Judicial Review - Term 1 - DGIVJR12

[Cyc]

Request for Judicial Review - Term 1 - DGIVJR12

Zorven has requested a Judicial Review. It is posted below:

I hereby request a review to clarify CoL section C.1.d. Specifically, does the Senate have to post instructions in the Turn Chat thread that the cash request has been approved?

 d.  The Senate shall meet prior to each turn chat and vote 
        on all cash requests in a Cash Request poll. 
      1.  These requests should be made in the Senate thread, 
          or another designated thread indicated in the first 
          post of the Senate thread.
      2.  Each request should be considered individually 
          unless the requestor specified otherwise.
      3.  Each request should be voted on seperately.
      4.  Should more requests be approved than funds 
          available, requests shall be conducted in the order 
          determined by the Designated Player.

_____________________________________________

The following Section of the CoS, Section X.1.III governs this Citizen’s Discussion.

II. Public Discussion
A. The Chief Justice shall create a new thread in the Citizen’s Forum
entitled “Judicial Review – Term <term number> - Request <request number
for that term>”
B. The first post shall contain the formal question and law involved
1. The Chief Justice may rewrite the question so long as the meaning
is not altered. Any changes should be discussed with the requestor.
C. All Citizens are then invited to discuss the question.
D. Justices are to post questions, but not conclusions.
E. Discussion continues until the Chief Justice declares arguments over.
1. The Associate Justices may overrule if they both agree to do so. They
may also declare halt to arguments if they both agree and Chief Justice
is not willing to end the discussions.

 

[ravensfire]

The answer to this questions is found in the Code of Standards.

D.  Turn Chat Instruction Thread 
  1.  All instructions to be played out in the turn chat 
      must be entered in the turn chat instruction thread. 
    a.  Any instructions that are not posted to the turn 
        chat instruction thread before the start of the turn 
        chat are not considered official.

Thus, per CoS Section D.1, the cash request instructions must be posted in the TCIT. Per the CoL, they must be posted at least one hour before the start of the chat.

-- Ravensfire

 

[zorven]

Ravensfire makes a good point. Now, how about this situation. The Military Leader asks for 100 gold to upgrade some units. The Senate approves it but does not post it in the TCIT. However, the Military Leader does post that the Senate has approved his request and therefore instructs the DP to upgrade the units.

Does this situation legally convey the Senate approval to the DP? And are the Military Leaders's instructions legal?

 

[DaveShack]

Originally posted by zorven
Ravensfire makes a good point. Now, how about this situation. The Military Leader asks for 100 gold to upgrade some units. The Senate approves it but does not post it in the TCIT. However, the Military Leader does post that the Senate has approved his request and therefore instructs the DP to upgrade the units.

Does this situation legally convey the Senate approval to the DP? And are the Military Leaders's instructions legal?

The discussion of JR11 may provide the answer to this question. Even though the Military Leader is not responsible for the decision on the gold, it is clear that he is responsible for the upgrade. If there is a public record somewhere of the approval, it should seem obvious that pointing out the approval falls within any leader's responsibilities.

 

[ravensfire]

Good question zorven.

I will, however, disagree with DaveShack on purely technical grounds. I'll then back-track somewhat. ("You're gonna do WHAT?!?" - obligatory movie quote!)

The entire concept of the TCIT is to gather the instructions in one place for the turn chat. The DP will then have one place to look for instructions, and not have to hunt through multiple threads.

While admittedly unlikely, and would result in severe sanctions, a dishonest leader *could* post instructions referencing something that didn't happen (the Senate vote) OR referencing something that might happen (again, the Senate vote), but reference them as if the request was approved.

In this example, the Minister is stepping outside the boundaries of their position. The instruction should state "If approved ...".

Having said all of that, I'll back track. I hope, truly, truly hope, that the DP would glance at the Senate thread/poll that the Defense Minister posted a link to and get some guidance from that. Absent instructions, we do allow the DP to make decisions.

Yes, I'm being picky about things. I don't want people to get in the habit of posting links in the TCIT, and referencing things outside of it. That's not fair to the DP. Everything should be in one thread, the TCIT. If it's not there, it doesn't count. Some exceptions should be made on a case-by-case basis (leader will be out of town, unable to access computer just before turn chat, etc), but they should be rare.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Rik Meleet]

I get a growing feeling the setup of the Senate isn't working the way it should, or could. 3 people have to vote on topics. Then the VP has to post the decisions on sliders and budget in the TC. After that the other offices can use the knowledge of this in their posts.We've all noticed that the senate isn't the "fastest acting body" of our nation. And we've had the situation in which the VP was banned for a couple of days, and we've seen office-holders not able to post/update their instructions in time due to work or school. This all leads to a bureaucracy and a waiting-game.

Of course the office-holders could and should anticipate a late senate-post by the VP and post instructions in the IF - Then format, but that is moving away from the aspect of "clear instructions".

Even I, and I think of myself as "by the rulebook", got confused since governor/senator plexus told me before the previous TC that the senate approved the 27gold for a worker, and went in doing that perticular trade (unrealisingly) against an instruction. That perticular instruction wasn't very easily understandable for a non-native english speaker, but that's not the point. The point is that the current setup is making the game unneccesarily complicated and makes the game unneccisarily slow, because a logical response is to increase the dates between TC's, which leads to a noticable slacking-off.

I remember DG 3 in which there was a sticky budget thread in which to post requests which were approved or disapproved by 1 person (dom leader). That way the offices and governors knew what to expect in time so they could adjust their plans and post clear instructions. Can we re-instate such a deperate budget-thread in which the senate posts approved or disapproved notices to the requests ? That way we'd remove the VP from the chain. Of course the VP is still responsible for posting the Senate-instructions, which then summarise also the approved requests, but gives the nation and the DP another legal place to look.

Sorry for perhaps a confusing post; I'm having mixed emotions. On the one hand I am extremely happy as I came 2nd in yesterday's prelimanary round of a national bridge-tournament and advanced to the quarter-finals, and OTOH I am shocked, confused and upset by the fuss I apparently caused with the extra turnchat and my "going against instructions".

 

[Cyc]

OTOH I am shocked, confused and upset by the fuss I apparently caused with the extra turnchat and my "going against instructions".

Sorry, Mr. President. Just doin' ma job.

 

[ravensfire]

Congrats on the tournament, Rik!

Bah - causing problems? Nope! Learning pains - maybe.

I agree with you about the Senate - after one term, it hasn't worked exactly the way I was envisioning.

Cash requests have always been somewhat problematic - remember the difficulty we had in getting Governors to request rushes during term 5? It felt like pulling teeth sometimes.

I think one of the changes (cash-related) is to run everything through one point of contact. Imagine if a trade used all of our cash, but Domestic had approved several cash rushes/upgrades - could have been interesting.

I was hoping to see the various leaders post their cash requests *in* the Senate thread. There have been times that I've seen the request made in a different topic.

I don't know of a good solution to that problem. We could pull the purse away from the Senate and put it in different hands. Maybe Foreign Affairs, as they appear to be low on the workload...

-- Ravensfire

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by zorven

Does this situation legally convey the Senate approval to the DP? And are the Military Leaders's instructions legal?

I think we are drifting a little bit from the topic. I am going to answer my questions: No on both. An instruction must be posted by the legal representative responsible for the decision. Therefore, in my example the VP would have to post the Senate's approval. Without the VP's post, there is no Senate instruction binding on the DP. And the Military Leader cannot post instructions that are the domain of other Leaders. Thus he cannot convey the Senate approval. Therefore, lacking the Senate instructions, the DP would not be able to upgrade the units that the Military has requested.

 

[Cyc]

This Public Discussion thread is now closed. The Chief Justice is calling Arguements Over.