Judicial Review - Term 5- Request 1

[Zarn]

Ravensfire has requested a judicial review:

Under Articles D and J (most especially J) of the Constitution, and Section B. 2.e.2 of the Code of Laws, is this* a valid instruction?

*A governor requested a great wonder to be put on the queue, doing the Ministry of Interior's job. Citizens were not calling for the wonder build, but did not go against it.

Governeror's queue

The Constitution

Article D.  The Executive branch is responsible for determining 
            and implementing the will of the People. It is headed
            by thePresident who shall be the primary Designated 
            Player. The President shall take direction from a 
            council of 4 leaders and from other elected and appointed 
            officials via the turnchat instruction thread.
              1.  The Minister of Internal Affairs shall be 
                  responsible for all domestic and cultural 
                  initiatives, as prescribed by law.

Article J.  Elected officials must plan and act according to the will 
            of the people.

The Code of Laws- Section B. 2.e.

2. (The Ministry of Internal Affairs) Is responsible for wonder building, including prebuilds.

 

[tao]

As the Governor whose action is questioned, I would like to give my point of view:

The Constitution D.1. says "The Minister of Internal Affairs shall be responsible for all domestic and cultural initiatives, as prescribed by law."
Was this paragraph violated? I think not. If "domestic and cultural initiatives" references queueing of buildings producing culture, each and every temple, library etc. build is the responsibility of the MIA. This obviously(?) is not the case. And no specific reference to wonder building is made.
Hence this clause of the Constitution does not apply.

The Constitution J. says: "Elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people."
The will of the people manifests itself in polls. Was there a poll? No.
Hence this clause of the Constitution was not violated.

CoL.B.2.e.2 says: "Ministry of Internal Affairs ... Is responsible for wonder building, including prebuilds."
It does not say what "is responsible" means. Does it mean "Has to take the blame if we don't get a wonder we want?" Does it mean "Decides which city should build the wonder?" Does it mean "Has to order worker actions improving the terrain of the wonder building city to maximum productivity?" This is unclear and IMHO something unclear is hard (or easy?) to violate (or enforce).
Especially it does not say that this paragraph has priority over the next one:
CoL.C.1.b.1 says: "A governor organizes the build queues of the cities in thier province" This is what I did.
It does not say "build queues except wonders".
And as long as there is no poll organized by the MIA and coming to a different result, this is a valid instruction.

An acceptable criticsm on the process might be, that the MIA did not organize the discussion. Please note that a similar instruction was already posted during Term 4 in the April 28 turnchat instructions. Thus since April 26, the MIA had the chance to organize a discussion on the wonder build. Or any citizen interested might have requested it. But it was not done. I do not think that I as governor should take the blame for it, IMHO.

Edit/add:
I also would like to raise a more legalistic point of view: The CoS.M gives 2 types of Judicial Reviews:
1. Judicial Review of an Existing Law
2. Judicial Review of a Proposed Law
Is the questioning of legality of turnchat instructions something which falls into either of the above categories? I at least question this and would like to have it addressed as part of this proceedings. Maybe Ravensfire should have filed a Citizen's Complaint, but he did not do it. (I obviously enjoy legal nitpicking.)

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by tao
The Constitution J. says: "Elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people."
The will of the people manifests itself in polls. Was there a poll? No.
Hence this clause of the Constitution was not violated.

Is it not possible to for the will of the people to be demonstrated via posting in a discusstion thread?

 

[tao]

Originally posted by zorven
Is it not possible to for the will of the people to be demonstrated via posting in a discusstion thread?

Yes, it is. It is however more difficult to conclude a "will" from say 3 pages of posts than from a poll. The point in this case however is moot, since the MIAs (of both Term 4 and Term 5) did not open a discussion thread on this issue. Neither did any other citizen.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by tao
Neither did any other citizen.

Strangely enough, that's part of the problem here. Nobody did, including the leader who posted the instruction to build a Great Wonder.

Our leaders are tasked with following the will of the people. This means that they have to actively seek it, work to determine it. Only if there is no participation AFTER they attempt to determine the will of the people may they act on their own accord.

Further, the construction and control of wonders and pre-builds lies soley with the Ministery of Internal Affairs. Although the MIA was vacant for part of Term 4, there was a minister in the last week or so, and there is a minister in Term 5. For both terms, an official thread was created in the Government sub-forum for the MIA by the minister. No post was made by the Governor prior to his ordering the construction of a Great Wonder in a city he controls.

National projects require coordination and participation of the people. These projects may be built in only one city. As a source of pride and honor, there is some natural competition between various cities to build these wonders. Thought and planning must be put forth in planning projects and coordinating prebuilds. A thoughtful leader will "spread the wealth" around, by constructing projects in various provinces.

tao circumvented this procedure, and did more than thwart the will of the people, he ignored the people in. This behavior is fine in a single player or succession game. But this is neither - this is the Democracy game. tao has a history of paying minimal lip-service to the People. While extremely knowledgable, he combines that with an arrogance and harsh manner that is not condusive to the fostering of a community. This action is but a further progression of his viewpoint towards the citizens of Fanatica.

I urge the court to remind all that this citizens of Fanatica, the People referenced in Article J of our Constitution, are more than just names, they are the source of our elected officials authority. Our leaders must seek their knowledge, seek their viewpoints, not remain passive and act as they wish.

Allowing actions like this completely removes the concept of teamwork. Governors would be free to build as they wish, with no effort towards coordination. Ministers can act as they will, with no concern towards others. All they have to do, is simple no bother to ask for the input of the People.

That is an intolerable situation that I pray this Court will recognize as completely against the core ideals of the DG. I further urge the Court to declare those instruction illegal and void.

My thanks,
-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by zorven
Is it not possible to for the will of the people to be demonstrated via posting in a discusstion thread?

Absolutely. The Will of the People may be demonstrated in both posts and polls. In fact, if there is overwhelming support for an idea in a discussion, a case may be made that no poll is needed as the WotP has been demonstrated to a sufficient extent in the discussion.

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

The customary procedure for planning a wonder build is to have some discussion, initiated by the responsible official, early enough that the people's will can be determined before an instruction needs to be posted. We have three completed and one partial demogame of experience in this matter, and it is reasonable to expect that a majority would say in a perfect world that is how it should work.

In this particular case we are at a point where the opportunity to build the wonder will be upon us very soon, and the customary advance work has not been done. This seems to be due to apathy on the part of the previous administration, and partly due to general citizen apathy as well. The governor, who is responsible for implementing the people's decision by setting a build queue, sees "who cares" as the will of the people, and so made a decision.

Technically this is may be an acceptable action to take under the law (just barely), but socially it is not the best way to proceed. The preferred approach would be to bring the idea up to the new administration, and either drive the discussion started by the MIA, or start a new discussion if the MIA fails to act. There were 4 days available, which is plenty of time for a discussion and maybe a poll.

It is defendable to say that posting the planned build queue in a provincial thread is a borderline acceptable way to solicit discussion on the queue. It is also quite obvious that for the gameplay issue, the appropriate way to respond if there is dissent is to reply with disagreement to the proposed queue.

We should also look at what prompted this review, but look beyond the tree we're standing in front of and look at the forest. Look beyond this incident and this particular governor, and look at the demogame as a whole. Was it merely this one incident, or is there a pervasive pattern of governors setting build queues without getting citizen input? I submit that it is a pattern of behavior, that many of the "new generation" are reacting to apathy among their fellow citizens by pushing ahead with the game. This is not a single problem incident, or a single problem individual, it is a symptom of a larger problem which threatens the very fabric of the game.

Unfortunately, the argument itself also threatens the game. I urge all concerned to consider the possibilty of putting this on our to-do list for DG5, step up to their civic duty to combat apathy by commenting on what our leaders are doing in-game, and play on.

 

[tao]

Just look at what happened when I did a poll wanting to get the will of the people on build queues in this poll: The same individual (ravensfire) now complaining about not involving the people enough complained that build queues determined by citizen polls "infringes upon the rights of our Governors".

I agree (?) with DaveShack that DG5 should not be run by the same Books as DG4. We have way too many too ambigous rules. Make it clear and simple!

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

I am actually posting in one of these things... Whoda thunk.
As the MIA Head in question/debate/whatever, my explanation for my actions is simple. This is the 1st TC of the term. The city in question has a palace prebuild in place that is due in a short time. There is no other wonder left to build other than that of Shakespeare, for culture reasons. This prebuild was started before my chairship began, making it the doing of T4. There was no discussion under any MIA head for it, and until now, there had been no debate over it. Only now, when it appears to bring up legal questions, is it even being referd to. Had one person entered the MIA thread (link in my sig) and stated "SaaM. I dislike the fact that Vandelay is building Shakespeares. Could we please have a discussion on it?", I would have promptly drawn one out where these matters could have been discussed earlier without dragging the judiciary into it. There was no such thing done. I will admit the blame of not opening a discussion to discuss it falls on my sholders, but that is the extent of my share of the blame. Let the governors do what they wish. The laws are indeed conflicting in the matter of MIA and wonders. I'm leaving the floor and I do not expect to return to the podium. If you need me, PM me.

SaaM
MIA Head

 

[DaveShack]

Originally posted by tao
Just look at what happened when I did a poll wanting to get the will of the people on build queues in this poll: The same individual (ravensfire) now complaining about not involving the people enough complained that build queues determined by citizen polls "infringes upon the rights of our Governors".

Well, Ravensfire's comment was really about his opinion that you were trying to impose your will on the other governors under the guise of a citizen's poll. His point was that instead of one omnibus poll changing the build queues of cities from all the provinces, the correct way to accomplish that goal is to discuss the strategy involved and convince them to change production on their own. I have to admit that my opinion of the poll in question is quite similar to Ravensfire's opinion -- honey will get you a lot farther than a stick will, especially in the demogame.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by zorven
Is it not possible to for the will of the people to be demonstrated via posting in a discusstion thread?

It most certainly can be.

Since demogame legalities are somewhat of a hobby of mine, I'd like to throw in my two centimes.

The addition of a wonder to a build queue by a governor should not be looked upon as the governor doing the MIA's job. It should be looked upon as the governor doing the governor's job. While the MIA may be *in charge* of wonder building, he or she cannot post build queues for only governors are empowered to do that. This reminds me of something Andrew Jackson is quoted as saying. When the Supreme Court made a certain decision that President Jackson did not like the President is said to have quipped, "Mr. Taney has made his decision now let him enforce it." While our system of government seems to give governors the opportunity of flounting MIA directives, the MIA is not the only minister in this predicament. The Minister of Defense would be hard pressed to defend anything if governors do not recruit military units via build queues.

This is not to say that governors are all powerful, for they, like all our leaders are bound to fulfill the *Will of the People*. In other words, if a governor queues up a wonder (or anything else) that goes against the *Will of the People* then he or she can be brought to account through our CC process. Likewise, if a governor refuses to queue up a wonder (or anything else) called for by the *Will of the People* then he or she is subject to the CC process.

If a governor queues up a wonder in the absence of the people speaking on the matter then the governor has done no wrong. CC's and JR's will not resolve the issue. Discussion and polling of the merits of building said wonder in the time and place specified by the governor will do that.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by tao
The Constitution J. says: "Elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people."
The will of the people manifests itself in polls. Was there a poll? No.
Hence this clause of the Constitution was not violated.

That's a very dangerous precedance Tao. Theoretically, all advisors could abstain from posting any discussions at all, thus, no will of the people, and just post something at random in the turnchat instruction thread. The demogame essentially becomes a team succession game.


In DG1 an 2, leaders would be PI'd if they didn't post discussions and polls. Granted, that would have no effect now, since the judiciary is so backlogged...

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by ravensfire

Our leaders are tasked with following the will of the people. This means that they have to actively seek it, work to determine it. Only if there is no participation AFTER they attempt to determine the will of the people may they act on their own accord.

...

I further urge the Court to declare those instruction illegal and void.

My thanks,
-- Ravensfire

I respectfully disagree. The people can get off their lazy behinds (after removing their heads from that part of their anatomy) and make thier will known. Many of us have fought long and hard to ensure that any citizen can post discusssions and polls. Leaders have quite enough work to do without initiating every discussion and poll. Holding an official responsible when the people are silent is not fair to the official.

 

[tao]

Originally posted by DaveShack
Well, Ravensfire's comment was really about his opinion that you were trying to impose your will on the other governors under the guise of a citizen's poll. His point was that instead of one omnibus poll changing the build queues of cities from all the provinces, the correct way to accomplish that goal is to discuss the strategy involved and convince them to change production on their own. I have to admit that my opinion of the poll in question is quite similar to Ravensfire's opinion -- honey will get you a lot farther than a stick will, especially in the demogame.

This is getting interesting. You are arguing that the "will of the people" as manifested in a poll can be ignored by questioning the intention of the person starting the poll. IMHO democracy is about acquiring peoples support/votes (sometimes even by questionable means ) to foster your ideas. People who do not agree should convince the people to vote otherwise, not question the outcome by attacking motives of those involved. At least, I see no basis for your opinion in the Constitution. But you and Ravensfire give me the argument for ignoring poll results in the future.

 

[DaveShack]

Originally posted by tao
This is getting interesting. You are arguing that the "will of the people" as manifested in a poll can be ignored by questioning the intention of the person starting the poll. IMHO democracy is about acquiring peoples support/votes (sometimes even by questionable means ) to foster your ideas. People who do not agree should convince the people to vote otherwise, not question the outcome by attacking motives of those involved. At least, I see no basis for your opinion in the Constitution. But you and Ravensfire give me the argument for ignoring poll results in the future.

Look carefully and you'll see I am taking both sides. I'm equally against using the judicial process to achieve what one can't manage by taking it to the polls...

 

[tao]

Both Ravensfire and myself requested judicial clarification here last Term. But alas: no ruling yet.

 

[Zarn]

Please stay on topic.

 

[Zarn]

Discussion Closed.