Term 2 Judicial Thread ~

this is an easy one:

Governing rules shall consist of these Articles of the
Constitution, such amendments that shall follow and lower
forms of law that may be implemented. No rule shall be
valid that contradicts these Articles. The Constitution
amendments can be added/modified/removed when the
need arises.

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lower laws includes code of laws in my opinon
thus the constitution does require it

Black_Hole said:

this is an easy one:

lower laws includes code of laws in my opinon
thus the constitution does require it

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Before we close the book on this one, Black_Hole , we may want to re-consider what the request for Judicial Review was for. The Article you quoted was Article B of the Constitution. To reiterate:

Civman2004 requested Judicial Review of Article N, as its wording is restricted to forum rules and the Constitution. It reads:

As stated in the Article you quoted, Constitutional amendments can be made/modified/removed when the need arises. So now, by way of this JR request, we must ask ourselves, "has the need arisen?"

good point cyc, i got a big confused reading his post(please quote the articles civman next time, if possible)

all actions not
forbidden by forum rules, or by this Constitution,

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u can think of it as the constitution being extended, because of article b
basically what i am saying is it could be thought that if an article in the constitution calls on lower laws then those lower laws could be classified as actions prohibited by the constitution

*my head is spinning*

Thank-You civman for bring forth this JR , as this really needs to be clarified

It is my understanding that all CoL laws and amendments are all additions to the Constitution. Therefore they must be followed aspart of the constitution. I'll write this up formally later tonight.

DG5JR16 Submitted by:CivMan2004
Regarding the Purview of the CoL

All CoL laws and amendments are addendums to the constitution in it's entirety. Basically the CoL is a collection of footnotes at the end of the constitution further clarifying the document and/or adding new rules. With this view of lower law, and as Article N states:

As provided by Article A of this constitution, all actions not
forbidden by forum rules, or by this Constitution, are presumed to
be within the right of every citizen.

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It is my judgement that citizens are indeed required to abide by the CoL as if it were the constitution.

DG5JR16

I must disagree with my esteemed colleague. The Constitution and the Code of Laws have ALWAYS been separate documents. We have different posts for each document, different rules for amending each document, and different Polls for ratifying each document. In fact we used to have the Three Books, the Constitution, the Code of Laws, and the Code of Standards. Each was a separate document with a separate purpose. This Judicial Review is to consider amending Article N so that it is not restricted to only the Constitution and Forum Rules. It is not to define the purpose of the Code of Laws, which is a separate document in its entirety regardless of its purpose.

As this Judicial Review is about Article N, we need to focus on the intent of this Article. It now states that citizens have the right to do actions not forbidden by Forum Rules or the Constitution. This Article was drawn up before the creation of the Code of Laws. If we neglect to "update" this Article, it could be seen as saying that citizens doing the actions prescribed in the Code of Laws are not within their rights. Plus, by not adding it a second time (to the last line), actions prescribed by the Code of Laws may not be substituted by other similar actions, provided such substitution lies within the spirit of these rules. Which means no lee way in its implementation. No substitutions, regardless of the spirit of the Law. Actually, leaving the second one out may not be a 'bad thing'. But regardless, the first instance is what the primary reason of this JR is about. Fine tuning an amendment can be done later.


Because of Article B of the Constitution, citizens are required to follow all lower forms of Law ratified by the people. So whether they must or not is not my concern here. What we should be looking at is the rights of the citizens and the permissiveness the government uses in viewing their actions. I believe the Code of Laws, as a separate document from the Constitution, should be included in legislation concerning the rights of the citizens. Therefore, I submit the following Opinion:


Chief Justice Opinion: Article N does not actually require the citizens to obey/follow the Code of Laws, in answer to your question. That is done by Article B, as shown above. But in answer to the intent of the request for Judicial Review, to protect the integrity of the Code of Laws, an amendment should be drawn up for Article N with the Code of Laws included in the rules that may forbid citizen actions. Because it is a separate document, otherwise we would not be having this JR, if we exclude it from Article N, 1. it would send a confusing message to the public (as shown here) and 2. It would allow the citizens the right to perform actions forbidden in the Code of Laws.

It's late, so I'll keep this short and sweet.

DG5JR16

I agree with Cyc's judgement, and find in the same way he does.

On the JR regarding whether the VP has the right to post a TCIT if the President has not posted one, by 24 hours before the TC, consider this:

If the VP (or others in the CoC) does not have such a right, it would run the risk of essentially giving the President carte-blanche to do anything, by failing to post a TCIT but then running the chat anyway, and then claiming that no instructions means anything goes. Given this dire potential consequence, the best way to handle the situation would be to allow someone in the CoC to post the TCIT -- or maybe allow a member of the judiciary or a mod to do it.

This does not trample the President's perogative to set the turnchat schedule, just say a TC must have already been scheduled in the Turnchat Schedule thread before anyone else can create a TCIT.

It wasn't really clear what the judiciary's ruling was on this matter, please clarify.

Honorable Vice-President Daveshack,
All Judicial ruilings are posted in the Judicial log on the Main Demogame board. I will happily place the information regarding that JR here:

Sir Donald III's question was :
Does the Vice President have the right to create Turnchat Instruction Threads if the President has not done so within 24 Hours of the Pre-specified time of the TC?

Majority Opinion: This Court has ruled that the Vice President does indeed have the right to create a Turn Chat Instruction thread under normal and abnormal circumstances. Normal being under the direction of the President or a planned Absense. Abnormal being if the President failed to post a TCIT prior to the 24 hour deadline before a scheduled Turn Chat.

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For the full ruling, check the judicial log here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2182828&postcount=16

In addition, I like the amount of citizen participation in the Judicial system! It's going up.

*donsig streaks up to the bench and grabs the gavel*



*donsig drops the gavel on the bench and runs out of the courtroom with nothin' on but a smile on his face *

Judicial Log updated.

May it Please the Court!

I am requesting a JR regarding an issue that has come up with the New Appointments.

As CoL Section G(2) reads:

A. Confirmation polls are used to challenge the appointment
of a citizen to an elected office. Any citizen may
create a confirmation poll, should one not already exist.
This poll must be created within 24 hours of the
appointment, and ask the question "Do you approve of the
appointment of <citizen name> to the office of <office
name>?", with Yes, No and Abstain option. This poll is
to be private, as it is a form of an election. The poll
will run for 2 days. At the end of the time, if a
majority of the citizens vote "No", the appointment is
overturned. Any other result approves the appointment.

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The issue here is that, 90% of the time, there would be a Turnchat occurring over the 72 hour "Confirmation Period."

My questions for this Review are:

A: With the exception of Deputy Promotions, (to the full office, given the Article G Section 2 of the Constitution,) would the Apointees under Confirmation be allowed to write instruction threads for any Turnchats during the "Confirmation Period"?

B: And if not, then who would make instructions for Vacant or Newly Established positions?

As for my Second Question, I would like to file an Amicus Brief.

Firstly, there is this bit from Section O(1) for newly established Governorships:

Section O(1) said:

1: Once a Territory has at least three (3) towns or has at least 50% of the land within the entire territory under Japatanica's Cultural Borders, then it becomes a Full Province with its own Governor.
a: Until this happens, administration of towns within the territory
are retained by the Governors of their respective former
Provinces. Administration of New Towns formed before the limit
is achieved will be under the control of the Domestic Minister.

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Now, this would cover probably 90% of the cases where the questions in this JR apply. (i.e. Establishment of New Governorships.)

For the Remaining 10%, i.e. Vacancies in the Executive or Judicial when any applicable Deputies have been exhausted, I seem to recall a precedent for the DP having defacto control of those "vacant" offices.

The Justices may consider this Amicus at their individual discression. (Or reject it at said discression.)

Comment on the JR for Confirmation Polls.

I wish to draw the Court's attention to the final 2 sentances - "At the end of the time, if a majority of the citizens vote "No", the appointment is overturned. Any other result approves the appointment."

The key word there is "overturned", that is, the section presumes that the appointment is valid, allowing the citizen to hold the office with the rights and responsibilities of that office. Should the confimation poll result in a strong negative vote, the appointment is overturned.

As the primary author of that section, that was my intent. When an office is declared vacant, we must quickly fill that office with a citizen. Without a citizen in the office, performing the duties of that office, we lose some of the balance within our government.

-- Ravensfire

Sir Donald III has requested Judicial Review of the authority and capabilities of Governors appointed to Office, who have Confirmation Polls filed against them. He is referencing Article G.2 of the Constitution for this request.

His request has been accepted and listed in post #4 of this thread as DG5JR17.

This Court seeks input from the public on this matter and wishes to thank the Honorable Ravensfire for his timely contribution.

i agree with ravensfire here

i think they should definetly be able to, as the confirmation poll is putting someone out of office if it passes
otherwise the president has a nice little blank check(which is less democratic then someone else posting instructions)

This was prompted by the discussion on naming provinces.

After a search of our laws, I can find no direct law that states that a Governor names their province. As a long time player, I recognize that there is a tradition of such actions. However, most people know my opinion of unwritten traditions - they're worth the paper they're printed on! Not to mention the obvious problem of including such unwritten traditions, everything from old games caries over ...

I did, however, find myself intrigued by that most innocent of Constitutional Articles - Article N


Hmmm, the catch-all article that apparently grants unto the People all powers not forbidden to them.

So, I have two questions.
1. Does Article N grant unto the People all rights and responsiblities not forbidden to them and not granted to specified leader?

2. Does Article N soley grant unto the People the right to name Provinces and Cities, or does that right lie with the Domestic Minister, under Article D.1 (resonsible for all domestic initiatives...)

I would note two sections from Article E on the duties of Governors:

Missing from either are any mention of naming rights. Indeed, section B is quite specific about HOW the duties of the Governor may be carried out.

Hopefully the Court will be able to provide at least a short-term resolution to this debate.

-- Ravensfire

DG5JR17 Submitted by: Sir Donald III
Regarding nominated officials.

Because of the wording of the use of confirmation polls, as pointed out by ravensfire and others, any appointed leaders retain their powers until the close of a confirmation. CoL G.2 states:

At the end of the time, if a
majority of the citizens vote "No", the appointment is
overturned. Any other result approves the appointment.

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Therefore, ANY other result of a confirmation poll is an approval. Therefore, considering that not having a result is not the same as having a result of a majority "NO", the position retains all powers. Upon the closing of the 2-day poll in which the candidate recieved a majority of NO votes the position will be vacated.


Thank you and goodnight.

DG5JR17

My Opinion matches all those posted here thus far. In the eyes of the CJ, when any kind of government official is "appointed" to a position, that individual has a job and responsibilities to manage. Just because someone files some paperwork in hopes of removing them from said position, doesn't mean they can kick back until the polls are closed. That's just silly. If I were ever to appoint someone to a position in my Department (if I were to be a Leader) or to my bench, and they told me they could do anything until the Confirmation Poll closed, I would fire them myself and find someone else.

Chief Justice Opinion: Any person legally appointed to a position may exercise, with full authority, all duties, responsibilities, perks, etc. associated with that position, regardless of any paperwork filed against them. Negative Confirmation Polls (ones that have completed and show a negative result), Court Orders, or job plain getting fired would be ways of not allowing someone to do their work.

I realize your second question does not need to be answered now, but I will say that the DP is, in the eyes of this Court, very restricted in the use of "free-lance" moves on the part of another Official. Everyone has a job to do and most of the guidelines for what these jobs entail can be found somewhere in our ruleset.

Some further comments on my most recent request -

Unwritten rules and traditions - yup, same dead horse. I hate 'em. Passionately. Why? Easy - people that know that just follow then, and just accept that everyone else will as well. It's more than just a belief that these will be followed, it deeper, stronger than that. Changing or challenging such things is grounds for ridicule, sometimes without a reason other than "Because!" And yes, I am guilty of this as well.

I can see at least two times these unwritten rules/traditions have caused on concern. Both of these involve citizens new to the game who are eager to participate in more than pure mechanics. Besides the province names, the other situation was city naming.

I challenge you - find me something in our ruleset that clearly defines who names cities. Ahh, perhaps the Domestic Minister clause (D.1 "...responsible for all domestic initiatives...") applies. Sorry - I'm looking for a clear statement. We've had it in previous rulesets.

Unwritten rules and traditions are fine, so long as they don't affect the game. When they begin to affect in-game actions, you suddenly have people that don't know, and cannot possibly know, the rules. That's not fair to them. Oh, but they can just ask! Or, but we can just explain it to them and that will make everything all right!

Buzzzz - wrong answer. You cannot expect people to accept things not written down as "law". Memory has a funny thing of changing, and not being the same for everyone. While the written word is always subject to interpretation, it is written down for all to see. When it's not written, you cannot expect someone to question it. How can they - they don't know about it!

These events support my belief that we (once again) rushed into this game before we were truly ready. The reasons for this are many, and irrelevant to this discussion. I would ask everyone that, as we continue to run tinto the situations, please DON'T use the "We've always done it that way!" excuse, without taking a quick look to see if that's currently in the ruleset. If it isn't, temper your comments, and suggest that we ought to add to the rules and have a discussion about it.

Not everything old should be carried forward. Not everything new works (DG4 Senate, anyone?). All we should be basing our actions and rules on is the written word, and only those found in our Constitution as interpreted in Judicial Rulings.
[/soapbox]

-- Ravensfire