Citizen initiative poll: Should justices be allowed to rule on cases directly affect

This is a citizen's initiative poll.

Should a judiciary member be allowed to rule on or otherwise hand down decisions in cases (either judicial reviews or citizen complaints) that directly affect said judiciary member?

Relevent discussion threads:

Term 3 Judicial thread

Citizen complaint #1 trial thread.

Citizen complaint #1 jury poll.

Chief justice confirmation poll.

This will be a private poll and will be open for four days.

Before i vote, who will decide which cases affect who?

The opinon of one, the consensus, or the person him/her self?

I would urge all to wait for an answer before voting

Swissempire said:

Before i vote, who will decide which cases affect who?

The opinon of one, the consensus, or the person him/her self?

I would urge all to wait for an answer before voting

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A reasonable request. What method do you suggest we use?

I would suggest, if this intiative passes, that it be up to that person. Then, if that person's desicion is questioned by three or more people, a Poll will be posted with people voteing Yes he/she should recuse him/herself, or no, he/she should not

I voted no, But since the case dosent affect Curuwinfin this dosent matter

Of course not! But I believe that Swiss' idea is a good way of handling it if the justice doesn't know any better.

Donovan Zoi said:

Of course not! But I believe that Swiss' idea is a good way of handling it if the justice doesn't know any better.

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See, those seven words are the problem. Why should he know better and how. Where is is required for him to "know better". This is a new demogame that will shape and form its own traditions, the ways yours did. So please, don't try to stuff your "its tradition" crap down our throats. It just cause problems(see term three).

I'm going to hold my vote until more discussion is given. Plus I've read so many of these JR's that I can't remember which is which. Looks like its back to reading again.

Swissempire said:

I would suggest, if this intiative passes, that it be up to that person. Then, if that person's desicion is questioned by three or more people, a Poll will be posted with people voteing Yes he/she should recuse him/herself, or no, he/she should not

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The initial decision in such matters is always up to the affected judiciary member. It is only when a disagreement arises between the judiciary member and a citizen or citizens that we'd have to invoke some legal mechanism to sort out the issue. I think that any citizen should be allowed to post a recusal poll of the form does case [insert case name] affect [insert judiciary member name]?. If a majority vote yes then the judiciary member has to recuse him or her self from the case. And in the mean time the case is put on hold. In special cases where the judicial member's seat on the bench is in question, all court business should be put on hold till the issue and the case is resolved. An alternative method where only one justice is involved would be to allow the other two justices a say. If they both say the affected justice should recuse him or her self then it should be so. Either method could be available.

The point of this poll is not to hammer out the legal mechanism by which we'd decide if a recusal was neccesary. This poll is simply about whether we want justices ruling on cases that affect them. If we decide we don't want that then we can open a discussion and draft a law specifying how it is to be decided. We can certainly continue that discussion here but I urge everyone to vote on the question at hand and not on the eventual method we'll use to determine what affects a justice. We'll get a chance to vote on that down the road if we decide here that we need such a mechanism.

I don't think this can be called an initiative, because it doesn't follow the necessary procedures and standards. It's a private poll, and didn't have its own discussion first.

If we view this strictly as asked, then to me it's hardly even a question. No justice should ever rule on a case affecting that justice.

The problem of course is that if you take a very broad definition of "cases affecting a justice" such that the slightest degree of conflict is the dividing line, it is entirely possible that some case will come along that no DG citizen can reasonably rule on due to that conflict. Take the very 1st ruling of the Civ4 DG -- essentially we had to rule on whether the DG itself existed or whether we were throwing it all away and starting over. How can that case do anything but affect every DG citizen?

The answer is to use a definition which includes a reasonableness test -- would any reasonable citizen think that there is a potential conflict of interest. For the case in question, even if you completely ignore the original complaint by Donsig as being "unreasonable", there were at least 4 other citizens who thought a potential conflict of interest did exist -- myself, Cyc, Donovan Zoi, Ravensfire. I'm sure there were more actually, just don't have time right this second to look for them. I'd call 10% or more of the active citizens a pretty strong case for reasonable.

For this to be passed as an intiative, i would like to have the rules that it will put in place decided on.

SO i present:

Option A.
1. THe justice him or herself decides if there is a conflict of interest
2. If three or more citiziens object, then a poll is taken and if more than 50% of the population think there is a conflict of interest, the justice recuse him or herself for that case
Option B.
1. THe justice him or herself decides if there is a conflict of interest
2. If three or more citiziens object, the two oher justices post there opinions on the matter and if they both vote to have him recuse him or herself, then he/she must.

I prefer option A, and i won't vote in this poll until it is decided

I think this poll should be closed, and then a new one made. Many people probaly won't see this discussion. Unless it is mentioned in the 1st post. Some people may/are just looking at the poll question.

Edit: Doesn't have to be closed (terrible mis-reading on my part) but, the second part of my statement is probaly true

DaveShack said:

I don't think this can be called an initiative, because it doesn't follow the necessary procedures and standards. It's a private poll, and didn't have its own discussion first.

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Would you please point me to the necessary procedure and standards? I don't see any formal procedures in our code of laws that spell out how citizen initiatives are supposed to be done. Has anyone else done one yet? Yes, it is a private poll but what is wrong with that? Our polling standards call for official polls to be public but this poll is posted as a binding citizen initiative and not as an official referendum. The idea that our polls should be public is poppycock anyway. Democracy works best when citizens are allowed to vote without fear of recrimination for how they voted. This is acheived by allowing citizens to vote by secret ballot. Since we now have a DG user group we no longer have to worry about non-citizens coming in and voting in our polls. We can go back to the secret ballot. As for this having it's own discussion thread: I provide four links where this topic was debated (as others have pointed out) ad infinitum. What point would there be (other than in forcing a delay) to insist on yet another thread to rehash the same arguments?

DaveShack said:

If we view this strictly as asked, then to me it's hardly even a question. No justice should ever rule on a case affecting that justice.

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I see you are finally beginning to understand one of the points I've been trying to make. The answer one gets can be greatly affected by how one phrases the question. In order to be sure we do not interpret the recent jury poll incorrectly I thought it necessary that we ask ourselves this very basic question. Were those twelve votes for Curufinwe's innocence really votes that we want justices making rulings on cases affecting them? We will find out here with this initiative, which will have the force of law if approved.

For cases such as the one pointed out by DaveShack (those where no one can rule because the case affects all citizens) then the case should not be heard at all by the judiciary. Such cases should go directly to the assembly where the case should be decided by a floor vote.

Donsig, you again have avoided the question as to how to get this enforced. All that this currently would do is put a law in the CoL that says "No justice can rule on a case that effects them" Thats it. Do you agree with my posted procedures?

ANd i think the jury voted innocent because it didn't think Curufinwe was breaching the impartiality of the judiciary, not cause the evil powers that be duped them

I abstained from this obvious slanted poll.

Curufinwe said:

I abstained from this obvious slanted poll.

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I find it kinda funny that only one person is willing to say, even privately, that justices should be able to rule on cases which affect themselves.

donsig said:

We will find out here with this initiative, which will have the force of law if approved.

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CoL Section 1
The Citizens Assembly shall be presided over by the Censor.

Accordingly, the Censor has posted official procedures for conducting polls.

Official Polls for Initiative and Referendum

1. To be validated as an official poll with the weight of an Initiative or Referendum as defined in Article C.1.2 of the Constitution and other forms of law, the poll must meet the following standards:
   • The question and answers must be stated clearly and fairly.
   • The minimum duration of a poll is 2 days.
   • The number of votes must exceed 1/4 the census - for the current term, it is 9 votes.
   • Polls must be public except for those which must be private due to requirements of higher laws.
   • The results of polls which meet these guidelines will be tracked in an official poll index.

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Note the bolded part. Furthermore, this is only a binding poll if the Censor says it is -- it's right there in the procedures, for which you'll need a JR if you want to challenge them, which you won't be able to rule on if you're elected to the judiciary.

Here's another idea -- have someone a little less connected to the case push an actual CoL amendment including the procedure for determining if a recusal is required.

I find it kinda funny that only one person is willing to say, even privately, that justices should be able to rule on cases which affect themselves.

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k, I'll say it in public. justices should recuse themselves from any case where there would be even an appearance of self interest.

Polls must be public except for those which must be private due to requirements of higher laws.

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maybe we should start a new poll to delineate what the requirements of higher laws are...

DaveShack said:

Note the bolded part. Furthermore, this is only a binding poll if the Censor says it is -- it's right there in the procedures, for which you'll need a JR if you want to challenge them, which you won't be able to rule on if you're elected to the judiciary.

Here's another idea -- have someone a little less connected to the case push an actual CoL amendment including the procedure for determining if a recusal is required.

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Where do I start? [donsig licks his chops at the thought of the legal meat he's about to tear into.]

First, since when can the Censor make procedures that over-ride the constitution? Last I knew a citizen's initiative was the highest form of decision making recognized by our constitution and one that must always be allowed. IIRC we touched briefly on this topic in term one but never dealt with it squarely.

Second, do I need a JR or a CC against the censor for making procedures that are contrary to the constitution?

Third, let's say it's a JR and let's say it affects me because it's my initiative. So what? We've already established that justices can rule on cases that affect them. Curufinwe in his infinite wisdom has set that precedent. Surely you're not suggesting that Curufinwe is capable of ruling impartially on cases that affect him but I'm not capable of ruling impartially on cases that affect me! Now that the precedent is set it comes down to us having to judge a judge's character rather than whether a case affects a judge! Not a good way of going about things if you're trying to promote community feelings and avoid hard feelings among our citizens.

Fourth, as for doing up an actual CoL amendment, well, as I said earlier I'm just trying here to verify that we really want such an amendment. I truly doubted this once we actually let Curufinwe rule on a JR that had a direct bearing on his position as Chief Justice.

Fifth, why have someone else push an amendment through? I'm trying to reestablish faith in our legal system. How would trying to pull strings behind other's backs accomplish that? Besides, wouldn't it be easier to just convince the censor to change his procedures?

Sixth, why back off from the wording of this initiative? It seems a clear and concise question and has sparked a much needed debate on when we want justices to recuse themselves. I think actually giving this initiative force of law would spur us on to quickly developing a good mechanism for recusals that we all can live with and readily turn into a good part of our CoL.

Seventh, if this is indeed the first citizen's initiative in our history then it becomes a precedent for all future citizen initiatives. This means there is more at stake than whether we want judges recusing themselves or not. Now it's also about whether citizen's can actually make binding initiatives or not. It's about whether citizens will be at the mercy of a censor who can write the rules for making citizen initiatives. It's about whether we are actually going to have the type of democracy promised in our constitution!

Swissempire said:

See, those seven words are the problem. Why should he know better and how. Where is is required for him to "know better". This is a new demogame that will shape and form its own traditions, the ways yours did. So please, don't try to stuff your "its tradition" crap down our throats. It just cause problems(see term three).

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Are you saying that lazily and stubbornly doing whatever the heck you want without regard for written law beacuse it seems right is the New Deal? In a world where Paris Hilton still manages to capture the attention and imagination of some, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Plus, I don't think I have ever used the word "crap" to describe the ideas of others. I suppose that is another galvanizing new way of thinking that will only grow more glorious and respected with time.

Donsig, precedent is meaningless. The law only has meaning within context of the society its placed, which is continually evolving, so then, even if I were to have had some precedent, which the people seemingly decided repeatedly I did not, that precedent could be overturned in a heartbeat.