Term 4 - Judiciary: Co-operate! Dont Litigate

[Eklektikos]

I believe it does fall under the scope of a Judicial Review, as the issue in question is the interpretation of Constitutional article C.1.a given article G. Specifically: if the DP is responsible for following the legal instructions of all Leaders during the play of the game, is he or she entitled to ignore or at least play fast & loose with instructions that do not conform to article G's requirement that elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people?

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by Eklektikos
I believe it does fall under the scope of a Judicial Review, as the issue in question is the interpretation of Constitutional article C.1.a given article G. Specifically: if the DP is responsible for following the legal instructions of all Leaders during the play of the game, is he or she entitled to ignore or at least play fast & loose with instructions that do not conform to article G's requirement that elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people?

It seems to me you want a review to determine if the DP can accuse, try, and convict a Leader of not following Section G of the Constitution, and thus declare the orders illegal.

Is that your request?

 

[ravensfire]

Eklektikos,

Would this be an accurate restatement of your request -

Can the DP ignore instructions that they feel do not conform to Article G's requirement that elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people?


-- Ravensfire

 

[Eklektikos]

Originally posted by zorven


It seems to me you want a review to determine if the DP can accuse, try, and convict a Leader of not following Section G of the Constitution, and thus declare the orders illegal.

Is that your request?

Not at all. You seem to be working under the assumption that someone will need to be nailed to the wall at some point, which is not what I'm interested in. I would like a review to determine whether the DP can, in cases where instructions have been posted that cannot conceivably conform to Article G by anything other than sheer luck, use his discretion as to how closely they should be followed.

EDIT: Yes that's basically what I'm after, Ravensfire.

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by Eklektikos

I would like a review to determine whether the DP can, in cases where instructions have been posted that cannot conceivably conform to Article G by anything other than sheer luck, use his discretion as to how closely they should be followed.

We (the Judiciary) will discuss this.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Eklektikos
To be honest I'd not intended my question to be treated as an allegation of wrongdoing. The point behind it was to ascertain whether the instructions should be treated as legal and binding upon the DP without any repercussions upon Bootstoots.

I think you are raising several questions with that statement.
1. Were the instructions legal and binding upon the DP
2. If there instructions illegal, could there be reprecussions against Bootstoots (or any other person)
3. If the instructions were illegal, could the DP ignore them

The problem of were the instructions legal or not is a question of fact. You aren't asking for the law to be clarified, you are asking if the law was followed. A judicial review may be called "whenever a question of rule interpretation arises." What you are asking isn't about interpreting a rule, but if an action violates a rule. Same with the question about reprecussions against a person for violating a rule - that's a PI matter.

The last question is more a rule interpretation, and that is probably open for review.

We're not ignoring or sidestepping your concerns, we don't want to be doing review on whether an action was legal or not. That is a PI matter.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Octavian X]

There's another point. We all know what kind of uproar Public Investigations can cause. Could we impleament a system were minor, possibly illegal, actions could be reviewed by the Judiciary, without causing the chaos that surrounds almost every investigation we've had since the first days of the first demogame?

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Octavian X
There's another point. We all know what kind of uproar Public Investigations can cause. Could we impleament a system were minor, possibly illegal, actions could be reviewed by the Judiciary, without causing the chaos that surrounds almost every investigation we've had since the first days of the first demogame?

I think that has been proposed every time we tried to redo the PI laws, and shot down because people seem to think they must have satisfaction.

 

[ravensfire]

Octavian - I'd love to have that. If for nothing else, it would keep the judiciary busy when we're not doing reviews or pi's.

There are some concerns I can see with it, mostly to do with people's actions with the information that action X is illegal, thus we can file a PI against person Y. I would like to see a mechanism where, if some action was deemed illegal, that action is deemed null and void. No penalty is associated with it. If the action was in a t/c, that action should be reversed if possible. If an action is reviewed under this process, no PI may be filed fot that action.

Basically, keep it short, keep the effects to a minimum, and don't punish for the small stuff - just keep moving.

A possibility with that would be for only one member of the Judiciary to rule (and assign the Justice on a rotating basis, done by the CJ). Decision may be appealed to full court, blah, blah, blah.

Something like that?

Call it, Small Claims Court!

-- Ravensfire

 

[Bootstoots]

Just saw this. I see no law that was violated. If we wish that everything be determined to be the will of the people, then we should analyze the entire save, decide what actions should be done, and hold 50 polls on each individual thing that could possibly be done, play one turn, repeat with 50 more polls, etc. This is why the leaders are given the power to make instructions without polling the people within reasonable limits. Furthermore, if as was said that a situation with embassies arose an hour before the turnchat, there is no way to satisfactorily poll the people. If the president is allowed to override all unpolled instructions, why don't we just abolish all offices except the President and the Judiciary?

 

[ravensfire]

Welcome back Boots!

I'm only going to address part of your comment - we're discussing the other part now.

The situation with the embassies was noticed a short time prior to the turn chat. It actually arose several days ago. With you out, there wasn't an active presence from the FA office that we could see. Do you know if Sir John was aware that you were out?

There was some effort to creating a framework for handling absent leaders. This situation is a good example of why something like that is needed.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Bootstoots]

I'd like it if the other part of my statement was addressed too...when do leaders have the authority to act without polls and where does this end?

Regarding absent leaders, I think I should probably have refrained from posting instructions just before I left...but I didn't see how any situation could have arisen while I was gone. Sir John, as my deputy, would have no authority to override my instructions.

Regarding a "small claims court", it seems like that would be a good idea for the PI I filed against donsig late last term, where he missed a few of my instructions, except for one thing…what he had mistakenly done was for the most part irreversible…so what would be done in that case? I think that the Judiciary should be able to hand down an official warning for that…and if the same situation happened again, a PI would be initiated due to a repeat offense.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Bootstoots
I'd like it if the other part of my statement was addressed too...when do leaders have the authority to act without polls and where does this end?

Boots, you are basically asking what constitutes a legal instruction. If you remember, the Judiciary considered this question in Term 3. The result was essentially there is a great deal of ambiguity in the matter.

An effort was made to clarify this here, but was defeated. The law is extremely vague on this matter, so I ask you - who do you want to determine what a legal instructions is? Personally, I want it to come from the people.

Along with that, we now have several situations where the law is vague or missing. I fully understand that most people really don't care about this law junk, and just want it to go away. So do I.

It's not gonna happen on it's own folks.

The Judiciary in several reviews have noted that the current laws need to be expanded. Well - do it already! You want several issues that really need to be handled, right now?
1. What is a Legal Instruction?
2. Define the Chain of Command (including Deputies)
3. Define Absentee laws

And that's not all, but those are some of the critical issues.

There - I've tossed the gauntlet. Who is going to pick it up?

A rather frustrated Judge Advocate,
-- Ravensfire

EDIT; Typo corrected

 

[Peri]

It is about time someone was blunt about it.
The Judiciary has higlighted 3 areas of concern.
It is up to the people to sort it out.
The people need to take responsibility for these problems and not expect the Judiciary to do their job for them.

 

[Bootstoots]

Alright, then, I'll think up a proposal or start a discussion thread about it.

 

[Peri]

Until the People have resolved the 3 issues highlighted by Ravensfire, The Judiciary will not make any further comment on them. The people need to make laws about these things.
The Judiciary cannot be expected to absolve the people of their legisaltive responsibility by repeatedly ruling on the same areas.
These 3 issues have come up repeatedly throughout this game. Legislation on these would have saved a lot of time. However it is not too late. I challenge you the people to start discussions on these matters immediately.

 

[Eklektikos]

Originally posted by Bootstoots
Just saw this. I see no law that was violated. If we wish that everything be determined to be the will of the people, then we should analyze the entire save, decide what actions should be done, and hold 50 polls on each individual thing that could possibly be done, play one turn, repeat with 50 more polls, etc. This is why the leaders are given the power to make instructions without polling the people within reasonable limits. Furthermore, if as was said that a situation with embassies arose an hour before the turnchat, there is no way to satisfactorily poll the people. If the president is allowed to override all unpolled instructions, why don't we just abolish all offices except the President and the Judiciary?

My issue with the instructions had nothing whatsoever to do with whether they had been polled on or not. It was with the fact that they were posted immediately following the preceding turnchat and that with you gone, any subsequent suggestions made by the citizenry could not be put into action - regardless of their merit - since your instructions tied the hands of the DP.

 

[Peri]

Originally posted by Eklektikos

I would like a review to determine whether the DP can, in cases where instructions have been posted that cannot conceivably conform to Article G by anything other than sheer luck, use his discretion as to how closely they should be followed.

This was requested before the moratorium.

The Judiciary were unanimous in this ruling.

Chief Justice: Peri
Judge Advocate: Ravensfire
Public Defender: Zorven

From the Constitution, Article C.1.a - "The President shall be the
designated player of the game. The President is responsible for
following the legal instructions of all Leaders during play of the
game."

The President (and by extention the DP) must follow all legal
instructions while playing the save. As the DP, they are responsible
for all decisions that they make.


Commentary

We understand our ruling isn't quite as blunt as some might like. We
have included this commentary to make sure everyone understands what
the ruling means.

The DP is responsible for following the legal instructions given to
them. If they feel an instruction is not legal, they have three
options.

One, follow the instruction anyway. They cannot be faulted for this,
only the person giving them the instruction.

Two, ignore the instruction. They are potentially exposing themself
to a PI over this.

Three, stop the turn chat and take the question to the forum.

 

[ravensfire]

The Judge Advocate agrees with this opinion.

 

[zorven]

The Public Defender agrees with Judicial Review DG3-T4-2.