Office of the Judiciary - Term 4

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by disorganizer
I herewith request judical investigation on the following issue:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=399071#post399071
Toasty requested build-queues in the turn-thread, though he:
a) was not in the position to do so (no governor yet)
b) did not base his post on any decission of citizenry nor did even talk back to the cities belonging to his province
c) ignored the proposals of the national park project by requesting a research lab

disorganizer,

Given the follow on discussion to this request, are you still formally requesting an investigation (which will be my job to immediately begin) and if so, who is the accused?

Thanks

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Almightyjosh
@dis

First of all, it is not Toasty you should be going after, any citizen can post in any thread and it is not a crime to post in the turn-chat thread. It is not even a breach of any protocol to put up build ques if you are not a governor and Toasty currently makes no claim to be governor either in that thread, in his details, signature or anywhere else in this forum. It is wrong, however, to follow such ques, as they are clearly not legitimate.

I think it is a breach of protocol for non-governors to post build queues in the turn chat thread. That would be the same as a someone other than a department leader posting departmental instructions (except deputies in the leader's absence).
I agree that following any such build queues would be wrong but just having the queues in the turn chat thread puts the designated player in a spot and that is not fair to him or her.
I think a better thing to do would be to post the build queues in the provincial, domestice and presidential threads. This would draw attention to them and allow the DP the option of holding a spot vote on the queues.

I am interesting in hearing the judicial department's views on the legality and/or appropriateness of non-leaders posting in the turn chat thread.

 

[Eklektikos]

Appropriateness-wise I don't think that non-leaders should be posting instructions in the turn chat thread. Only the person who has been mandated to post those instructions should be doing so.

As to the legality, I'll get back to you on that one.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I agree with the honorable (honourable to some of you) Public Defender, in that I think the intention of turn chat threads was to be a clean sheet of instructions for those who can post same.

Therefore citizen involvement would not be appropriate in that single thread, whereas they are encouraged to debate endlessly in their Province threads.

On the surface of it, there are two things to check. First, the COS, Section B deals directly with the Turn Chat Thread itself. However, while that section implies that only actual instructions should be posted from leaders, there is not any verbage that restricts the thread to only leaders.

Then we get to the sticky issue of Constitution, Article A, which guarentees free speech to us all, and COL, Section A, Point 3, which says:

a) Citizens may post their comments in forum threads wherever appropriate

"Appropriate" is an important word in that sentence. It would seem to give us the leeway to provide a Judicial interpretation of the turn chat standards which would allow restricting the posts to those with legal instructions only.

Now, Article A of the Big C looms large over all of this, but I would be curious to hear my fellow Judicialites preliminary views on this issue.

PS> Why is it always donsig who brings up these fun topics? ;-)

Bill
Judge Advocate of Phoenatica

 

[Eklektikos]

Ok, I've perused the Constitution, and it looks to me that only officials are legally entitled to post in turn chat threads.
Article A (as referenced above by Bill_in_PDX) is not a problem, as the also aforementioned CoL Sec A (when looked at in context), is in fact defining the meaning of the terms used in Article A of the Const. In addition to this, I reference CoS Section B, Point 3:

B. Chat Turn Instruction Thread
3. Post organisation

B. First Post:
1. Time and date when the chat will be held
2. Save game which will be used

C. Following Posts:
1. Chat turn instructions from the officials, one post per department and province

D. Next Post:
1. Used for uploading the intermittent saves during the chat.

E. Last Posts:
1. Turn Summary
2. Chat-Log
3. Screenshots (if needed)

Here we see it specified that posts in the thread should be from officials, and that there should be only one post per department and province
This means if you're not an official, and you don't have the mandate to make that one post for a dept or province, you shouldn't be posting in the thread.

 

[Shaitan]

That's my thought exactly. That was the intent of the turn chat thread and the instructions were worded accordingly.

Free speech
This is a blanket right (and arguably the most important one). However, in certain cases it is weighed against a specific mandate and can be out trumped. In this case the specific mandate is that of the DP and leaders to carry out their assigned duties (also given in the Constitution). Freedom of speech loses in this case as specifically putting false, incorrect or unmandated instructions in the turn chat thread directly conflicts with the mandate of the leaders and DP. As there are other venues for the statements there is no overriding need to post such items in the reserved thread.

For a real life corolary to the concept of measuring look at our court system. The press has a generalized freedom to view and report. A judge can stifle that right when the information is prejudicial to the fair trial of a case.

For a corolary to the location item look at our freedom of speech. There is no problem if you are in the middle of the Adirondacks with nobody around and you scream "Terrorists! Run!" Do the same thing in a crowded building lobby and you will be arrested (unless there really were terrorists, of course).

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX

PS> Why is it always donsig who brings up these fun topics? ;-)

Bill
Judge Advocate of Phoenatica

Call it a gift.

Funny thing about the turn chat thread rules. Weren't they vetoed one time?

Oh, the irony of it all...

 

[disorganizer]

I request fast and urgent review of the poll-proposal:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28407
for the national parks.
sorry we posted the poll already but we were confused cause shaitan put up the original proposal and so we thought all was clear on it.
(Original proposal by shaitan: follow the link in the poll and scroll to end).
Please immidiately post the poll then!

 

[Shaitan]

The proposed poll for Review is here.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Judge Advocate has posted his review of the proposed National Parks Law in this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=400952#post400952

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by Shaitan
That's my thought exactly. That was the intent of the turn chat thread and the instructions were worded accordingly.

Given that we all three seem to agree on this interpretation, I propose that you add this to the Judicial Log.

Bill
Judge Advocate of Phoenatica

 

[Shaitan]

Results have been posted to the Judicial Log.

 

[Shaitan]

Term 5 thread