Amendmend II - Apolytonian Court Mk. III

[Togas]

JD's rewrite is excellent, but there is only one minor change that should be made:

Please change the term of office from two months to three months.

The President is appointing 2 Justices to serve a three month term. Why not just keep them all on a three month cycle? In time it will ensure that there are always more veteran and experienced Justices than rookie Justices, and it makes more sense with the staggered appointment scheme he included.

Godking's Injunction text looks fine. Can we include that language, change the term of office to three months and send this puppy out to the masses?

--Togas

[Captain]

Originally posted by Kramerman


I completely agree that it is a check on the executive, but why would it be a check on the Legislature? Isn't that the people? Wouldn't that just negate the point of of our democracy if the people have to be checked by the government. I don't like that very much, but most of the rest of what you said is agreeable.

Kman

In the sense that the Court forces the legislature to be vigilant about what laws they enact. It prevents sloppy laws (hopefully) and points out conflicts in the law. Thus where two laws are in opposition (or two polls) and both have an entrenched near-majority, the Court has the power to determine which takes precedence, if any. It prevents contradiction in the laws that the legislature creates.

IRL, Courts do check citizens by ensuring they all uphold the law. In our C3DG case, only ministers/President (the executive) actually take action while citizens can't really do anything against the law (besides the fact that there is no Criminal Code). So, in our case, the Courts don't really check the legislature in the same way they can check the executive.

But it's not really a big deal. I'm more concerned with the actual wording of the Amendment than my own philosophies.

[GodKing]

A lot of stuff crossed in the E - zone.

jdjdjd

I like your format !!!

The Court is to decide among itself a 'Senior Justice', who will be responsible for ensuring that a report is published for each decision that communicates the rationale behind the decision made. The Senior Justice is responsible for keeping, maintaining and providing to the public a record of all decisions in an archive so all may know the laws of the land.

A quorum of at least 3 Justices must be involved in any ruling that is made. In all instances, The Court shall have an odd number of Justices hearing any case. In the instance of a tie decision, either the Senior Justice or one of the Justices that hasn’t been involved shall make the final decision.

All rulings are immediately official and final. The same issue can only be appealed to The Court with the Senior Justice agreeing to rehear the matter. The Senior Justice is not obliged to have an appeal hearing. All appeals must be made on a point of law of Apolyton. The Senior Justice may choose to hear the appeal either alone or with fellow justices. All appeals are final.

This changes the role of the senior justice quite a bit. With this, the position is more of an archavist and a tie breaker type of position instead of a 'leader among equals'. The appeal portion is important I think - people need to know up front on what their rights are and how to go about the process. I am open as to the procedure though - that is just what I thought would be both fair and economical. We also have the ability to say "no appeals allowed". Or we can keep the 75%, but I feel that it isn't specific enough. How many appeals allowed, if the same people are judging both times, chances of a different opinion, etc etc.

I would rip out the inpeachment stuff at this time still, even though many have supported what trip wrote, I still feel that it hasn't been adiquately addressed.

I like togas's idea of 3 month stagers... why don't we do what he suggests - polish it up and place it before the masses.

Good job all

[Captain]

Godking and jdjdjd, I like both your suggested amendments.

I prefer jdjdjd's format, however.

The only significant objections:

1) Remove Impeachment clauses from jdjdjd's.

2) Remove Injunction clauses from Godking's. I don't think we should allow game stoppage. I will concede that it may be necessary at some time, but only in very very very serious matters. So I think it must be a UNANIMOUS decision by ALL judges to halt the game for 72 hours. They should immediately put up a poll, lasting those 72 hours, which will confirm the Stoppage. If confirmed, the game will be halted for another 72 hrs (with another poll), unless a verdict has been reached. If not confirmed, the game must go on. If confirmation fails at any time, the game continues.

This method allows game stoppage to remain in effect with continual repolling for each extended term. I think this is a fair suggestion.

Confirmation should require 50%+1 or 2/3. I'm not sure which is better.

3) Staggered format should have initial terms of shorter length to provide the staggering, but after that, each term should be equally 3 months.

4) As for appeal, Judges not already involved in the case should decide if a new trial is warranted. If they cannot agree, then the Senior justice decides.

5) It should explicitly state that Court's cannot create new laws. Their rulings can be used for future cases as precedent (common law?) - however, new legislation should take precedence over common law.

6) Remove "removal" clauses from both versions. They are in effect, the same as an Impeachment clause. Let's work that out separately.

---
If we can't agree on something, let's just leave it out and make another amendment later. Let's try to get passed what we can now, as long as it's sufficient to prevent ready abuse or exploit.

[Captain]

Togas, I'm surprised you don't have more suggestions. Do you have anything more to add?

btw, aren't you a lawyer in real life?

[Sheik]

I think GodKings version is fantastic!

[Kuciwalker]

By unanimous, I meant 5.

We should get the court up and running with 5 people. After that we can add 2 more if we need to, but getting it running is imperative.

[GodKing]

Thanks Sheik.

I must say that I do realy like jdjdjd's format. It is easy to follow, clear, consice, etc.

Good points Captain. In defence of the injunction clause, I think we need something like this that can be implimented quickly. It is the only real teath the court has. I set it up for only 3 initially in case one of the judges cannot be reached. For example, if I was a judge, on August 8-12 I will be camping. No computer. Only 4 days, so no real big deal. But I wouldn't be available for that fifth vote until to late. Like the polling idea. Perhaps we could add that to the efect of extending it beyond the 5 justices voting for it in my proposal. However, if we have a situation that cannot be handled in 6 days, I suspect that it would be so serious that play would be stopped anyways regardless of any injunction from the court or not.

I think we could do the staggering of appointments on our own, so I don't think it would be too important to make that a part of the constitution. No big deal either way.

Common Law is the term used here. I do believe it would work as you say. Do you think we need to make that a part of the constitution?

Agree on "removal" clause. It is the same as impeachment and should be handled the same way.

[Togas]

Originally posted by Captain
Togas, I'm surprised you don't have more suggestions. Do you have anything more to add?

btw, aren't you a lawyer in real life?

I've been generally pleased with the discussion and with the direction the revisions are going, and I don't want us to drag this on too long. Don't want to start any new debates at this point. I often see something that I don't particularly like or agree with, but if I don't see anything signifigantly wrong with it (at this point in the debate), I'm not going to voice my objection.

Trying to foster a mood of compromise towards our goal of having an agreeable Judicial Amendment.

Oh, and I am an attorney. Do most of my reading/posting here at the office when I'm not in court. Luckily I have a government job, no weekly billable hour requirement, just a couple busy days a week and plenty of vacation time.

--Togas

[Kramerman]

I agree with Togas. At this point I think we have all made all the constructive suggestions and ideas that we have. We should now tie it all together into a concise but thourough legal style document. I've been very happy with the all of the basic formats that have been made, including trips, godkings, and jdjdjd's.

Lets get this finished finished and into an ammendment! I'm sure what we have now would definately be exceptable to almost everybody.

Kman

[jdjdjd]

OK...hmmmm.

I remove impeachment...let that be a separate amendment.

I agree w/ Togas terms of three months better, its in this version.

On appeals, GK I think we don't want to be too specific, but I did add clause that the appeal must include specifics as to why the original was wrong.

As for Sr. Justice, since we only have five members, this Justice should hear cases regularly, and also be responsible for getting decisions out, though he does not have to write every decision. I edit to include archiving.

I put in addl wording on injunctions as per GK and Capn...allowing for an emergency injunction.

Is that it?
Anyone, feel free to copy and paste this and make edits if you think it can be improved.

Thanks for all your help my felloe apolytonians.

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

1. Purpose:

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.

2. Construct of the Court:

a. Size of Court:
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.

b. Installing the First Court:
The First Court appointed, upon ratification of this amendment, are to be chosen to staggering terms. One member will serve for one month, two will serve for two months and the remaining two will serve for three months. These first Justices of the Court will be appointed in the following manner: President selects 2 (3 month terms), Vice President selects 1 (two month term), Minister of Imperial Expansion(two month term) selects 1 and Econimics Minister selects 1 (one month term). All appointments must be approved by a majority vote of the public.

c. Terms in office:
There is no limit to the number of terms a Justice may serve.
Each Justice serves a term of three months in length, except as indicated above in 2b. All appointments must be approved by a majority vote of the public.

d. Senior Justice:
The Court is to select a 'Senior Justice', who will be responsible for ensuring that a report is published for each decision made by the court that communicates the rationale behind the decision; and make sure that the decision is stored and archived. The Senior Justice will also preside over any hearings before The Court.

e. Other Governemntal Posts:
A Justice may not serve in any other governmental post.

f. Reappointment:
At the end of that term a Justice may be reappointed by the President. In cases where a Justice is not being reappointed by the decision of The President, The President may be bypassed in this process if 75% of the populuce re-approve the Justice in a vote.

3. Case Structure:

a. Quorum:
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, any non-voting justice is to then review the case and vote.

b. Rulings:
All rulings are immediately official and final.

c. Appeals:
The same issue can only be brought back to The Court with 75% of the Justices agreeing to rehear the matter. A case can only be accepted for appeal if it is presented to the justices with the reasons the original decision was in error. For an appeal to be decided, it must be decided by the full court, i.e. at least 4 of the 5 justices must vote to allow the appeal

d. Injunctions:
The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people, or in case of an emergency due to timing of a turnchat and poll of the populace, the court may halt the game for 72 hours, but only by unanimous vote of the court and only if a specific case has been presented to them that must be decided prior to the turnchat. The court would have to present the poll to the people for their approval.

e. Case Presentation:
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.

[Togas]

Originally posted by Captain
5) It should explicitly state that Court's cannot create new laws. Their rulings can be used for future cases as precedent (common law?) - however, new legislation should take precedence over common law.

This bit of discussion just caught my eye. Don't feel we need to worry about it for this amendment, though, but this might help explain a few concepts we're using:

Courts, by their rulings, interpret laws. They explain them to us, and determine the correct application of them to a situation.

If we have an issue that is unclear under the law, the court considers that issue and gives us a ruling.

Once a ruling is made on an issue, that issue no longer needs to be ruled on again. The issue is decided. We call such things precedents and, in practice, look to these past decisions on issues to determine how our present issue is to be resolved.

"Common Law" refers to the old body of decisions on the law here in America that includes the English body of decisions on the law for the past several hundred years. In practice we rarely use the Common Law anymore because so much of our laws have been rewritten over the years by the legislature.

Which brings me to my point, once a law is rewritten, any old precedent based on the old law is moot. No longer valid. Our Court would issue decisions which would have precedent (which means subsequent courts shouldn't rehash the same issue), but once a law is changed, those precedents are out the door. In the end, it is always the actual text of the law that must be followed. Legal precedents are just a way for courts to not have to rethink the same issues over and over again.

Oh, and courts don't create new laws, they just explain, apply, limit, expand, weigh, or disallow current ones.

--Togas

[Captain]

Just zipped in for a few minutes to check this quickly,

Only one point of contention:

c. Appeals:
The same issue can only be brought back to The Court with 75% of the Justices agreeing to rehear the matter. A case can only be accepted for appeal if it is presented to the justices with the reasons the original decision was in error. For an appeal to be decided, it must be decided by the full court, i.e. at least 4 of the 5 justices must vote to allow the appeal

Since 3 out of the five justices made the original decision, and we need a majority to decide it, that means that 2 must support the original decision.

But if we need FOUR out of the five for appeal, that means only 1 person thinks the original decision is good enough. But if only one supported the original decision, that wouldn't be enough to get the decision passed in the first place.

Why would they change their mind and allow an appeal? This should be changed, at the very least, to say 3/5 (a unanimous vote would not be appealed successfully unless a judge changed his/her mind). This way, if there is one dissenter in the original ruling, there is a chance it may be appealed successfully even without any Judges changing their original opinion. With 4/5, I don't see anything getting appealed successfully unless at least 1 judge changed their mind on the original ruling (and why would they have made the original decision if they were just going to change their mind later? do we expect our Judges to be so flippant?)

oops, gotta go...

[GodKing]

good to have a lawyer to clarify these things....

now if you want to know the difference between an asphalt and a portland cement road....

I do prefer my versions of both appeals and injunctions, but I can live with how you have it. Lets post a poll and vote friends. Gotta go home now. See ya in the morning.

[Sheik]

Originally posted by Captain

Since 3 out of the five justices made the original decision, and we need a majority to decide it, that means that 2 must support the original decision.

But if we need FOUR out of the five for appeal, that means only 1 person thinks the original decision is good enough. But if only one supported the original decision, that wouldn't be enough to get the decision passed in the first place.

We might want to get rid of appeals altogether. Togas correct me if I am wrong on this but isn't the reason someone appeals is because they beleive something went wrong during the trial? Don't you need grounds on which to appeal? And when you appeal a higher court hears the case not the same court so for our purposes we don't need the appeal option. Captain I am glad you saw that.