Firs, about the Sirionite Constitution, I found just a very small part of it at the Wiki. Specially the "BooK: Titles and Domains". That was formulated by Erik and and I cannot remember the character's name now (Anurak, maybe!?), but he received help of one Lord in this. In real life, he's lawyer. He's not playing anymore and believe me, I'm not compelled to seek 2TB of my olds computer to seek it now. As someone said, not everything must be or would be saved at the Wiki... seek for Sirion and you will find Rugina as Prime Minister. That's about lands, the power of the Duke to indicate in times of war, etc. Do we have become lazy with our records? For sure. I will need a bible to save everything Erik said inside the Council while Judge for years. The mentality is pretty obvious: We don't want to punish our Lords, giving their regions aways because they was caught in battle: a double punishment for fight for Sirion. She asked her region back. It's her right. Thinking about oath, she was indicated. She has his preference, his appointment and expected to have right over the lands given to her. Erik did it as a stubborn!? His way.
Also, back in time, I would have been punished before. Erik always said in his early campaigns that he would be the Judge to reform the Council, kicking old silent Dukes. Any way or another, he did. Power struggle. Let's put in in perspective: if Atanamir, by some miracle, decided to return to Sirion... put his name to a position in Avamar and won. Erik could not threaten half the world, or the entire world, to become Judge once again to kick him?
Once again, while I understand and accept the punishments, it's have northing to do with the placeholder thing. For me, and that was my fault, was to believe a Placeholder is someone appointed or elected with the specific "mission" to protect the region while someone else waits to take it... like: "I'm not in love but I gonna !@#$ you 'till someone better comes along". That's definitely not the case.