Term 2 - Judiciary - The Hut of Justice

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by zorven


Thank you for your spirit of cooperation. However, I don't think there is an issue here being as I never served two offices at the same time. The elections ended about 1 day prior to the new term. During that 1 day is when I declined to accept the Judiciary position. As of Feb 1, I only occupied one office.

I appreciate your position Zorven, however, I disagree, depending on the outcome of the review of the election.

You should not have been able to appoint your own successor. That is a huge flaw in our system. As is the complete joke that is the judicial elections to be begin with.

No matter how we cut it, something was done wrong here, and I shall await the learned judiciary's review of it.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I will also try to assist the Judiciary in with what is becoming a mountain of work, and withdraw my JR request against donsig's JR.

I am not withdrawing the request as related to JR's on JR's. I think we need to get that issue out in the open before our Judicary goes on record and starts writing their own laws.

 

[Bootstoots]

I would like to make a request that ravensfire and zorven appoint the first AJ and that the ravensfire and zorven plus the new AJ appoint the second AJ ASAP so that the judicial proceedings can go forth in a timely manner. The corrected election results are final; there will not be any more change in that area. Thanks.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by donsig
Asking for a judicial review or citizen complaint is not *senseless bickering* eyrei. It is the system we all agreed on to address these *minor flaws* we have in our rules. You rightly point out that there was no *intent*, no *conspiracy*. I do not think Bill_in_PDX ever implied there was. He is one on of the few who is willing to think things through to their logical conclusion and his citizen complaint is his effort to see that this *does not happen again*.

You should step back eyrei. You've around since DG1 and you know how our citizens like to complain about the things but not write rules to remedy them. It is this system of JRs that will ensure these messes don't happen again. So please let the system work its way through to completion this term.

No, donsig, it is not going to be citizens complaining about each other breaking the rules that fixes them. The senseless bickering just took place in another thread, but it has produced next to nothing. For the first 20 or so posts of the 'discussion' thread, I was the only one who actually offered a solution. Now, go fix the problem instead of trying to convince me I should let this game degenerate into something that is not a game.

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by Bootstoots
I would like to make a request that ravensfire and zorven appoint the first AJ and that the ravensfire and zorven plus the new AJ appoint the second AJ ASAP so that the judicial proceedings can go forth in a timely manner. The corrected election results are final; there will not be any more change in that area. Thanks.

I mentioned in this thread about the Judicial election that I intended to treat this situation under CoL Section H.1. I received no comments that this was the incorrect interpretation. Therefore, as far as appointing the Associate Justices, I am sticking to CoL Section H.1 to appoint the Associate Justices. As I posted before I am appointing Peri to the first vacancy. I am awaiting a response on my second choice.

If anybody challenges this interpretation, then here is how it should be handled: I chose Peri for the first vacancy. Ravensfire supports this decision. So even if Section H.3 applies, Peri is still the first Associate Justice. Therefore, we can let them see if they can come up with a majority opinion on whether H.1 or H.3 applies and go from there.

 

[ravensfire]

Mr. President,

As the Election Office declared the both Associate Justice offices vacant following the election, you are correct about H.1 applying - both position should be filled via your appointment.

I will, of course, be more than willing to work with those you appoint. Peri will be an excellent member of the Judiciary, and I thank you for that choice. As soon as you have determined your second appointment, please post that so this court may begin to work through the docket before it.

Thanks!
-- Ravensfire, Chief Justice of Fanatica

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
I will also try to assist the Judiciary in with what is becoming a mountain of work, and withdraw my JR request against donsig's JR.

Thanks Bill, the Court appreciates your willingness to withdraw your requested JR on this matter.

-- Ravensfire, Chief Justice of Fanatica

 

[ravensfire]

During the upcoming sporting event, I will be reviewing the current docket and determining the order in which the Court will be working on them. Several of the requests are related to each other, and the rulings may invalidate a seperate request.

I plan to open no more than 4 seperate actions at any given time, with any Citizen Complaints having priority, excepting only a Judicial Review request directly related to the CC. Sorry it's convoluted, but I can't think of any Court, in any previous Demogame, having so many requests before it prior to the start of the term.

In addition, I will be sending out PM's to the requestors of each JR, confirming both their intention to continue the JR, the specifics of the request and ensuring that wording is correct. Please do not post your response/answer in this thread, please reply with a PM.

I will also be determining the Prosecution and Defense for the CC's that have been filed. Again, this will be conducted through PM's. To speed matters up, if you are interested in serving in either role, for either active CC, please send me a PM indicating such. I don't know if either role will be required, I am trying to save a little time.

Thanks again for your patience,
-- Ravensfire, Chief Justice of Fanatica

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by Bootstoots
I would like to make a request that ravensfire and zorven appoint the first AJ and that the ravensfire and zorven plus the new AJ appoint the second AJ ASAP so that the judicial proceedings can go forth in a timely manner. The corrected election results are final; there will not be any more change in that area. Thanks.

Whoa!

Back up here a second. Who specifically made that determination?

As far as I can see, we just ripped the constitution in half, and yet I see no declaration anywhere supporting that result.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX


Whoa!

Back up here a second. Who specifically made that determination?

As far as I can see, we just ripped the constitution in half, and yet I see no declaration anywhere supporting that result.

As noted by both zorven and myself in posts following the one you quoted, the power of appointments rests soley with the President.

As for the election results, the official results have been posted by the Election Office in the Election Results thread.

-- Ravensfire, Chief Justice of Fanatica

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Yet there is not two positions in the Judiciary open. Strider won his spot thanks to the withdrawls of Octavian and Bootstoots.

There are not two positions open.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
Yet there is not two positions in the Judiciary open. Strider won his spot thanks to the withdrawls of Octavian and Bootstoots.

There are not two positions open.

Bill, the official results from the Election Office is otherwise. Review this post and the followup posts.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I am sorry, but this post:

Bootstoots said: I changed my official ruling on this in light of a standard brought up by donsig that seemed to make it fairly apparent that the second and third place nominees are to be declared Associate Justices.

has no basis in fact. The law clearly states that the citizen... not the nominee... wins by votes, and further, I restate again that bootstoots and Octavian withdrew from the ballot.

Mr. Chief Justice, will the Judiciary recuse the two new appointees and immediately review this clearly unconstitutional election?

EDIT to add the code of laws clearly states "citizen".

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Judicial Review Request

Legitimacy of the Election Office in overriding citizen votes.

I request that the Judiciary review the right of the "Election Office" to override the will of the people, and declare positions vacate in clear violation of the following laws, and others:

Constitution, Article B - No rule (lower level law or standard) can contradict an Article.

Constitution Article A - Specifically the right to Vote. The election office claims, via their actions, the right to override the vote of the people.

Further, the election office holds this power to override the people, yet is not subject to routine elections as is any other position in the game.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
Judicial Review Request

Legitimacy of the Election Office in overriding citizen votes.

I request that the Judiciary review the right of the "Election Office" to override the will of the people, and declare positions vacate in clear violation of the following laws, and others:

Constitution, Article B - No rule (lower level law or standard) can contradict an Article.

Constitution Article A - Specifically the right to Vote. The election office claims, via their actions, the right to override the vote of the people.

Further, the election office holds this power to override the people, yet is not subject to routine elections as is any other position in the game.

Bill, if this request is related to the Judicial Elections, there is already a JR for that election.

If it is more general in nature, please let me know

-- Ravensfire, Chief Justice of Fanatica

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

No, this is really intended to question the authority of an unelected position to hold this much power over the people.

I was probably unclear. I apologize. Please advise if I should resubmit the request.

 

[Bootstoots]

How, exactly, was the Election Office overriding citizen votes? Just because we elected two candidates who later pulled out doesn't mean that citizen votes were overridden. In fact, it seems that this may follow the will of the people more than your method, because, instead of placing the candidate who placed last with 2 votes on the judiciary, the seats are being declared vacant because the rightful winner declined to accept the office by withdrawing from the race. The way this election was worked out is as follows:

ravensfire - 1st place, CJ
Bootstoots - 2nd place, withdraws from the election
Octavian X - 3rd place, withdraws from the election
zorven - 4th place, elected President
Strider - 5th place

Yielding:
ravensfire - CJ
vacancy (due to my withdrawal)
vacancy (due to Octavian's withdrawal)

Your method yields:
ravensfire - CJ
Strider, who placed dead last with 2 votes - AJ by default
vacancy

I fail to see how the Election Office is overriding any votes by doing it this way instead of your way, or is somehow doing it in a manner contradictory to the will of the people who voted in those elections.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
No, this is really intended to question the authority of an unelected position to hold this much power over the people.

I was probably unclear. I apologize. Please advise if I should resubmit the request.

No, your clarification helps - I wanted to make sure that there were not multiple requests for the same situation.

For right now, your request will be part of Group 4.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by Bootstoots
How, exactly, was the Election Office overriding citizen votes? Just because we elected two candidates who later pulled out doesn't mean that citizen votes were overridden.

This is the problem. The candidates did not "later pull out". How can you claim that is what happened? It is clearly NOT what happened.

The candidates withdrew before the election completed.

There is a difference.

Further, my request still stands. At a minimum, if the election office will hold this kind of power, it needs to be an elected position.

 

[Bootstoots]

I meant later as in after the poll was posted, not after the election closed. Other than that misunderstanding, can you point out what was illegal about how the Election Office handled this?

Regarding the Election Office's power, I did not expect or want to be given the decision making power on this issue. The Election Office normally only coordinates elections by posting nomination and election threads as well as election results, nothing more. Normally, we wouldn't decide what happens in a case like this, but as there is no judiciary to rule on it, the ruling seems to have been thrust upon us (or more appropriately me, as the de-facto spokesperson for this office).