Term 6 - Judiciary - Court is in Session

Welcome to another exciting term of the Judiciary.

Here are your new members of the judiciary:
Chief Justice: FionnMcCumhall
Judge Advocate: CivGeneral
Public Defender:ravensfire

The Judicary is defined by these rules

Democracy Game Rules
Judicial Log

Previous Terms
Term 5
Term 4
Term 3
Term 2
Term 1

1. Prepare for the next Democracy Game including discussion for a new ruleset.
2. Deal with any PI's that may arise
3. Deal with any Judicial Reviews that may arise as well

Judge Advocate CivGeneral and Mara Jade reporting in.

Congradulations Justice Fionn, and welcome to the Judciary!

The defender of the Public Interest has moved into his office, along with his souvenier Katana (authentic!).

-- Ravensfire, Public Defender of Fanatica

To my fellow Citizens and more directly to the members of the Judiciary,

While I may be a member of the Executive Branch I come before you today not as the Foreign Affairs Leader, not as the Mayor of the Beautiful City of North Shore, but instead I stand in front of you as the root of all that is great, I stand as a Citizen of Fanatica.

I have come here today as a Citizen to invoke our written laws, more specifically our Constitution, Section C, Article 2, Subsection B.

This is a proposal, an amendment that can alter the way we view our roles as Leaders. In my travels abroad I have come into contact with other civilizations and their forms of government. Please excuse me as I give you a brief explanation of what I have found.

In a Republic we the people, the citizens, lose direct control on the Government Executive Branch. With one single vote, spent on voting individuals into Parliament, we put our entire power into that particular group of individuals. But what I find interesting, what I fail to find is the law that gives the people sole power for trust in their Government Leaders. In a Republic it is a called a Vote Of Confidence, in a Democracy (although on a much smaller scale) it is called a Recall.

Both these processes share the same idealogy which can be summed up briefly, a Vote that is based on the discontent of the people which effectively ends the Leader in question's Term.

Why would I propose such a bill? Do I not have not have cnofidence in our Leaders? The answer is undeniably YES I DO. How ever there may come a scenerio where we may think that whis may be necessary, where it may be in the better interest of our Nation.

Bill of "Vote of Confidence"

Purpose: To allow the Citizens (all citizens including Leaders) to express their discontent with a Current Leader.

Execution: This I leave to the Judiciary to make better preparations and regulations but this is my envisionment. A) The Citizen that wishes to hold a vote of confidence posts a thread entitled "Vote of Confidence for (Insert Leader Name)" or B) the Citizen approaches a Leader and states their Case to them, that Leader will raise the vote. The Vote thread has two options Confidence or No Confidence. The thread should remain open for 24 Hours and CAN include the reasons for the vote. In a Republic the vote is cast immediately and sometimes with out reason. That is why I propose this type of Voting.

Reprucussions: If the vote gives the result of No Confidence in a Republic and Democracy the Leader is immediately removed from office. How ever considering the need for Growth of Fanatica I propose they either be put on probation for a given amount of time followed by another vote of confidence or removed. This I would leave in the hands of the Judiciary.

This is my Proposal and I hope this Great Nation, it's citizens and it's Leaders, sees this Bill as I do, another oppurtunity for Fanatica to be truely Democratic and give more power to it's People.

hmm and interesting idea, looks good on paper. Lets see what the citizens think.

I shall repost this in the citizens sub fora as i dont want this thread full of discussion on just this topic

Here is the thread on this topic:

War_Mongrol's Bill Proposal

Dear Court:

I would like the court to clarify a point of law. Here is the situation: citizen A wins an election, citizen B places second and citizen C places third. However, citizen A declines the Leader position due to the fact that citizen A also won another Leader position. Question: who is the Deputy to Leader B?

Thank you for your consideration.

I would think it should be the third-place candidate. This has been done in various cases this game, including me being Trade Deputy in Term 2 when CT (who was first in the election) declined for Domestic, Oct (who placed second) became the leader, and I (who placed third) became the Trade Deputy. However if there were only two candidates the candidate who declined should become the new deputy.

My opinion would be that the person who declined the Leader position would still have the right to be deputy. This person won the election and so has the support of the people. This person is also interested in being a member of the departement as evidenced by running for the office in the first place.

I'm not a member of the court, but would like to file an amicus brief on the issue of who becomes deputy when the winner declines in order to take another position.

Person A, who won two elections, is already the leader of both departments. This is disallowed by the constitution, so one of the positions must be resigned. Taking the resignation as a standalone event, there is no logical difference between this situation and the one where a leader must resign mid-term for whatever reason. The deputy moves up, and the next highest vote-getter becomes the deputy.

This analysis also exposes a logical weakness in the concept of letting a person be leader of one office and deputy in another. As soon as s/he becomes the leader of a 2nd department via elimination of the previous leader, a situation is immediately created where one of the offices must be resigned.

Now to get into some future ruleset ideas:

To combat the problem of not enough active players to fill all offices and deputies, a compromise position may be necessary. Let an individual hold two offices, which must be in different branches of the government. Add checks and balances to ensure a runaway dual-position leader, for example Domestic and Governor, does not get too much power, by allowing a majority of the council override an executive branch leader, and a majority of the senate override a governor.

To all a discussion on a possible ruleset for DG4 is located in the citizens sub-fora.

Link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65793

Debate away :-D

The JA is back .

delete

WB JA !

Have you cooled down from your 1 week ban ?

Just looking for an update: has there been any work on the JR I requested?

A Judicial Review was requested on who is the deputy for an office.
Citzen A was elected to two offices, declining office X. Citizen B,
finishing second in the polling, become the holder of office X.
Citizen C finishes 3rd in the polling. Who is the deputy for office
X.

We find that a citizen, when elected to an office and subsequently
declines that office, has resigned from that office. The citizen no
longer has any claim on that office due to the election. Thus, the
citizen finishing in 2nd place becomes the office holder, with the
citizen finishing in 3rd place becoming the deputy.

Just to make sure everyone knows ...

The Public Defender agrees with this ruling.

-- Ravensfire, Public Defender of Fanatica

I have read the past turn chat instruction threads and have noticed that some out there have no posted instructions for some reason or another. I know real life gets in the way sometimes but that is not a good excuse to shirk your duties (ive been guilty of this as well). If you the elected officials do not post instructions by next turn chat i will be forced to PI each and every one of you. Its something i prefer not to do but i will do it. So make sure you make those instructions or the PI axe falls