Amendmend II - Apolytonian Court Mk. III

[Kramerman]

Unless anyone has some urgant error or addition, I think we should call that the last issue. We have certainly compromised our way to a nice median that I think would make anybody satisfied, if not happy.

[Togas]

Originally posted by Sheik

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.

Appeals are for errors in the application of the law. The determination is made by a higher court, generally.

But as Captain said, the only way an appeal is likely going to be heard is if a Justice changes his mind.

Maybe, in practice, The Court would agree to hear an appeal over a very controvercial ruling to satisfy a public outcry. In essence The Court would be agreeing to "rehear" the matter. The Justices who made the controvercial ruling might not feel they made a wrong decision but, for the sake of the citizenry, they would allow the appeal to be heard. They could, of course, hold to their original decision anyhow.

But, for practical purposes, it would be wise to either toss the Appeals part out (and debate it further for a future amendment), or change it to 3 out of 5.

Otherwise, JD's rewrite is excellent and has my full support.

--Togas

[Moral Hazard]

I must say jdjdjd's final rewrite has my complete support, and once the appeals decision is clarified I think we should put the ammendment up for vote.

Now for something inappropriate but fun. A little oddsbook on Judicial Nominees (Decimal Format used)
Togas 1.05
jdjdjd 1.05
Captain 1.10
NYE 1.25
Godking 1.30
Trip 1.50
Shiek 2.00
MrWIA 2.00
Aggie 2.00
Epistax 2.50
Other 1.50

Oh I'm withdrawing my offer to be justice.

[Jon Shafer]

It appears as though this amendment is becoming a very recognizable and debated issue, so I'm going to withdraw my contributions from now on. You guys seem to have things well under control, so I'm sure you can draft up a final version without me. Best wishes, and good luck.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Moral Hazard
I must say jdjdjd's final rewrite has my complete support, and once the appeals decision is clarified I think we should put the ammendment up for vote.

Now for something inappropriate but fun. A little oddsbook on Judicial Nominees (Decimal Format used)
Togas 1.05
jdjdjd 1.05
Captain 1.10
NYE 1.25
Godking 1.30
Trip 1.50
Shiek 2.00
MrWIA 2.00
Aggie 2.00
Epistax 2.50
Other 1.50

Oh I'm withdrawing my offer to be justice.

You don't think I should be a judge?

[Togas]

Originally posted by Trip
You guys seem to have things well under control, so I'm sure you can draft up a final version without me. Best wishes, and good luck.

Sounds like Trip is finally starting to enjoy the position of not feeling responsible for every little thing, and being able to take some time off.

Thanks for getting it started, Trip, and for your considerable work on this project.

--Togas

[Ninot]

Im checking in on this thread quite regularly, looks like some solid work so far.

Just let me know when you think it should go to official vote.

[jdjdjd]

Great...things are finally meshing.....

Thanks Trip for starting this and enjoy retirement, though its quite possible that is not for very long...as for appeal idea...

Cap, I think Togas hit it on the head, the court needs to be able to appeal in case they cause quite an aproar. I think an appeal once allowed needs to be reheard and decided upon by the full court,

where do we go?

a. no appeals
b. the court must be unanimous to hear an appeal
c. 4 out of 5 (75%) must agree
d. 3 out of 5
e. unanimous vote of the justices not on the court
f. some other option

I am not married to mine, it was a compilation staring of what was written and what Trip started us with. Maybe there's an idea that someone posted a while ago that needs to be brought back to the fore....

So....anyone cut mine, edit it and post back up.....else....

if you want to go with the one in my last post say so

lets see if that can wrap up tonight, if so, I guess we bring it to Ninot or to the populace. If we post it ourselves, I would need help never did a poll before.....but whoever posts the rest of us should post our agreement with it (or objections), so citizens who have not followed this whole thing so closely know how we hashed this over and think we came up with a good refined compromise of ideas.

What do ya think?

[Captain]

well, that looks like the last issue, the appeals. otherwise, i think we're good to go to a poll.

So what'll it be folks?

I definitely think there should be some form of appeal allowed.

Since we don't have a higher court... do we make it 3/5 of Justices agree to rehear?

Or public outcry (50% +1) results in a retrial?

Should there be some requirement for an error in the application of the law to have been made in order to have grounds for appeal?

I'm not yet sure what would be best but here's what I think would be an acceptable solution.

We could word it like so:

Appeals will be granted if there are grounds to believe that an error in the application of the law has been made. Any citizen directly involved in the case may make an application for an appeal. If 3 or more of the 5 judges decide to grant the appeal, a new trial will be created to examine the case.

(3/5 is a chance for appeal, but appeals on unanimous decisions are unlikely to be granted. A public outcry may provoke some Judges to allow the appeal and grant a new trial, even if they decide to stick with their original decision.)

[Captain]

Moral Hazard, how exactly do decimal odds work? strangely, I've never seen that before.

[Sheik]

where do we go?

a. no appeals
b. the court must be unanimous to hear an appeal
c. 4 out of 5 (75%) must agree
d. 3 out of 5
e. unanimous vote of the justices not on the court
f. some other option

If we voted on jdjdjd's version right now I would support it. As for the appeals I would go for either a, d, or e but am leaning more towards d. Or if we wanted we could say that if the citizens vote 2/3 in favor of having an appeal the court must hear it.

[jdjdjd]

I like Captains paragraph, 3/5 is good, I see Sheik said that would be OK too (3/5)....any objections.

What do we do next if we want to bring it to the people?

[Kramerman]

where do we go?
a. no appeals
b. the court must be unanimous to hear an appeal
c. 4 out of 5 (75%) must agree
d. 3 out of 5
e. unanimous vote of the justices not on the court
f. some other option

I say d. I don't expect the court to be super busy with lots of cases, so appeals should be easier to obtain and the court wouldn't be overwhelmed with too many cases or appeals. Also, times change, and something that was good when a court decision was made may change as time goes on and a change made to the court dicision or it be thrown out all together would be in the society's best interest. And these appeals should be easy to obtain to increase the speed and efficiency of the system.

Kman

[Sheik]

jdjdjd:

Draft it and put it up for official vote. Any one can do this. Here is the section right from our constitution:

Amendments:
Amendments to this Constitution can be submitted by any member of our nation. An amendment is passed and made official by a 2/3 or greater vote on the amendment's inclusion.

[Kramerman]

I cant wait to vote yes on ammendment 2 :b. Get some law and order and then we will finally be able to call our civilization a civilization.

Kman