Journalist: Ean Cloud (ORU)
Ian Tobar, a moot competitor from ORU, has been grappling with his case for hours on end. With his place as the defendant, against the President of the United States, it is indeed a tricky stance to hold, but Tobar has worked a significant defense. What is interesting about this, especially regarding moot, is that a large part of this defense, while including mostly law, has a large basis on public policy as set in the Constitution.
Such was the case of the fictional Chester Atwood as he took his case to the State of Olympus (aka the USA in this case). Atwood, a citizen of Olympus, while not doing any terrorist activities himself, had associated with them, and had voiced violent intentions many times. He was detained indefinitely after being tracked through his cell phone. This was the man Tobar was set to defend, to see whether the Olympians had exceeded their presidential authority or violated the 4th Amendment of the US constitution (don’t think too hard about it). The case itself drew many similarities to the case of Mohammed Oulud Slahi, who was detained without being charged, as well as being very much an instigator (to say the least). In our world, Slahi put forward that the sudden arrest of him (from Jordan) and detention in Guantanamo Bay violated his rights. The main difference between the two was that the government was holding one of its own citizens hostage.
The context fully explained, debate on broken policy and its importance quickly became center stage. Tobar discussed that no matter the moral concerns of the case, the law must be followed, and that was one of the guiding principles for his defense. Tobar himself is an Ecuadorian citizen, so naturally there were some differences between US law and Ecuadorian. According to him, the main difference was that in Ecuador, decisions are made by the letter of the law, ignoring the precedent set by other decisions in the past like in America. All this to say the policy, while still much more of a deal in the House and Senate, still rings loud and clear in moot.