The Bench Rules on the Birthday Text

The Deliberation Chamber sat on a Tuesday, as it does, and rose ninety (90) minutes later with a finding that surprised no one present except the Applicant. The Applicant, known to the record only by the pseudonym "the Correspondent", brought before the bench a single question: whether a birthday message sent to a former partner, at 11:58pm, eleven (11) months after the arrangement was dissolved, constituted contact or merely courtesy. The Correspondent submitted that the message — "happy birthday, hope it's a good one" — was, in the words of the lodged materials, "literally just polite." The bench was invited to agree. It did not agree. Over the sitting, twelve (12) Citizens considered the timing, described by one juror as "a deadline, not a greeting"; the punctuation, an absence of any full stop which the bench found probative; and the eleven-month interval, which the Correspondent characterised as "moving on" and …