Discussion: Amedment - Impeachment

[jdjdjd]

OK, we had decided to leave Impeachment out of the Amendment for the Court, now lets get back to it.

The constitution currently reads, assuming I got it from the right place, we should probably have a thread with it posted and then all the amendments posted after it, and then have it topped, perhaps the new court can have that done...but anyway I digress....
It reads

Impeachment:
All members of our great nation are recognized the right to bring foreword the issue of impeachment of any government official at any time.

A poll will be posted which will expire in no less than 5 days. There are to be three poll options, yea, nay, and abstain. Upon the expiration of the poll, if 2/3 of the people who voted deem impeachment necessary, then the official shall be immediately removed from office. The President shall establish an emergency member to take his/her place until a new election can be held, and a new person voted into office to finish the term. The same holds true for any possible resignations.

Much discussion was made about possibly having the court or the ministers get involved involved in the process before the people vote. The good thing about the above is that it uses the word official, which could be broadly interpreted to mean judge, minister, pres or vp.

So does this need to change?

I think that perhaps we may want some group to rule out frivilous cases, before they go to the people.

Lets discuss.....

[jdjdjd]

This was my proposal during the discussion of the High Court, leaving an option for the people to bypass the govt, should they feel politics is being played....it probably needs revisions.

"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. This amendment shall override any prior rules on Impeachment and the Removal of an official from office mentioned in the Code of Laws.

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 agree by 67% vote to remove the official from office. "

[Akron]

Re: Discussion: Amedment - Impeachment

There are to be three poll options, yea, nay, and abstain.

Why do we need an abstain option? Would you need a 2/3 majority of yeas among the people who didn't abstain or among all the people who voted? If the former, then abstaining will mean that the percentages given on the poll will be meaningless since you'll have calculate them again. If the latter, then an abstain vote is effectively a nay vote. I suggest that people who want to abstain can just not vote.

[Ninot]

lol.. this thread scared me there for a second.

good ammendment, i feel the original CAN be more detailed.

[Epistax]

Yes you do need an abstain. If you don't have an abstain, then someone can be impeached with far less than 2/3's the vote.

An abstaining IS the same in this case as saying nay, however there is still a difference in the choice.


--- oh, and the president gets to issue his own replacement? I think the VP should replace the president if he/she is impeached, and the old VP should pick a new VP.

[Ninot]

Originally posted by Epistax
Yes you do need an abstain. If you don't have an abstain, then someone can be impeached with far less than 2/3's the vote.

An abstaining IS the same in this case as saying nay, however there is still a difference in the choice.


--- oh, and the president gets to issue his own replacement? I think the VP should replace the president if he/she is impeached, and the old VP should pick a new VP.

i completely agree, if the prez should EVER have to vacate his job for any reason, there shouldnt be an election untill the normal period, it should immeadiately be the VP's job unless he cant do it

this is to expediate the process so nothing doesnt get done when there is trouble.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Epi - it has always been the case that the VP takes the Prez's job where they are unable to complete it - ie through resignation, disappearance or impeachment. We would however need a new election for VP in this event. You might think that an election for a new Prez is preferable, and the VP is Prez for a limited time, but think on this.

Elections for any position other than the Prez are short. The Prez, however, need to be entrusted with all sorts of things from playing the game, to posting saves, official polls, updating webpages (maybe) etc etc, and choosing such a person in the middle of a term would take some time to do properly, and result in us perhaps having 3 separate Presidents over the course of 1 month! It is much easier to have the VP assume the Prez;s job for the rest of the term, and elect a new VP. It is much less likely that TWO President would quit in the same month.

EDIT: Reading Ninot's post above, I quite agree. This way the game continues whilst the election of the new VP takes place.

[Kloreep]

Why involve the ministers in the process? IMO, impeachment should be solely the business of the Court and the people. While ministers, do, of course, need to follow rules, they are elected for their knowledge and experience in things Civ.

Not that I wouldn't trust our current ministers with having such a major say in impeachments, but I'd like to be able to vote on future ministers based on their Civ expertise only.

[civman2000]

. Keep all power to impeach with the people.

[jdjdjd]

Good point Epi, we would need to add that in the amendment re: replacement of the official who was ousted.

[jdjdjd]

Re: Re: Discussion: Amedment - Impeachment

Originally posted by Akron


Why do we need an abstain option? Would you need a 2/3 majority of yeas among the people who didn't abstain or among all the people who voted? If the former, then abstaining will mean that the percentages given on the poll will be meaningless since you'll have calculate them again. If the latter, then an abstain vote is effectively a nay vote. I suggest that people who want to abstain can just not vote.

I'm not sure why abstain was included, and I'm not sure why some one would vote abstain here, since you might as well vote no, if you are not convinved the official needs to be ousted. But if they don't vote, then it alters the math, for example:

if 10 people vote, 6 yes, 3 no and one abstain, then there is not a 2/3 vote, its only 60% (6/10). If the abstain decided not to vote, then it would be 6 yes, 3 no, and 2/3 is reached, 6/9 or 67%.

That is why there is a difference between not voting and abstaining, but I agree with you an abstain is essentially a no vote.

[Apocalypse]

With the current system, a minority of voters can keep a corrupt official in. The judges would not be as biased.

[Spiffor]

I think our current system is better than jdjdjd's proposal. Here is why :
Jd's proposal creates several layers of decision before impeachment is said (cabinet -> court -> people, OR people 75%). All these layers will slow down, or even hinder impeachment. In no way, they can accelerate or favor the impeachment process. That's why I think these are layers of protection (even if I'm sure jdjdjd has good intentions)

We'd still need the 2/3 majority of the people with jd's proposal. This means, Apocalypse, that a minority could still keep a corrupt official into power.

And, to bypass these layers of protection, we would need an outstanding 75% majority. Maybe you'll say "oh, it's only 12% more, it's very reasonable". But having a 75% majority is much harder than a 2/3 majority. For 2/3, every naysayer must be compensated by 2 yeasayers ; with 75%, the same naysayer must be compensated by 3 yeasayers. That's 50% more. That means an even tinier minority can keep someone in power, should the administration be corrupt.

We have a simple and efficient way to get rid of our corrupt / unable officials for now. Adding layers of bureaucracy (giving the corrupt one some power against his own impeachment , don't forget officials get to nominate judges, and the corrupt official will have his say in the first layer) will only make it harder to get rid of the black sheep.
With our system, someone must be deemed "bad" by a huge majority (2/3rds) before getting fired. This is enough of a guarantee that valuable or tolerable ministers won't be fired.

Should I amend our current system, I'd keep it simple :

All members of our great nation are recognized the right to bring foreword the issue of impeachment of any justice (instead of a government official) at any time.

[Sheik]

Anyone should be able to post an impeachment poll and it should require 2/3 to impeach. An impeachment poll should have no abstain option. This should apply to all government officials.

[Kramerman]

I think impeachment should be handled soley by the high court and the people, leaving the ministers out of it. The best system would be for the judges to either impeach or not impeach by a 4/5 vote (If somebody is gonna be impeached, I think it is a big deal and the vote should be almost unanimous) and the people ontop of this must have a 2/3 vote in favor of removal to do so. If the court impeaches, but the public doesn't remove, than the official stays in office, like Bill Clinton, who was impeached but not removed from office. However if the court fails to impeach in the first place, and there is an overwhelming feeling in the public to remove someone from office, than a referendum of some high percentage, say 80% in favor, would remove the official from power. This is avery simple system, highlighting the court's importance and ability to make educated rulings, but not undermining the publics ultimate power.

Some may say, why not just have the referendum by the people, why include the judges? Well, for 80% (or something high like this) of the people to want to remove someone from office is very unlikely to happen. Only if that person is severely hated would this vote pass. However on a lesser note, a combination of an educated court decision of 4/5 and 2/3 public vote is more likely to succede at removing a very much disliked official, and not an all out hated one like wht the referendum would require.

Also, if a court justice is wanted to be removed, it would have to go through the same system (4/5 vote, where if any justice doesn't vote it would probably be the one everyone is trying to remove) and then the 2/3 civilian vote. If the court fails to impeach (would is likely to happen with one judge likely not wanting to impeach himself) then a citizen referendum could be called requireing the 80% vote.

Kramerman

I think this is a fair and simple idea, though would like to hear arguements, suggestions, and rejections, if need be.