Term 1 - Judicial Thread

Due to the possibility of a tied vote in the next city placement poll, I request an urgent Judicial Review of Article D, with respect to the right to break ties.


Question 1: Does Article D give the Minister of Domestic Affairs the right to break ties on city placement polls?

For question 2, the law to be reviewed is the entire constitution. My apologies for not trying to figure this one out on my own, I want to leave the court with open options.
Question 2: Does any provision of the constitution give anyone the right to break ties in general?

If these questions can be answered prior to the next turnchat we may be able to proceed. If the vote remains a tie and nobody has the right to break ties, we will need to stop prior to founding the city for a followup poll.

Thank you in advance for your prompt consideration of this matter.

To: Provolution
Re: Ringi Reform of Japanatica

This court does not support the program over all. The main concern, other than the proposal being weighed down with too much time consuming detail, is the bottle-neck situation at the Domestic Leader level. The Domestic Minister should not be able to trim the options down to 2 preferences. This is a judgement call and may not reflect the WOTP. In this court's opinion, all proposed options should be polled. This would best represent the WOTP.

President DaveShack has requested a Judicial Review concerning the matter of tied poll results dealing with Official matters. He has asked 2 questions, first dealing with the Domestic Minister in regards to city placement polls, and then dealing with tied polls in general. This court feels that the second question encompasses the first, and therfore negates ruling on it. Thus, DaveShack's request for a Judicial Review will be reduced to his second question:

Question 2: Does any provision of the constitution give anyone the right to break ties in general?

The "Law" in question will be seen as the entirity of the Constitution. This request has been logged as DG5JR9 in post #3 of this thread.

Cyc

The intention with the reform proposal was for someone to look into the non-existant procedure for city localization. I am percfectly happy with the present structured procedure with non-existant detail beyond mapping, as it is the rightful privilege of the Japanatican people to choose userfriendly and simplistic models for decisions.
However, as useless and costly in time my own effort, it still put focus on the appalling
standards for deciding on city locations. I am satisfied with the present polling regime, but would in line with CJ Cycs intentions for egalitarian polling of all options, have the following amendments included, no Ringi system, but a model for streamlining the democratic process, so people do not complain about tweaking the process.

1. The options polled whould be ranked in the order they are submitted in the same public thread, and that ranking, which means no arbitrary ranking, will decide which alternative is alternative A through Z.

2. The name of the citizen should be added behind the alternative, so the people know
the originator of the alternative

3.Public polling includes the right to change vote, however, due to the extra work, this needs to be restricted to a set time before polling.

4. Failure to set up proper procedures for polling democratic policy options as written in the laws, should include a transgression/impeachment clause.

5. Any interdepartmental procedure, affecting several ministries, must be approved by the ministries in question before it goes through judiciary review.

Cyc said:

I agree with you donsig. In post #74 I posted this and due to the fact that the PD and JA had already posted their Opinions and I had received no input from the citizens, I changed the status of that post from one of waiting to one of a ruling. All three Opinions are now posted in the Judicial Log and the Majority decision was split on the questions. Provinces are allowed, but Governors are not. I would make a special note here, that as Zarn has already been elected Governor and has posted as such in the Instruction thread, this ruling for the Governors will not apply to him, and only be enforced in the future. Zarn has been "grandfathered" in.

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One small question:

Who, pray tell, will set build queues in term two?

donsig said:

One small question:

Who, pray tell, will set build queues in term two?

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This is why we are hoping article E passes

KCCrusader said:

This is why we are hoping article E passes

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And if it doesn't?

Why don't the two associate justices (or what ever they are called in this game) come to their senses and render a proper decision regarding governors? You could try reading the constitution before posting decisions.

Just a suggestion...

donsig said:

And if it doesn't?

Why don't the two associate justices (or what ever they are called in this game) come to their senses and render a proper decision regarding governors? You could try reading the constitution before posting decisions.

Just a suggestion...

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Your opposition to the ruling has been noted. I realize I do not have to add more justification in light of the (hostile ) opposition but i will happily furhter explain myself. I'm tending to favor a strict interpretation of what is written right now. Although I have read the constitution and Governors are recognized in Article H, their duties are not outlined by the constitution the way everyone else's are. Basically, they exist and can be elected but hold no official duties until it is agreed upon by the people what the governor's job is. If their duties are not defined, but they are created with no real guidelines, it is in my opinion that no one knows thus they could do anything, issue orders on anything not covered by another position or outlawed. And since the action of all domestic affairs (including cities) is currently a part of the DA's duties, it is impossible for a governor to issue orders that could potentially conflict with the DA's. Thus until an article is posted, it is STILL my position that the governor cannot make any real decisions.

Of course, I understand the "grandfather clause" Cyc talked about and am comfortable with the governor retaining the position of past demogames for this term. We have 4 demogames of precedent helping this one out, it shouldnt be to rocky.

DG5JR9 Requested by: DaveShack
Regarding breaking ties on Polls

President DaveShack has requested a Judicial Review concerning the matter of tied poll results dealing with Official matters. He has asked 2 questions, first dealing with the Domestic Minister in regards to city placement polls, and then dealing with tied polls in general. This court feels that the second question encompasses the first, and therfore negates ruling on it. Thus, DaveShack's request for a Judicial Review will be reduced to his second question:

Question 2: Does any provision of the constitution give anyone the right to break ties in general?

The "Law" in question will be seen as the entirity of the Constitution.

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First I agree the second question will sufficiently answer the first. The constitution (Article D) states the executive branch (including both the DA and President) "is responsible for determining and implementing the will of the people." This line proposes that it is the duty of the entire branch to find out what the people want. The article also defines the role of the DA as being responsible for all domestic initiatives. I believe, with a combonation of these passages, it is in the Domestic advisors power to settle a tied poll. Also, the polling process is not an official election that is to be certified afterwards. It is simply a method the Advisors use to gather information from the public. If an equal number of people support two options, it should be noted by the advisor, and he should choose an option. Only when an obviously unpopular choice is the course of action taken could a leader be acting for himself only. Quite frankly, the power to break the vote must also given in order to keep the game moving and moving smoothly. This power will not conflict with amendment-making since the number required for passing is clearly stated, and the power to break a tie shall not apply to elections of any kind. Only informational Polls.

Also, since the President is the head of the executive branch, he may also excercise the power to break a tie in the advisors absence.

Summary:
-Polls are tools to gather information, not binding documents
-Executive branch is tasked with determining and implementing the WOTP.
-These facts enable leaders (first the advisor, second the President) to choose an option in the case of a tie on a poll

Opinion on DG5JR9: Any advisor may choose an option the case of a tie on a poll relating to their delegated area of work. In an advisor's absense, the President may make the call as he is the head of the executive department which is responsible for implementing the will of the people. This tie-breaking power only applies to information-gathering Polls, not Elections.

DG5JR9
Requested By DaveShack
Request:

President DaveShack has requested a Judicial Review concerning the matter of tied poll results dealing with Official matters. He has asked 2 questions, first dealing with the Domestic Minister in regards to city placement polls, and then dealing with tied polls in general. This court feels that the second question encompasses the first, and therfore negates ruling on it. Thus, DaveShack's request for a Judicial Review will be reduced to his second question:

Question 2: Does any provision of the constitution give anyone the right to break ties in general?

The "Law" in question will be seen as the entirity of the Constitution.

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Opinion: For the purposes of not having an impossibly deadlocked poll, it is within the power of the minister whose jurisdiction encompases the poll in question to break a tie.

DG5JR9

President DaveShack has requested a Judicial Review concerning the matter of tied poll results dealing with Official matters. He has asked 2 questions, first dealing with the Domestic Minister in regards to city placement polls, and then dealing with tied polls in general. This court feels that the second question encompasses the first, and therfore negates ruling on it. Thus, DaveShack's request for a Judicial Review will be reduced to his second question:

Question 2: Does any provision of the constitution give anyone the right to break ties in general?

The "Law" in question will be seen as the entirity of the Constitution.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the Opinion of the Chief Justice, Article D emphisizes the responsibility of the members of the Executive Branch to determine and implement the Will of the People. As the Advisor of each Department is responsible for certain aspects of the operations of our nation, with the Will of the People at the base of this responsibility, there may come a time when decisions must be made by said Advisors without the benifit of citizen input, through no fault of their own. This situation may arise from no citizen input on the matter, or in the case of the President's question, a tied poll that shows results of no chosen direction of the public. Therefore, it would be the responsibility of said Advisors to furnish the President with direction, via the TCIT, on matters with inconclusive support in the form of the WOTP.

Chief Justice Opinion: Yes, Article D, to include D.1 - 6, gives authorization to Department Leaders to break ties in polls concerning the juridiction of their Department.

Does the ruling/CJ opinion of DG5JR9 also allow the president to break a tied vote, in the advisors absence? Or is that the task of the deputy?

And is the president allowed to protest against (i.e. veto) the decision of the advisor? Since it is unclear what the actual will of the people is the president could also have a voice in this decisionmaking.

I would also like to point out a point of conflict with DG5JR9:

Majority Opinion said:

For the purposes of not having an impossibly deadlocked poll, it is within the power of the minister whose jurisdiction encompases the poll in question to break a tie.

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Bolding is mine to point out the restrictive language.

Some lawyers may interpret this MO as endorcing Advisor tie-breaks only in the case of an even number of all choices except abstain. Heck, I could see some nut try to use this to say that "So long as there is even 1 abstenetion, the Abstainer has precedence over the Advisor."

In either case, the lawyer could use this MO to say that a "runoff" is necessary between the tied choices, until either 1 option gains a majority, or else all remaining options (save Abstentions) are tied.

Having read the several Opinions of the Justices, only the Judge Advocate's opinion is restricted thusly. The Public Defender and the Chief Justice have not, in my estimation, made this restriction. Please clarify on the necessity of the nature of Runofs in Informational Polls.

Well, this legal thing has gone too far, no question about it, and ministers are hardly ministers.

gert-janl said:

Does the ruling/CJ opinion of DG5JR9 also allow the president to break a tied vote, in the advisors absence? Or is that the task of the deputy?

And is the president allowed to protest against (i.e. veto) the decision of the advisor? Since it is unclear what the actual will of the people is the president could also have a voice in this decisionmaking.

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First, I would like to thank gert-janl for posing his question to this Court. Citizen participation is sorely needed in this times of forming our Books of Law. Thank you.

In the eyes of this Court, the President is allowed to "break a tied vote" for a poll determining the WOTP on matters falling within the Jurisdiction of the Executive Branch. As the Public Defender has said "Also, since the President is the head of the executive branch, he may also excercise the power to break a tie in the advisors absence.", with " In an advisor's absense, the President may make the call as he is the head of the executive department which is responsible for implementing the will of the people.". These well worded passages when used in combination with the ruling set forth by this Judicial Review (DG5JR9), lay out a tertiary role of the President in the matter of determing the WOTP. Put another way, Article D. emphisizes the responsibility of the members of the Executive Branch to determine and implement the Will of the People. This Executive Branch is headed by the President, who takes instruction from his Council of Ministers. It is a responsibility of the President to have that information available when playing the game. If said Advisor (Leader, Minister, etc.) fails to supply the President with that information, does that relieve the President from his responsibilty of obtaining that information by game time? I think not. Therefore, just as the Advisor must make the stretch to determine the WOTP by breaking a tied poll to fulfill his job, so must the President, when his Advisor fails to supply the information from his own Department. This would authorize the President, in fulfilling the responsibilities of his position, to break a tied vote in this situation. Looking to the Deputy for this information is strictly the perogative of the President and if the President wishes to defer this decision to the Deputy, that is his choice, but the President will still be responsible for the outcome of the decision. And finally, the President may not veto a legally posted instruction from an Advisor concerning the determination of the WOTP, as Article D states that the Preident will "take direction from a Council of Leaders and other elected and appointed officials". It does not say the President will take direction from these people, unless he doesn't like it and decides to veto. If the direction is leglly posted, the President must follow it.

I hope I've answered your question gert-janl.

Sir Donald III said:

I would also like to point out a point of conflict with DG5JR9:

Some lawyers may interpret this MO as endorcing Advisor tie-breaks only in the case of an even number of all choices except abstain. Heck, I could see some nut try to use this to say that "So long as there is even 1 abstenetion, the Abstainer has precedence over the Advisor."

In either case, the lawyer could use this MO to say that a "runoff" is necessary between the tied choices, until either 1 option gains a majority, or else all remaining options (save Abstentions) are tied.

Having read the several Opinions of the Justices, only the Judge Advocate's opinion is restricted thusly. The Public Defender and the Chief Justice have not, in my estimation, made this restriction. Please clarify on the necessity of the nature of Runofs in Informational Polls.

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Honorable Sir Donald III, agian, thank you too for your participation. In response to your question, Article J states "Elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people. The will of the people will be determined through discussion and polls, formal or informal." In this regard, it is well known by this court that all polls have a starting time and and ending time. The period between these two times is allotted to the gathering of information pertaing to the issue under the Leader's jurisdiction. Once the poll ends, the information is totaled and interpreted by the Leader (Advisor, Minister, etc.). The information is not looked upon as "Well these results are thus unless some other contingent may happen outside the time frame of the poll". The information is not subject to change by outside influence, as poll results would not change after the poll ends. So, in essance, if a poll is tied when a poll is over, it's tied. The poll cannot say of itself, "these are the results except if you look at it this way". What's done is done.

I believe this is what the Judge Advocate meant when he said "an impossibly deadlocked poll", and this Court stands behind JA Immortal's words.

Provolution said:

Well, this legal thing has gone too far, no question about it, and ministers are hardly ministers.

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Come again, Foreign Affairs Minister Provolution? I'm not sure what your implying here.

Frankly, I really do not see the point with lengthy political campaigns prior to elections where we compare policy platform for the electorate to choose someone with a program.
Now I see why certain candidates did not bother to make clear about their intentions, since every smallest detail should be polled to death. Some people love polls, some people love polls medium and some people love polls the least. Maybe we should poll how many polls each Ministry should hold through a term, and maybe we should start polling overall programs that would last a certain set of turns. I see this game is having a hard start due to many events, and Cyc, you are not to blame, as many things are situational, and directly derived from human error in especially polls and running the game, but also in a legal quagmire which is getting lesser and lesser sane to follow.

I and many other would have no problem with a fair code of laws written in the beginning of the game, and rather dealt with the problems as they arose.
Yes, we could even poll the interpretation of the law in a juror system.
I just see that I do not find term 1 as enjoying as originally thought due to the failure in setting up procedures, polls and getting the laws done.
From the side of FA, TA and MA, we have some distinct interest in actually operating as ministers in the sense that some of the strategizing and conceptualization is carried into the game, as the elections was pretty close. However, what some of us stated wanted to do in these elections is more neglibible, due to the present polling frenzy.

I suggest that decisions we make for the game has longer consequences than just one turn. For example, when iron is chosen, or monarchy is chosen in polls, we should not repoll for the slightest even. To make it interesting, to de-poll a certain agreed polling strategy should not be that easy. It should also be harder in turnchats to stop the game prematurely due to agreements on procedure, where procedures and contigency
plans should have been there in the first place. Such contigency lpans should take meausre for every scenario. We cannot stop the game every time a diplosession pops up or we cannot stop the game for every settler we make, we need to scale what is going to happen some turns away. I can see from the postings that some people are still posting vigorously and are having fun, but some of us is losing interest.

Someone cynically referred to this fatigue, that is why they need "new blood" (sounds like a Civ-vampire to me. Fair enough, I lost the city localization reform, it was too top heavy, but the alternative multiple flawed location polling and lack of contigency plans made no sense, and all these polling ties... Now suddenly it would be okay to poll two options to make it easier for some people, and some people want to repoll everything already polled, in fact polled several times. Monarchy route for example, has won two three times already, until it loses the perpetual polls brought up by the opposition.

where is the secret police, where is the torturechambers, where is the penal colonies?

Right now, even the thought of Polly Peanuts makes me feel Queasy...

Yes, Provolution, I pretty much agree with a lot of what you say, to some extent. But this is the Democracy game an the people do rule.

I definitely do not appreciate the repolling efforts made by some in this game. An initial polling should be respected, unless a situation signifigantly changes.

I personally like to see strong leadership qualities from the people we elect. This is sometimes hard to find. I also appreciate a Leader who listens to and divines the WOTP appropriately. These two aspects can work in concert with each other if care is put into planning and implementation. At this point I'm not sure what to tell you, except press on and try to make a change. I've seen good people just throw their hands in the air and walk away. I've seen people with only their best interest stay and work the system, the best they could. And I've also seen the opposite in both cases. People come and go. They try to make a difference and place their mark on history. Some are successful, others not. It is up to the individual person to bring this about.

In regards to your program and its success, I would refer you to my Term as Domestic Leader in Term 4 of DG1. The nation of Phoenatica was in dire need of a motivating shot in the arm as far as development went. We were doing fairly well on all fronts, but had fallen into a lag concerning waiting for the other shoe to drop in societal progression. When winning the election for Domestic Leader, I determined that new form of Budgetary Control was needed. I outlined this change in my initial post to the citizens, set up the Buget thread and moved forward with the plan. It hit a few snags in the begining, but with constant care and a lot of work, the plan succeeded and the growth of the nation was remarkable. Hopefully, this can serve as an example of what one can do in the Demogame. As it turned out, this Term as Domestic Leader worked out well for me.

Provolution said:

Well, this legal thing has gone too far, no question about it, and ministers are hardly ministers.

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It's about time somebody said as much. Ministers are simply poll takers, feeling the pulse of an anarchic mob.