusta law, it appears that the damage will go unpunished.

Unhappiness among those pardoned

Yet those pardoned were not consulted and some are unhappy with the pardon.

“I would like to have been held responsible but citylion enacting a pardon on all those involved leaves a sad taste in my mouth,” waffle4breakfast said.

“citylion led the riots into a raiding crew and I regret not having the foresight to prevent it from happening as a judge. But a group sentiment bonded by the faith in a dictator is hard to dismantle.”

“It puzzles me that tankbuster44 only pursued charges against citylion. He in fact dropped charges against the other participants. So the act of ‘pardoning’ all those involved leads me to believe that citylion is trying to save face.”

The Gazette reached out to citylion to question his use of the decree power in a way that appears contrary to his publicly stated intention for diplomatic use of the power.

“Hjaltland has extraordinary threatened the sovereignty of Mount Augusta and everyone knows it,” citylion said in a statement to the Gazette. [sic]

“My actions are perhaps the greatest ever and everyone sees it and let me tell you no one predicted it but folks we proved them wrong right? Am I right? Well let me tell you. I think so.”

Power used despite being reserved for “extraordinary threat”

The controverisal decree power used by citylion allows the mayor to pass law without the approval of citizens and is subject to a so-called “injunction” by two judges.

In the original proposal of the decree power, citylion stated that he would only use it to provide more certainty to international negotiations and to avoid a perception of a “red-tape” requirements surrounding implementing agreements.

“I think that it would be wise to largely avoid using the [decree] power unless presented with an extraordinary threat whether it be internal or external,” citylion said.

“I can’t currently think of a reason that [the power] should be [used], and I don’t have plans on using it,” citylion also said in a letter about the passage of the power.

“The only exception being a clear and imminent constitutional crisis such as an astronomical loophole completely reversing the intent of the voters, something which I do not see happening any time soon, and which (as far as I can recall) has never happened in my years of playing.”

The decree power has only been used four times before:

• amending the popular pardon power to allow pardons while a trial is in progress
• clarifying that popular pardon votes are limited to a 24-hour period (where no period was previously listed)
• fixing a typo that allowed summary judgments where an unresponsive party was unaware of their obligations in a trial.

The fourth use of the decree power saw citylion grant the mayor power to seize property deemed to be a threat to Mount Augusta, and to compel the owner to disable and evacuate the property. The Gazette understands that this seizure power has not yet been used.

Hopes for re-election persist

Having protected himself from criminal liability and surviving an imminent recall by resigning, citylion’s re-election hopes have not been dashed.

citylion is now purportedly standing as a candidate for re-election, despite the two-term limit imposed by the Constitution.

The Gazette understands that other candidates will seek to challenge his eligibility.

He also stands for election as a judge.

Short version

• citylion was about to be recalled from office just before he resigned
• He was defending against a criminal trial at the time he resigned
  • The plaintiff alleged that, during a “day of rage”, citylion griefed the Hjaltplex Industries store by placing cobblestone and lighting fires
  • citylion called the “day of rage” in response to his displeasure with Hjaltland building a skybridge and bounty hunting within Mount Augusta
  • A number of other people attended the day of rage and were told that citylion had seized the property — he had not
• He unilaterally passed a law allowing him to pardon people and grant immunity for all future legal actions
• He pardoned himself from the trial moments before resigning as mayor

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