Office of the Judiciary - Term 5

[Shaitan]

This thread will serve as the central communication point for the Term 5 Judiciary.

The Constitution of Phoenatica can be found here.

The Judicial Log can be found here.

Chief Justice: Octavian X
Public Defender: Eklektikos
Judge Advocate: Bill_in_PDX

Term 5 Census: 41

Term 5 Basic Quorum Level: 21 (1/2 Census)

What goes in this thread?
Almost anything having to do with the rules of the nation is appropriate to this thread. We do want to keep discussions to a minimum so a new thread may be spawned off if necessary. We'd rather err on the side of inclusion so if you're not sure if it belongs here go ahead and post it anyway. If it doesn't belong, we'll direct you to where it should be. Specific items that should always be posted in this thread include:

• Requests for Judicial Reviews (for Articles, Laws, Standards, and Clarification of existing rules)
• Requests for Ivestigations
• Requests for advice on the rules and how they work

Previous Offices:
Term 4 Judiciary thread

 

[Shaitan]

Get a law or amendment passed?

• Open a thread in the Citizen subforum to discuss the new item or change to an existing item.
• Continue discussion until a general consensus has been reached by the discussion participants.
• Construct a proposed poll. Make sure to include the poll question, answer choices, poll duration and the exact text you will want in the poll's first post.
• Post in the Office of the Judiciary Term 5 thread requesting a Judicial Review of the proposed poll. Be sure to post a link to the proposed poll.
• The officers of the judiciary will Review the proposed poll for polling standards and content of the proposed change/addition. This is done to ensure fair polling and to make sure the proposal does not conflict with existing rules.
• If at least 2 of the 3 Reviews are positive, the last judicial officer to review the proposal will post the actual poll.
• If at least 2 of the 3 Reviews are negative, the poll will not be posted. Correct the items noted in the Reviews (more discussion will likely be necessary) and then request a new Review.

Get a standard passed?

• Post a Council Vote for the new or altered standard and post a request for Review in the Office of the Judiciary Term 5 thread. Be sure to post a link to the Council Vote.
• The officers of the judiciary will Review the standard "live", while it is being voted upon.
• If the Council Vote approves the standard it is considered valid immediately.
• When the 3 Reviews are complete the standard is either confirmed (2 or more affirmative reviews) and becomes a permanent part of the Code of Standards or it is declined (2 or more negative reviews) and is stricken.
• A declined standard is no longer valid. Reformat the standard to address the issues noted in the negative reviews and then repeat the process.

Start an investigation?

• Post a Request for Investigation in this thread. Include the infraction, the rule(s) violated and the person(s) responsible for it. You may also make your request by PM to the Judge Advocate, Chief Justice or Demo Game Moderator. If reported by PM you may remain anonymous.

 

[Shaitan]

This post will be used to track reviews during the term.

 

[Shaitan]

Judicial Review is when the 3 officers of the judiciary decide on a point of law. This can be to make sure a proposed Article, Law or Standard is legal and does not conflict with or duplicate existing Codes or the Constitution, to determine exactly what existing Articles, Laws and Standards mean, or to rule that an investigation is without merit and dismiss it. Let's look at the three types of Judicial Review in more detail.

Review of Proposed New Rules
The primary purpose of this Review is to keep the Constitution and Codes neat and clean and non-contradictory. If a proposed rule conflicts or changes an existing rule, this review should identify exactly what the conflict is so the proposal can be altered to avoid the conflict or include changes to the existing rules. The secondary purpose of this Review is to eliminate the adoption of rules that are already in effect through existing rules. This Review will never consider the merit of a new rule, only the legality of it. This Review is an automatic step between the discussion and approval polling of a proposed rule.

Review of Existing Rules
This Review will serve to clarify and explain existing rules and the affect they have on the game. When a question comes up on what to do in a particular situation or exactly how a particular rule applies, this Review can be used to remove the confusion. The results of these Reviews will be logged so they can be referenced when the same or a similar situation develops. Note that it isn't necessary for an actual situation to occur for this Review to take place. Any noted confusion or questioning on how a rule works can spawn a Review. This Review can be initiated by any judicial officer on their own volition or at the request of a citizen.

Review of Investigations
This Review may close an investigation if the judicial officers determine that it is without merit. When is an investigation without merit? Some examples would be an obviously fabricated accusation, a possible violation that has been retroactively eliminated by rule changes and lack of prosecution or evidence in the investigation. This Review can be initiated by any judicial officer on their own volition or at the request of a citizen. The Judge Advocate is also specifically tasked with considering the calling of this Review before polling for guilt/innocence (after an investigation discussion thread has been completed).

 

[Shaitan]

All judicial officers should conduct a Review on this proposed Standards change.

 

[disorganizer]

Question:
* If a poll on a law was started in term 4 and ends in term 5, which quorum is needed? the one of 4 or of 5? (referring to the np-poll for example)
* Where is the updated quorum for term 5 shown?

Proposal:
The first post of the poll-registry should contains a description of the process for each poll-type. Not like it is explained in the constitution, but in simple words (for example: discuss the issue, post in judical thread to request review ...).

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by disorganizer
Question:
* If a poll on a law was started in term 4 and ends in term 5, which quorum is needed? the one of 4 or of 5? (referring to the np-poll for example)
* Where is the updated quorum for term 5 shown?

The quorum needed is the current one.
Quorum and census info are in the first post of this thread.

Originally posted by disorganizer
Proposal:
The first post of the poll-registry should contains a description of the process for each poll-type. Not like it is explained in the constitution, but in simple words (for example: discuss the issue, post in judical thread to request review ...).

Good idea. I did that in the second post of this thread. I'll edit the 1st post of the poll registry as well.

 

[Chieftess]

Council Vote question. Is this just for the forums? Or turn chats too?

3. Council Votes (Executive Branch)
A. A quorum requires the attendance of 2/3 of the Council.

D. Override Council Vote
1 Called by any Department Leader.
2 An affirmative result overrules a presidential veto.
3 Unanimous support is required to override the veto.

There was confusion in the turn chat (and on the forum) about this code. (You know, it takes me well over 2 days to understand 1 point. How do you do it? )

It had to do with overriding non-existant build queues (it wasn't just me who had confusion, several others did, too). Here's the thread I posted. I, and others thought that we couldn't do any about it, since you needed the 2/3 quorum, and we didn't even have 2/3 of the council present at the turn chat. So, I (and others) felt we couldn't do a thing. Now, Donsig says we could have, since that partains to just the forums.

And I can't even find any rules about turn chat procedures...
*watches Shaitan turn around and pull out a stack of them in 5 seconds*

 

[disorganizer]

One question:
The LAW-Quorum now is 35 votes. How should we ever reach this?
I think the rule has to be changed for our nation to continue functioning.
Could you review if there is a kind of emergency loophole for us to change to quorum to be 2/3 of the AVERAGE OF ALL ELECTIONS (didnt i propose this in the proposals for the constitution ).

 

[disorganizer]

Next question:
Whats up with the "run only for 1" rule? Was a poll posted yet?

 

[Chieftess]

Law quorum?

I thought it meant the cabinet leaders and president (7 total)??
(again)

 

[Eklektikos]

@Chieftess

I think these are the bits of the CoL that should answer your question:

3. Council Votes (Executive Branch)
B. Administrative Council Vote
1. Called by the President.
2. Affirmative result overrules an elected official’s instructions and decisions for game play.
3. Simple majority of respondents required to override the official

G. Spot Council Vote
1. An Administrative vote called and carried out in the turn chat.
2. Tallied immediately in the turn chat.
3. Simple majority of respondents required to pass the proposed measure.

H. Process and Procedure
1. Poll is posted by the sponsoring official.
2. Proposal must be in Yes/No/Abstain format.
3. Forum polls will stay open until:
a. All votes have been cast, or;
b. A quorum has responded and further votes cannot affect the outcome of the vote, or;
c. The posted poll closing time has been reached.
i. Minimum duration to run a poll is 48 hours.
4. Each Department Leader casts one vote.
5. In the event of a tie where a simple majority is required, the President will cast the deciding vote.

however as far as I can see there is nothing in the constitution about in-chat citizen polls. This surely can't be right, since decisions have been taken using this device in the past.

I think the CoL needs a bit of work done on it...

 

[Chieftess]

I've seen those, but it's also the 2/3 quorom that stops it at the turn chat... which means that the DP can't change the queues...
Yes, I'm still confused. The 2/3 quorum was included in that point, so I assumed that it was for all successive sub-points...

 

[Chieftess]

Maybe there should be something like the DP or Domestic has control over the non-existant build queues. And define 'non-existant' as being a build queue with no units/improvements in the city queue. Maybe there could be a standard that the Domestic Department posts in the thread about what each city should build. For instance, mass transit before hospitals, recycling plant before factories, etc.

 

[Eklektikos]

That's what I thought when I first looked through it all... but then I looked more closely at point H:

3. Forum polls will stay open until:
a. All votes have been cast, or;
b. A quorum has responded and further votes cannot affect the outcome of the vote, or;
c. The posted poll closing time has been reached.
i. Minimum duration to run a poll is 48 hours.

This stipulates that the quorum rule only applies to forum polls.

 

[disorganizer]

Right. But nevertheless the law needs finetuning. We should hold a dummy-presidential election with only 10 votes to get a lower quorum though, as any proposal we will put up wont get 35 votes IMHO ;-P
It was a bad mistake to put the whole COS and change it to COL. This showed clearly now.

 

[Chieftess]

Then what about turn chats?

 

[GenMarshall]

Originaly posted by Cheftess
I've seen those, but it's also the 2/3 quorom that stops it at the turn chat... which means that the DP can't change the queues...
Yes, I'm still confused. The 2/3 quorum was included in that point, so I assumed that it was for all successive sub-points...

Origninaly posted by Eklektikos
That's what I thought when I first looked through it all... but then I looked more closely at point H:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Forum polls will stay open until:
a. All votes have been cast, or;
b. A quorum has responded and further votes cannot affect the outcome of the vote, or;
c. The posted poll closing time has been reached.
i. Minimum duration to run a poll is 48 hours.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This stipulates that the quorum rule only applies to forum polls.

Originaly posted by Cheftess
Then what about turn chats?

I think the 2/3rds quorum in the Turn chats is what Cheftess is talking about. Not the quorum in the forums .

 

[Eklektikos]

Since there's no reference to it in connection with the turn chats, it doesn't apply to them. I agree that this fact could be made a whole lot clearer, though...

 

[disorganizer]

I am the one talking about the 2/3=35 law-quorum effective at the moment ;-)