Shall we ratify the following as section X (to be determined later) of the Code of Standards?


1. Judicial Review of an Existing Law
I. Request
A. Any citizen may request a Judicial Review by posting the request in
the Judicial Thread or via PM to any Justice.
1. The request should contain the question and the specific law involved.
2. If the request sent via PM, the citizen should remain anonymous unless
they choose otherwise.
B. The Chief Justice shall post a notice in the Judicial Thread that a Judicial
Request has been filed. This post should contain a summary of the Request.

II. Public Discussion
A. The Chief Justice shall create a new thread in the Citizen’s Forum
entitled “Judicial Review – Term <term number> - Request <request number
for that term>”
B. The first post shall contain the formal question and law involved
1. The Chief Justice may rewrite the question so long as the meaning
is not altered. Any changes should be discussed with the requestor.
C. All Citizens are then invited to discuss the question.
D. Justices are to post questions, but not conclusions.
E. Discussion continues until the Chief Justice declares arguments over.
1. The Associate Justices may overrule if they both agree to do so. They
may also declare halt to arguments if they both agree and Chief Justice
is not willing to end the discussions.

III. Judicial Discussion
A. The Judiciary shall then meet privately to discuss review
B. The Judiciary shall produce a Majority opinion, and if needed, a
Minority opinion.
C. The Chief Justice shall post both opinions, including the signers
of each, in the Judicial Thread and the Judicial Log.
1. Each Justice should post a confirmatory message which may also
include an explanatory note. Any such note is not part of the official record.
D. All Judicial Reviews are part of COUNTRY_NAME’s body of Law, and may
be used for future decisions unless overridden by future Laws.

IV. General
A. All proceedings should go forth in an expedient manner.
B. All proceedings started under one Court shall continue with that Court
through the conclusion of that proceeding.

2. Judicial Review of a Proposed Law
I. As citizens, the members of the Judiciary should be active during any
discussion of a new law.
II. Once a final proposal has been made and agreed upon for a proposed Law,
the Chief Justice should post in the discussion thread that the Judiciary
will review the law and the text of the law to be reviewed.
III. The Judiciary will then meet privately to discuss the law.
IV. If the proposed law passes review, the Chief Justice shall post the poll
for the proposed law in the Poll sub-forum.
A. A majority of Justices must agree that the proposed
law does not conflict with any existing law or constitutional
article for it to pass review
V. If the proposed law does not pass review, the Chief Justice shall post in
the discussion thread the reasons for the rejection.
A. Should a poll already be posted for this proposal, the poll is deemed void.


Relevant Discussion
Judicial Review (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72777)

Please vote as follows:
Yes - I wish to ratify this section
No - I do not wish to ratify this section
Abstain - I wish to neither ratify or reject this proposal

Poll shall run for 4 days.

-- Ravensfire

I voted Yes to ratification of this standard.

I voted NO. I have several issues with this direction of law.

1) If we are going to have discussion threads for judicial review now, then the judiciary themselves should be allowed to state their opinion in them. Otherwise the judicial review is nothing more than looking for citizen consensus. Now normally that is well and good, but in this case, the judiciary is not commenting on the appropriateness of a law, but simply if it is unconstitutional. So the citizen discussion might proceed to a point where there is clear consensus amongst the populace, but the judiciary may need to overrule the law anyhow. This would mean that the CJ and friends are now not following the will of the people. Creating a conflict of laws. They cannot win either way. This is one of the reasons that Judicial Reviews were kept short and sweet.

2) The judiciary should post their opinions publically, and not as a consolidated document, in the judiciary thread. From there the CJ would normally add a blub to the judicial log.

3) On what levels are judicial reviews part of the law food chain? Constitutional? Code of Laws? Standards? The wording implies that these reveiws can now make laws, which is a huge NO NO in my book. The reviews should only be used to clarify an existing law on constitutionality of a proposed law.

I believe this is good as is.