The Apolytonian Court

[Epistax]

Greetings from the court. This thread is to tell you that we are now open for business (only to find people camping out in front of the door).

The court justices that were nominated were all accepted by the public: Captain, jdjdjd, notyoueither, Trip, Epistax.

For those who are unfamiliar with the process

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 publicly and must involve a dispute that The Court is empowered to rule upon.

1. The complaint is made...
a) Judge is PMed or otherwise legally notified by plaintiff.
b) Senior Justice Appointed
c) Senior Justice PMs plaintiff and defendant
d) Senior posts in court thread to acknowledge case
2. The court decides whether to hear the case or not... (
a) Senior Justice gathers information
b) Assess validity (general court, 3/5)
c) Repeat if not enough is known
3. Administrative details are settled. Schedule and so forth...
a) Availability of all persons and methods
b) IRC vs Thread, Day / Time
c) Notifications
4. Hearing is held...
a) Creation of thread or start of IRC chat by Senior Justice
b) Plaintiff's Side
b2) Last chance for case to be thrown out
c) Defendant's Side
d/e) Justice offers questions, People ask to the heard, anyone may speak once allowed.
f) Senior justice ends at discretion
5. Deliberation...
a) Senior Justice arranges a private chat or otherwise private meeting with other active judges of the case.
b) A majority vote or as needed by the COL are reached. In the case of a tie, abstaining judges must side.
6. Judgment decided...
a) Senior Justice sees to reports being written and published
7. Appeals are heard...
a) If three judges wish to rehear the case, process can restart at 1.

Feel free to rip this apart. I know I will

Purpose:

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

We will gladly accept suggestions for where the COL stops ( available at http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=56100 ).

Note: This thread is not to be topped
Note: We do not currently have a senior justice

Cases:

1. On the acceptance of the amendment 'Integration of Minister of the Economy'.
If abstains are accepted as against yea, the amendment fails to reach the 66% needed. Otherwise it passes. Timeline will represent that abstains should be discarded. Opponents to not yet have a speaker.
poll: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...44&perpage=25&
Status: Pending

2. On the legality of an offical poll by jdd2007 brought against by civman2000
The plaintiff, civman2000, has brought it to the attention of the court that a poll created by jdd2007 violates the COL articles III and IV by creating an official poll laking clarity and denying the right of a citizen to vote.
poll: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=56957
case link: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=57036
Status: Dead

* We are having a justice meeting soon to determine a method to trials. Feel free to discuss and develop arguments.

PLEASE do not post anything on any specific case in here. PM any member of the justice to get the attention of the court. If you see a typgraphical error here, feel free to PM me, Epistax.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Great to see it going at last!

I have one question - is (are) the issue(s) mentioned in the forum being considered as cases at present? (By any judge?)

[Jon Shafer]

Yes, we are alive and well (and organizing somewhat).
Any suggestions (like he said, non-case related) are welcome.

[GodKing]

Hi. Glad to see you up and running.

Could you post a list of what, if any, known cases the court is looking into?

[Jon Shafer]

Erm, what's case number one? None of the justices know what it is.

[jdjdjd]

We are up and running.

We have one case that I know of, I do not know the case Timeline referred to in civman v jdd2007.

[UnOrthOdOx]

He was referring to validating the results of the ammendment to reword and incorporate the Minister of Economy ammendment. The question is whether abstains should be counted in the official % needed to obtain the needed 2/3. If abstains are counted, it does not pass, if they are not, it does.
Here, for your convenience:http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=56344

[Captain]

Yes, we are here but we're still organizing. I'm usually online only in the evenings but took a lunch break to check if there was anything urgent Court-related.

To PM all members of the Court at the same time, you need to add each of us to your buddy list (even if you don't consider us your buddies). Then you can send a PM to Buddies, up to 5, which is how many Judges there are. If you PM all of us, you'll likely get a quicker response.

Title it "COURT BUSINESS: your description" to get our attention. One or more of us will get back to you. Probably whoever is online first. Once we get a Senior Judge, that'll likely be his duty.

Thanks in advance for being patient.

[jdjdjd]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
He was referring to validating the results of the ammendment to reword and incorporate the Minister of Economy ammendment. The question is whether abstains should be counted in the official % needed to obtain the needed 2/3. If abstains are counted, it does not pass, if they are not, it does.
Here, for your convenience:http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=56344

Oh I see, though no case has been filed as yet.

[BigRed515]

As far as procedural matters go, I do have one suggestion.

Now, I'm not in court as often as Togas, but I have enough experience with legal matters to think that having some sort of fixed format for each side's arguments in a case would be a really good idea.

After you work out all the PM stuff about the court buissness, but before the court actually posts the thread, both sides of the case should format their arguments in an easily-readable way that will make the cases more accessible to the average person while also fixing things like what the exact charges in the claim are, the exact parts of the COL or Consitution violated, and the exact requests of the claim so far as the resolution of the case goes (what is wrong, what was broken, how the person wants it fixed). The other side should submit a mirror form so that both arguments are clear and the conflicting points/interpretations can be easily identified.

I think this would be good in cutting down the length of the courtroom threads, by ensuring that one side couldn;t come up with a new charge in the middle of the argument, doubling the length of the thread as the new point was covered and recovered.

[Kramerman]

Woohoo! I finally feel a sense of law and order. We can now call ourselves a civilization and keep a straight face.

Kman

[notyoueither]

Hello everyone.

I thank you all for your support and ask for your patience as we get things set up.

[Epistax]

*bump*

Heyo we have a general list of proceedings. It is above, and down here. Please rip these apart and give opinions.

* Note, we might make a manner of "rapid progression" through steps 1-3

1. The complaint is made...
a) Judge is PMed or otherwise legally notified by plaintiff.
b) Senior Justice Appointed (by interest or turn)
c) Senior Justice PMs plaintiff and defendant
d) Senior posts in court thread to acknowledge case
2. The court decides whether to hear the case or not...
a) Senior Justice gathers information
b) Assess validity (general court, 3/5)
c) Repeat if not enough is known
3. Administrative details are settled. Schedule and so forth...
a) Availability of all persons and methods
b) IRC vs Thread, Day / Time
c) Notifications
4. Hearing is held...
a) Creation of thread or start of IRC chat by Senior Justice
b) Plaintiff's Side
b2) Last chance for case to be thrown out
c) Defendant's Side
d/e) Justice offers questions, People ask to the heard, anyone may speak once allowed.
f) Senior justice ends at discretion
5. Deliberation...
a) Senior Justice arranges a private chat or otherwise private meeting with other active judges of the case.
b) A majority vote or as needed by the COL are reached. In the case of a tie, abstaining judges must side.
6. Judgment decided...
a) Senior Justice sees to reports being written and published
7. Appeals are heard...
a) If three judges wish to rehear the case, process can restart at 1.

[jdd2007]

sounds good to me. a little complicated though

[jdd2007]

about your first post: civman has backed down about his trial against me, so ... erase it from the files ... forever ...