PI Procedure Discussion

As many of you know, I really don't like PIs, particularly in their present form, or the way they used to be. Mainly, this is because of the public, accusatory nature of them, which leads to flamewars and a slew of self-righteousness. So this is what I suggest.

1. While any citizen may initiate a PI, they do it via PM to the judge advocate.

2. If the judge advocate finds that the case has merit, he/she brings it to the attention of the other members of the judiciary via PM.

3. The Chief Justice then opens a PI thread, where only the members of the judiciary and the accused may post.

4. Citizens are encouraged to present their opinions to the JA or PD via PM, private chat, etc. Just nothing public.

5. After the two sides have laid out their arguments, the Chief Justice will open the thread for anyone who has something to say that has not already been said in one form or another. If a citizen violates this decree, they will be charged with contempt of court, which results in them not being able to remain on the jury (see below).

6. Once the arguments are finished, the issue comes to a public vote of guilt or innocence. One of the moderators will open a Jury thread, and each citizen may vote once with a simple Guilty/Not Guilty vote. Any further comment in the post will also result in a contempt of court charge, invalidating the vote.

7. Sentencing is carried out by the Judiciary and the moderators if a guilty verdict is passed down.

as long as the public drama of "I AM PRESSING CHARGES AGAINST YOUUUUUUUUU!!!" is eliminated, its a good start.

Originally posted by Immortal
as long as the public drama of "I AM PRESSING CHARGES AGAINST YOUUUUUUUUU!!!" is eliminated, its a good start.

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This is my primary objective.

I like it eyrei, although #5 seems a little harsh, as if one citizen says something about the charge, but doesn't really bring out the full impact of the violation, and someone else feels they can do the statement with more justice then I don't think they should be penalized. I do like the open vote in #6 with just one post per citizen.

Originally posted by Cyc
I like it eyrei, although #5 seems a little harsh, as if one citizen says something about the charge, but doesn't really bring out the full impact of the violation, and someone else feels they can do the statement with more justice then I don't think they should be penalized. I do like the open vote in #6 with just one post per citizen.

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#5 is necessary, in my opinion, only because otherwise everyone will post the same thing just to show their opposition. They have the chance to do that in the Jury thread.

you will clearly have to define what has already been stated in the first post of the thread to inform.

"4. Citizens are encouraged to present their opinions to the JA or PD via PM, private chat, etc. Just nothing public"

but then how could we potentially have some discussion? In our democracy game I think we should allow citizen input (if it's ordered, as we're well aware it often isn't) and discussion, as with free discussion often good ideas can (please not my choice of words, can) materialize, where as otherwise potentially great ideas would be hindered by the fact that the ones who those ideas could be placed to (JA and PD) might be swamped, as well might not like the ideas placed, thus leading to censorship of a sort. These ideas are great eyrei, though we all agree shall likely need revision of sorts.

Originally posted by Curufinwe
"4. Citizens are encouraged to present their opinions to the JA or PD via PM, private chat, etc. Just nothing public"

but then how could we potentially have some discussion? In our democracy game I think we should allow citizen input (if it's ordered, as we're well aware it often isn't) and discussion, as with free discussion often good ideas can (please not my choice of words, can) materialize, where as otherwise potentially great ideas would be hindered by the fact that the ones who those ideas could be placed to (JA and PD) might be swamped, as well might not like the ideas placed, thus leading to censorship of a sort. These ideas are great eyrei, though we all agree shall likely need revision of sorts.

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Freedom of speech does not apply in most courtrooms. Nor is discussion encouraged.

I have a question regarding PMing the PI to the JA. Could the persion chose to reman Annonumus if He/she wants to?

Not in the courtroom Eyrei, but have a seperate discussion thread (moderated by an impartial judge such as yourself, for example, though not censored) where ideas could be voiced for the public to here. I've stated my reasons why this would be a good idea already, as you can see in my prior post.

I think we need two things in order to be able to effectively deal with the PI problem. First, we need a civil as well as a criminal procedure. A criminal procedure would be for cases of breaking the rules, like if someone plays the save. A civil procedure would be for cases where a leader is accused of not following the will of the people. For example, say Mayor of City A wants a colosseum built and has popular backing but the Governor of the provonce refuses to put the building into City A's queue. Rather than PI the Governor and try to get him or her punished, a civil case could be initiated to try to get the colosseum into City A's queue. The focus of the civil case would be whether the colosseum is indeed the will of the people.

The other thing we need to avoid the persistant PI problem is more actual legal procedure. Our public investigations turn into shouting matches between opposing factions because in the end we have a trial poll. We might as well have trial by combat between the accuser and accused if we are really seeking justice.

Eyrei's proposal is the best I've seen so far for PIs. I would only add that we should not include the entire citizenry on the jury. We should have a limited number of jurors (for example six). Both the JA/accuser and PD/accused should have some say in who ends up on the jury just as in RL trials here in the US. Only by eliminating the end vote where all citizens vote on guilt or innocence can we hope to avoid the politically based PIs that have plagued the demogames since I first vetoed a constitional amendment back in DG1.

Originally posted by Curufinwe
Not in the courtroom Eyrei, but have a seperate discussion thread (moderated by an impartial judge such as yourself, for example, though not censored) where ideas could be voiced for the public to here. I've stated my reasons why this would be a good idea already, as you can see in my prior post.

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To what purpose? So people can yell at each other? I dont' think so...

The concept of juries is interesting. I do agree that most PIs end up being politically based as far as the vote goes. However, this is why sentencing would be in the hands of the judiciary and the moderators. If it is believed that the vote went as it did for political reasons, the sentence would likely be very, very light.

I would like to offer these words of caution.
It is essential than there are sufficient safeguards in the final proposal to ensure that any personal prejudices amongst the Judiciary cannot influence the process of the investigation. Also any decision made by the Judiciary in an invesitgation must be justified by weight of evidence. Finally any decision taken by the Judiciary must not be allowed to be revisited by unsatisfied citizens not directly connected to the investigation.

Originally posted by eyrei
The concept of juries is interesting. I do agree that most PIs end up being politically based as far as the vote goes. However, this is why sentencing would be in the hands of the judiciary and the moderators. If it is believed that the vote went as it did for political reasons, the sentence would likely be very, very light.

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I'm not so sure that in the heat of a PI frenzy those most heated would be looking ahead enough to see that sentencing would be light. The arguements we've seen in PIs so far (I think) are really the two sides looking ahead to the big trial vote and trying to sway as many to their side as possible. With a limited (and hopefully fair) jury the argueing would (I think) be diminished. I realize that this system would take time and would not be amenable to citizens who hope to quickly impeach a leader and oust him or her from office. In anticipation of that I would suggest that in cases where a leader has clearly and truly gone off half cocked and needs to be removed quickly, we can surely rely on our moderators to step in and by-pass red tape. Eyrei has already declared his willingness to remove leaders from office and while I do not like such an idea I'd rather have that as an emergency back-up if our PI procedures can then be slowed down.

In anticipation of that I would suggest that in cases where a leader has clearly and truly gone off half cocked and needs to be removed quickly, we can surely rely on our moderators to step in and by-pass red tape.

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Obviously, we can't.

As for these PI procedures, we must have a point where citizens are free to voice their opinions. Otherwise, we'll just be rolling back one more element of democracy from this DG.

It was my original intention to have no public discussion, just a registration of guilty or not guilty. However enough people (without an axe to grind) made their concerns known to me that I persuaded that this would not be in the public interest.

I will post my opinion on each part of your proposal.

Originally posted by eyrei
1. While any citizen may initiate a PI, they do it via PM to the judge advocate.

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That looks good for the most part, but we should have a system whereby if the charge isn't presented within 24 hours, it may be forwarded to the Chief Justice for presentation, and if no presentation of charges is performed by him/her within a further 24 hours, the charges may be reported to a moderator for presentation.

2. If the judge advocate finds that the case has merit, he/she brings it to the attention of the other members of the judiciary via PM.

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I believe that all three judiciary members should have to find that the case has no merit to dismiss it. It should be presented in the PI thread as to whether the Judiciary should dismiss charges.

3. The Chief Justice then opens a PI thread, where only the members of the judiciary and the accused may post.

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If this is closed to ordinary citizenry for 24-48 hours and then opened to them, it sounds good to me.

4. Citizens are encouraged to present their opinions to the JA or PD via PM, private chat, etc. Just nothing public.

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Sounds fine for the first 24-48 hours.

5. After the two sides have laid out their arguments, the Chief Justice will open the thread for anyone who has something to say that has not already been said in one form or another. If a citizen violates this decree, they will be charged with contempt of court, which results in them not being able to remain on the jury (see below).

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This could be enforced only if it was polled in open thread, which it appears it will be. Also, who issues contempt of court charges, the Chief Justice, the mods, or who?

6. Once the arguments are finished, the issue comes to a public vote of guilt or innocence. One of the moderators will open a Jury thread, and each citizen may vote once with a simple Guilty/Not Guilty vote. Any further comment in the post will also result in a contempt of court charge, invalidating the vote.

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Sounds good if it is the citizen whose vote is invalidated and the poll continues as usual.

7. Sentencing is carried out by the Judiciary and the moderators if a guilty verdict is passed down.

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I'd prefer if it be only by the Judiciary. Any suspensions or expulsions would be enforced by the mods and suspension time determined by the mods on recommendation of the Judiciary. Also:
I would also like to add my own rule:
8. After the Judiciary determines the sentence for the accused, it must be passed through a second poll of the jury. It will be in Yes/No/Abstain format and will require an affirmative vote of a plurality of the jury to carry out the sentence. The same rules apply for that as they do for the conviction poll. If it is denied, the judiciary must pass a new sentence, to go through the same procedure.

How do these look?

In my opinion, a closed jury would be for the better. Anonymous votes are open to tampering, and some may be unwilling to publicly voice their opinion in an public vote. A jury would ensure a some cooler heads prevail.

I agree. Let's conduct jury polls by open thread, otherwise, there'd be no way to enforce contempt charges for one thing.