Edgar Gerlach

Edgar Gerlach
Official portrait, 2023
2nd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Makko Oko
Incumbent
Assumed office October 19th, 2023
Personal details
Born	September 6th, 1968 (58 years old) Yorhun, Kiwi, Makko Oko
Spouse	Alicia Gerlach (m. 1983)
Children	3

Edgar Gerlach (born September 6th, 1968) is the 2nd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Makko Oko. He is described as being quite conservative and institutionalist, with no verified ties to the state religion. Edgar was born during a time of innovation and as a child worked with their parents at the mines. His education was lackluster until 1983 when he married Alicia at the age of 15, where he would then leave home and his job to study engineering and construction. In 1988, he would go back into the mines in Yorhun and discover the tribe's first deposit of platinum. With the discovery he became an instant millionaire and opened up his own mining company in 1990, referred to as Gerlach's. It would then thereafter become the premium jeweler in the nation.

In 2019, after the war concluded, Edgar was invited by Emperor Solis to become a justice on the reformed Supreme Court after his actions for the CNF during the war. He would then go on to become the Chief Justice when Erma Barrows was kidnapped and then pronounced dead in 2023. Edgar is notable for being one of the few Supreme Court justices to have no prior legal experience.

Early life and education

Edgar was born on September 6th, 1968 to parents Gerard and Monica Gerlach. Gerard was a miner whilst Monica handled home chores and the occasional delivery between tribes. As soon as Edgar was able, he was put to work at the mines with his dad, not being paid a penny for it. He would receive very little education besides what his mother would teach him. He has a younger brother, Sidney, born when he was ten, who was treated considerably better. Edgar would get married in 1983 and immediately move out thereafter to learn, on the advice of his wife, Alicia. He went to a special building that taught engineering because he thought he was good at it, then he would take on construction and learn them together, the first concept of majors and minors for education.

Career

Edgar started his early life post-education in the mines. He went back into the mines at Yorhun as an independent person and mined every day. By 1989, he was able to afford a small home of his own for him and his wife and then they conceived their first child, Clarence. Near the end of the year, Edgar was working in the mines and he discovered something silvery-white, that reflected the light all over the cave. He pulled it out and it felt very heavy, and upon having it weighed for usual sell, found out that he had discovered the nation's first platinum deposit. The day he found out, Alicia went into labor and birthed Clarence a day later on December 20th, 1989. The timing was perfect, so Edgar decided to start his own mining operation, at first employing only 4 miners, with Edgar taking the first three months off to care for the newborn.

In May 1990, the operation was already producing significant amounts of money and was at the time the most profitable and largest in the newly-formed Republic. Edgar had to decide what to do with all the money, and having taken a vacation to another nation, noticed jewelry and founded Gerlach's, which would both mine minerals and create and sell jewelry out of them, making three times more on each piece mined. By 1991, Gerlach's had a monopoly on the entirety of mining in the nation, expanding rapidly, at least one new cave expanded into per month.

Appointment to Supreme Court

In 2018 before the war broke out, Edgar could not afford to pay salaries and had become destitute. Nobody could afford to pay for jewels anymore. This led to him joining the war against the Republic, with him fighting for financial security, the same thing the CNF fought for. He, however, would form a separate group named the PLF, or People's Liberation Front, which amassed almost as much members as the CNF. By March 2019, the PLF had slightly surpassed the CNF and Edgar was the chief. Edgar was a diplomat, not wanting bloodshed as much as a voice. By May, however, the CNF and PLF had agreed to merge forces as "the war was dragging on longer than anybody anticipated".

Ultimately when the CNF would declare victory, the new Emperor Conall Solis would approach Edgar about becoming a Supreme Court justice, despite the lack of legal experience. After some persuasion, he retired as CEO of Gerlach's and became a Supreme Court justice fulltime.

Supreme Court

Slavery

On February 5th, 2023, Gerlach dissented with Donald Aponte and Tanya Graham in Kramer Evans et al. v. Ministry of Internal Security which held that a ministerial directive ordering law enforcement agencies to capture and return missing slaves to their owners was constitutional. Writing the dissenting opinion, Gerlach said "Forcing a slave to be with an individual violates Article 1 of the Basic Rights in unjustly restricting the freedom of movement. It is not considered a limitation by this court if one cannot make movement at all without being forcibly kidnapped without their consent. Slavery is not illegal, violating the freedom of movement, is."

Article 19 (Right to free legal aid)

In State v. Rochelle (2024), Gerlach joined the majority in ruling (5-1) that no low-income citizen irrespective of the indictments or the record shall be prohibited from receiving and exercising free legal aid.