Term 3 Judiciary

[Black_Hole]

Whatever happened, what you are stating now is not included in the official accusation, as formulated by former JA Octavian X.
The trial poll was only about these charges, and the jury found the accused guilty of these charges.

Therefore these extra charges were not taken into consideration when determining the punishment.

*sigh*
it was in my offical accusation post, but owell....

 

[KCCrusader]

DG5CC1

Despite my personal feelings toward the situation, I don't feel it would be right to issue no punishment on this case. The people have decided that CT is guilty, and that must stand. Also, this is on the farthest end of the spectrum regarding punishments

However, since there are Three options that tied, that gives me three options to choose from.

Impeachment is on the other end of the spectrum of choices.

With not enough support for either extreme ideas, I am forced to rule from the middle. Chieftess should recieve a warning as a result of the tied sentencing poll.

Opinion on DG5CC1: Chieftess should recieve a warning for her actions.

 

[Cyc]

So that makes all three Justices that have not abided by this Court's Procedures. As a Citizen, I'm asking this Court when you will bring closure to the Citizen's Complaint DG5CC1. You say you want to end the process, but you intentionally drag out the finishing touch.

 

[ravensfire]

To the members of the Court,

To make it clear, the procedures you have stated you are following require you to post your findings on the sentence in the sentencing poll.

Please copy your findings to that thread and make the sentence official.

Thanks,
-- Ravensfire

 

[Cyc]

Cyc slaps himself in the forehead...

You mean that we could probably be done with this CC now, had I put the word thread on the end of that sentance? I guess that's my bad.

 

[gert-janl]

Now that every judge has posted its opinion, the opinion will also be placed in the official sentence poll.

Hereby the Court declares this case closed.


EDIT: unfortunately the sentence poll is closed by the mods. Seeing that posting in the sentence poll is only a mere formality, the Court decides that a post in the Judicial thread is enough to formally close it

Once again, this case is now closed

 

[Cyc]

I PMd Moderator Rik Meleet. He should either be able to open the thread long enough for both of your posts to be copied to the end of the Sentancing Poll thread or maybe he can just transfer them for you.

 

[classical_hero]

may it pleas the court to find out what the WOTP actually means. Does the WOTP mean that the option that has the highest percentage, even though it is less that 50%+1? Does that mean that the WOTP include those options that are above as part of the majority? An example of this is when you got some choice from an affirmative answer that includes many options, but because they are split over that choice and that mean that even though the affirmative has more votes than the negative, and yet out of all the single options, the negative has the most votes. What can be done in that situation? I think that we need to upgrade our laws so that the WOTP is better handled.

Regards, your Trade Deputy, acting in his role as a citizen, Classical Hero.

 

[eyrei]

I PMd Moderator Rik Meleet. He should either be able to open the thread long enough for both of your posts to be copied to the end of the Sentancing Poll thread or maybe he can just transfer them for you.

The thread is currently open with a very clear warning at the beginning.

 

[Cyc]

Thank you, eyrei. The ex-CJ appreciates your action. I would also like to thank Rik Meleet for his work in this.

 

[gert-janl]

may it pleas the court to find out what the WOTP actually means. Does the WOTP mean that the option that has the highest percentage, even though it is less that 50%+1? Does that mean that the WOTP include those options that are above as part of the majority? An example of this is when you got some choice from an affirmative answer that includes many options, but because they are split over that choice and that mean that even though the affirmative has more votes than the negative, and yet out of all the single options, the negative has the most votes. What can be done in that situation? I think that we need to upgrade our laws so that the WOTP is better handled.

Regards, your Trade Deputy, acting in his role as a citizen, Classical Hero.

The will of the people means the will of the people. Period.

No mathematical problems have to pop when determining the will of the people. If you, as a leader, want to post a poll, it's up to you to interpret the results. So if there are 3 yes options all with 5 votes (so basically 15 supporters) and 1 no option with 10 votes, my logic says that the supporters won. But once again, that's only poll interpretation.

I must warn though, that in the light of any possible future CCs, the minister interprets the poll, instead of only posting the results in the Turnchat thread, and leaving the President basically without guiding.

So in my opinion the WOTP doesn't have to be better handled by law. It's up to the official to determine this 'will'. This can be based on both the polls and the discussion. As long as you post a clear instruction in the Turnchat thread!

note that this is not a judicial review. It has not been included in the docket, and the above can be read as the opinion of myself as a citizen. If this is not enough, please consider requesting a judicial review.

This is a perfect example of a question regarding a certain piece of law, where no official JR procedure have to be followed. I also encourage citizens to approach the Court without hesistation if there are any question about our law.

 

[classical_hero]

The will of the people means the will of the people. Period.

No mathematical problems have to pop when determining the will of the people. If you, as a leader, want to post a poll, it's up to you to interpret the results. So if there are 3 yes options all with 5 votes (so basically 15 supporters) and 1 no option with 10 votes, my logic says that the supporters won. But once again, that's only poll interpretation.

I must warn though, that in the light of any possible future CCs, the minister interprets the poll, instead of only posting the results in the Turnchat thread, and leaving the President basically without guiding.

So in my opinion the WOTP doesn't have to be better handled by law. It's up to the official to determine this 'will'. This can be based on both the polls and the discussion. As long as you post a clear instruction in the Turnchat thread!

note that this is not a judicial review. It has not been included in the docket, and the above can be read as the opinion of myself as a citizen. If this is not enough, please consider requesting a judicial review.

This is a perfect example of a question regarding a certain piece of law, where no official JR procedure have to be followed. I also encourage citizens to approach the Court without hesistation if there are any question about our law.

According to this then, it becomes the Will Of The Minister(WOTM) then. Isn't the job of the poll to find out what the WOTP is? If the poll is only about the options that tie, then maybe we could repoll with only those options there to remove. But this would push back the TC so that is not an option. I would push for preferencial voting, to solve this issue. This would require a change in the Constituion to make it possible.

I will go back to the last CC as a case in point. Because of the three-way tie there were three possible options that the minister (in this case, the Justices,) could chose from. This could have been very differet because as I was the las voter on the poll, I had alot more power given to me than any citizen should ever have. Fortunately, my vote made it a three-way tie, rather than a two-way tie, with the option being impeachmen or no punishment. Had I chose to go with impeachment, then that would have created a constiutional crisis because it was made clear by a fellow moderator that he would not accept that option since it was not the main consensus. Had I chosen to vote no punishment, then despite of the majority deciding that punishment was best, then the WOTP would not have been followed, but these are the rules in the constiution. Since I was a voice of reason and voted for a warning, which does seem to be the opinion of the Justices. This is my fear that if the poll are always close, then it will turn out to be the WOTM, and not the WOTP. What would have happened if the vote went for impeachment and yet this was not accepted?

 

[gert-janl]

I will not go in detail about possible other outcomes of the poll. I am happy this is settled like this, and I hope other cases will be less tense than this one.

I don't agree with your suggestions about WOTP/WOTM. I believe in a system where the minister is chosen in the first place. Thus, he has a mandate from the citizens to act with a certain freedom. If the official deems it necessary, he polls certain important questions among the citizens.
If the WOTP is not followed properly, the official will have problems being re-elected. That way the WOTP is settled.

EDIT: If more citizens want to have a discussion I suggest to move the discussion to the 'citizens sub-forum'. I am a supporter of a discussion about the interpretation of the WOTP, but preferably not in my office . I want to thank classical hero for starting this discussion.

 

[KCCrusader]

The point with voting is that you are not supposed to look at the results before you vote. Therefore, assuming everyone would have voted the same way, the order of voters makes no difference and everyone's vote counts equally. If someone votes just to make the poll weird rather than their true feelings it's only their disadvantage.

I also agree that since the ministers/judges are elected they are given a mandate that allows them to ...basically... do as they please. If it obviously goes against the wotp (a poll or such) then it can be dealt with immediately (see CT's case for instance). If The WOTP is gradually and less obviously violated, it will be reflected in the next election.

 

[classical_hero]

The point with voting is that you are not supposed to look at the results before you vote. Therefore, assuming everyone would have voted the same way, the order of voters makes no difference and everyone's vote counts equally. If someone votes just to make the poll weird rather than their true feelings it's only their disadvantage.

I also agree that since the ministers/judges are elected they are given a mandate that allows them to ...basically... do as they please. If it obviously goes against the wotp (a poll or such) then it can be dealt with immediately (see CT's case for instance). If The WOTP is gradually and less obviously violated, it will be reflected in the next election.

I didn't look at the vote before I voted. I voted for a warning because that is what I thought was the suitable punishment. Often the option I have vote for has been the least popular option.

Edit. I will put all the relevant quotes on the citizen forum to have a better discussion.

 

[classical_hero]

I would like the Judicary to have a look at the census. According to the first post, there should only be 32 people in this Demogame. But if you look at the CC poll for the punishment of the President, 43 people voted. How is this possible? Is the census wrong, or did more people who are not citizens of Japanatica voted? Can you please clear up this for me.

Regards, Classical_Hero, Trade Deputy.

 

[Ashburnham]

Article I. Census, and Amending the Constitution

1. The census shall be defined as the average number
of votes cast, dropping fractions, in each of the
contested elections in the most recent general
election.

As you can see, the census is not necessarily the total number of people in the Demogame. Not all citizens voted in all the elections, thus the technical census number may not actually be the true number of citizens participating. Add in the fact that the CC against Chieftess was a hotly debated issue, and you're guarenteed to have a large turnout of voters-- even larger than the turnout on election day. Don't worry, there wasn't any voter rigging, just mathematical silliness.

 

[classical_hero]

As you can see, the census is not necessarily the total number of people in the Demogame. Not all citizens voted in all the elections, thus the technical census number may not actually be the true number of citizens participating. Add in the fact that the CC against Chieftess was a hotly debated issue, and you're guarenteed to have a large turnout of voters-- even larger than the turnout on election day. Don't worry, there wasn't any voter rigging, just mathematical silliness.

Thanks for clarifying that up Ash.

 

[gert-janl]

A very clear explanation Ashburnham, I thank you.

One further point: this census will be used when amending the constitution or the code of laws. Then we need at least the number of the Census to make the amendment legal. That's to prevent from only 5 citizens amending the whole constitution.

If there is anything else you, or other citizens want to see clarified, don't hesitate to ask!

 

[KCCrusader]

Sorry, I didn't mean YOU did it. I was just making a point that no one had more voting power than anyone else, since it didnt matter when you voted so long as you voted for what YOu personally wanted.

I didn't look at the vote before I voted. I voted for a warning because that is what I thought was the suitable punishment. Often the option I have vote for has been the least popular option.

Edit. I will put all the relevant quotes on the citizen forum to have a better discussion.