Citizens’ League · Operation Citizen · Public duty

The oath starts the duty. The record shows whether it was kept.

Use: examine one public decision against the officer’s constitutional oath, legal authority, assigned duty, public explanation, and measured result.

Operation Citizen’s standard: an oath-taker holds public power for the public. That resembles a steward’s or fiduciary’s duty. The oath does not, by itself, create a private lawsuit for every poor decision. The citizen must identify the law, rule, ethical duty, appropriated purpose, contract term, or constitutional limit that makes the obligation concrete.

Begin with one decision

Put the office, power, and public duty on the same page.

The public-trust test

Ask six questions the record can answer.

1 · Authority

Was the officer authorized to make this decision?

2 · Faithful performance

Did the officer carry out the duty assigned to the office?

3 · Public purpose

Which citizens or public interests was this power meant to serve?

4 · Candor and reconstruction

Can another citizen reconstruct the evidence, advice, conflicts, decision, and reason?

5 · Stewardship

Who receives the benefit, who carries the risk, and what is handed to the next generation?

6 · Remedy

Who can correct the decision, enforce the duty, or create the missing rule?

What the oath establishes

Use the right level of claim.

Constitutional fact

Article VI binds federal and state legislative, executive, and judicial officers by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution. The President takes a separate Article II oath. Federal civil-service and uniformed officers generally take the statutory oath in 5 U.S.C. § 3331.

Operation Citizen’s inference

Public power is entrusted for a public purpose. The oath supplies the orientation; the applicable law and the decision record supply the enforceable and measurable duties.

Evidence limit

A policy disagreement does not prove an oath violation. Name the breached duty and supporting facts. Keep legal noncompliance, ethical failure, poor stewardship, and disagreement as separate findings.

READ ARTICLE VIREAD THE PRESIDENTIAL OATHREAD 5 U.S.C. § 3331