Amendmend II - Apolytonian Court Mk. III

[Jon Shafer]

Again, we need to keep this issue viewable. New thread.

The amendment as it stands:

This amendment hereby creates an official Apolytonian Court (hereafter refered to as "The Court")

The Court is constituted to rule upon: contested disputes involving legal interpretation, validity of polls, violations of the Constitution, impeachment, or any other legal dispute of national importance.

The Court is composed of Five Justices. Each Justice is to be appointed by the President, and each must be approved by a majority of the populace in an Approval Vote.

The Court is to decide among itself a 'Senior Justice', who will be respondible for ensuring that a report is published for each decision that communicates the rationale behind the decision made, and presiding over any hearings before The Court.

A quorum of at least 3 Justices must be involved in any ruling that is made. Should The Court be tied about how to rule on an issue, the Senior Justice is to decide the result of the issue.

All rulings are immediately official and final. The same issue can only be brought back to The Court with 75% of the Justices agreeing to rehear the matter. All decisions must take place in real-time, as The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

The Court cannot act on any issue until a non-judicial citizen of the nation brings forth an Issue to The Court.

Issues to The Court should be posted publically and must involve a dispute that The Court is empowered to rule upon.

The court may impeach an official with a 75% vote within the court, and a majority vote amongst the people, but only after a Call for Impeachment has been made by a citizen of the nation.

A Justice may not serve in any other governmental post. Each Justice serves a term of two months in length. At the end of that term the Justice may be reappointed by the President. The President may be bypassed in this process if 75% of the populuce re-approve the Justice in a vote. There is no limit to the number of terms a Justice may serve. A Justice may be removed from his office by a majority vote amongst the officials and a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

Also, since many people support a staggered system, I will add this section, courtesy of Togas, once someone figures out how to word it nicely:

We will have:
1 "one month" Justice
2 "two month" Justices
2 "three month" Justices

All of which will be appointed during this term, then rotated for each subsequent month (i.e. next term, the President replaces 1 Justice, the next one gets 2 Justices, etc.)

[Papa Chubby]

Seems pretty solid. You should correct the grammar though. 3rd paragraph, respondible, probably should be responsible.

[wervdon]

It looks very solid to me accept this paragraph:

All rulings are immediately official and final. The same issue can only be brought back to The Court with 75% of the Justices agreeing to rehear the matter. All decisions must take place in real-time, as The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

1) 75% of the justices would be 4 out of 5, thats a bit too high if you ask me, because with a quorom of 3 justices present to vote, that means a vote could of passed by 2 justices, then the other 3 would be powerless to re-hear the case if they disagree. One or the other should be changed IMO. Either require 3 justices to make a decision, or allow 3 justices to re-hear the case if they disagree with the two who made the decision, or allow 2 justices + the chief justice to re-hear a case

2) The more important one.

All decisions must take place in real-time, as The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

Doesn't the act of polling for a 2/3 vote to halt the game requiring the game to halt? I can see why you don't want them to be able to halt the game since it could grind us to a stop if the justices got nit-picky since a 24 hour halt would really mean halt till the next turn chat..... I just don't think that language is practical though since its basically saying they can't halt the game without halting the game to poll

[Kuciwalker]

They should be able to, with a unanimous vote, order an injuction on the game.

[wervdon]

They should be able to, with a unanimous vote, order an injuction on the game.

Do you mean 5-0 unanimous or 3-0 unanimous

[civman2000]

Each Justice serves a term of two months in length. At the end of that term the Justice may be reappointed by the President.

I still think they should be elected, or at the very least approved by the people, but i guess that battle is already lost

[jdjdjd]

I brought it up in the other thread, the tie breaker should not be the Cheif Justice, since this could effectively give him two votes on an issue. The fifth justice who did not vote, should be made to vote to break a tie. Should there be a tie due to abstention or absence of one justice, then in effect there is no decision, i.e. the defendant would win, or the poll or law being disputed remains in effect. A tie seems highly improbable in any event. Since the Cheif Justice is appointed by the court itself, then for him to be able to vote twice, seems not in the people's interest.

Otherwise it is an OK document, maybe it needs change in structure for readability and to avoid ambiguity....but maybe thats not important.

I think the staggered idea is unnecessary.

I also think impeachment and removal from office needs to be a separate uniform amendemnt for all officials to be treated the same.

Finally, your removal from office paragraph...is that of an impeached justice, only?

[jdjdjd]

Here's the prior post I had on impeachment amendment, which is a proposal, and I thought had a way for the general populace to bypass the court and executive branch should they deem necessary. This of course would over ride what is already in the constitution.

"This amendment will hereby set the rules of impeachment for all officials of the governement in an elected or appointed post, and limited to these positions, President, Vice President, Justice of the High Court, and Minister.

1. Any citizen may bring the case of impeachment of an official to the President or Vice President, who then must poll the Ministers.

2. Should a majority agree, the case is then presented to the High Court, and the President or his dedignee will make the case for impeachment, and the defendent or his designee may present his defense.

3. The High Court will review the case and by vote of a simple majority can approve the case is with merit and to be brought to the people.

4. The general populace will then review the case and vote for removal from office of the defendant. This requires a 2/3 vote.

5. Should the general populace feel an official is being protected for political reasons, they may by referendum (a vote of the general populace), vote to impeach a party by a 75% margin, and therefore bypass the Minister's Vote and the Court's ruling. Then prosecution and defense arguments may be presented directly to the public, who then must conquer by 67% vote to remove the official from office. "


Or is this clogging up the thread on an unrelated topic...though I thought it was related.

[civman2000]

ministers, people, AND court??? THat makes it practically impossible to impeach.

I prefer how it will be after the amendment as it is now:
there are 2 choices.
1. poll the people for 2/3.
2. go to court for 75%, go to people for >50%

[wervdon]

I personally would rather the court not have a role in impeachment. It seems like how it was in the original constitution is quiet adequate to me, but its definately not enough to make me vote against this ammendment.

[Apocalypse]

The court needs to be involved in impeachment. That is one of the points. Make sure a minister is not overstepping the bounds. If it were only up to the people, then enough of them might support the overstepping.

[mtgillespie]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
The court needs to be involved in impeachment. That is one of the points. Make sure a minister is not overstepping the bounds. If it were only up to the people, then enough of them might support the overstepping.

If enough of the people support a minister, then by definition he's not overstepping his bounds, as his bounds are set by the people. This sounds like one of those unguarded politician comments, when they say things like "don't ask the electorate, what do they know". If it's clearly impeachment, he/she will get booted out. If not, they should stay and face the rigours of the ballot box next time round.

[ThePlagueRat]

Impeachment:

Next time I'll run for President.
If I win I'll break the law... Just to test the system.
I think that would be fine, a short, sharp war without the people supporting? (Burning down Paris perhaps)
Or passing a law on behalf of only 51% of the people?
Well, somebody should test this system... sue me!

[Sheik]

The Court is composed of Five Justices.

I liked the idea of 7 justices. I also think that 7 justices received support in the last discussion so maybe we should re-vote this subject. Seven is also good because a lot of people have an intrest in being a judge.

The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

I like the idea of having the court halt the game with an unanimous vote to do so. By unanimous I mean 5 if we don't have 7.

once someone figures out how to word it nicely:

1 "one month" Justice
2 "two month" Justices
2 "three month" Justices

Maybe something like this:

The court will consist of one judge that holds office for a one month term and two other sets of two judges each that will hold office for two and three month terms.

I know it isn't that great but it keeps it fairly simple.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by mtgillespie
If enough of the people support a minister, then by definition he's not overstepping his bounds, as his bounds are set by the people. This sounds like one of those unguarded politician comments, when they say things like "don't ask the electorate, what do they know". If it's clearly impeachment, he/she will get booted out. If not, they should stay and face the rigours of the ballot box next time round.

But if the judges have no say, and the people need a 2/3 majority, then 35% can support a minister and keep him in. 65% can still disagree with him overstepping the bounds but because there is no 2/3 majority, that minister would stay in.