The Court

[H Tower]

Let's go with what locutus said. It's basically what i've been trying to get across but failing at.

So all we need to do know is get the article dealing with the judges written up in legalise so that the peopel can vote on whether or not to accept it.

[Pedrunn]

Locutus (after all you posted the last update and was the one that most commented this article),
An update would be nice

[Locutus]

Bah, I started writing an update but I don't think I'll be able to finish it tonight. Will post it later or tomorrow...

[Gilgamensch]

sounds OK for me as well

But we should really start to define a term............

For keeping track for the cases:

Why not having a seperate thread with your social solution? All cases will be put on there with the result. Any dismissed cases will be removed...... This way nobody would really need to keep track off, just one place to look for

[Locutus]

That was what I had in mind:

Originally posted by me about 2 weeks ago
Just post in the first post of the judicial thread that it's not allowed to discuss matters, just to file cases (after which the senior justice will be the only one that's allowed to respond). Posts that violate this rule (which will no doubt apply to a bunch of other threads as well) are deleted. Repeat offenders will face punishment (people get banned for doing something they were told not to do all the time, Ming won't hesitate to use his banning rod there). I don't foresee any problems there.

[...]

We probably need to have 2 judicial threads anyway: one to file and respond to cases, one to keep a log of the cases and other important activities of the court (several cases and other activities can be filed at once so doing both in one thread would be messy). So you have a whole thread dedicated to dealing with this issue, might as well use it If the Court explains the rules for submitting cases in the thread, I don't expect that much will go wrong. It's not like people will be filing cases on a daily basis (I hope).

Article update will follow in a few minutes (unless something comes up)...

[Locutus]

Article: The Court

1. Purpose:

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

2. Construct of the Court:

(a) The Court is composed of 3 Judges who will serve a three month term of office. There is no limit to the number of terms a Judge may serve.
(b) Each Judge has to be elected by the people in a seperate election poll. Every month one of the Judge positions shall be open for election. This positition shall be the one of the Judge who has reached the end of his term.
(c) The moment the election of a Judge position starts, shall be the moment on which the Judge who enters the last month of his term becomes the Senior Justice.
(d) Section 2(c) only applies to regular elections at the end of a Judge's term. It does not apply to elections that take place to replace impeached Judges. Impeached Judges shall serve for the remainder of the term that their predecessor was serving. If the Senior Justice was impeached, the new Judge shall become the Senior Justice. If another Judge was impeached, the Senior Justice shall keep his position.
(d) A Judge may not serve in other governmental posts.

3. Cases:

(a) The Court can only rule on cases filed. A case may be filed by any citizen who is not a Judge, by publically notifying the Senior Justice. This case must involve a dispute that the Court is empowered to rule upon.
(b) The Senior Justice will either accept or deny the case. This decision cannot be appealed. If the case is denied, the Senior Justice will publically inform the filer of the case, explaining the reason for the denial.
(c) Upon acceptance the Senior Justice is to open a thread with the description of the case. A public hearing will be held in that thread lasting three days.
(d) After three days, the thread will be closed and the Senior Justice will organize the Court's ruling. At least two Judges must vote on any ruling that is made. All rulings are immediately official and final as soon as two Judges have voted in favour of it.
(e) The only possibilty of an appeal is a lawsuit poll put up by the citizen that filed the case or by a Minister or by the President. In that case, the current verdict is placed on hold until after the appeal is voted upon. The ruling of the Court is declared void if 2/3 of the votes disapproves of it.
(f) If a ruling is declared void by appeal, a new public hearing will be held in accordance with sections 3(c), 3(d) and 3(e), with the exception that the public hearing may be closed in less than three days if the Court deems this appropriate.

4. Rights and responsibilities:

(a) The Court may make its own rules of procedure and enforce them upon citizens who are before it.
(b) The Court will keep a record of all disputes, issues, and hearings before the Court. The Court will also keep a public record of the Constitution in its most current form. The Court may appoint a Clerk of the Court to keep these records.
(c) If the Court rules that the actions of certain Citizens are in violation with the Constitution or other rules of Lemuria|Apolymuria, it may hand out punishments to these Citizens if it deems this appropriate. The Court will determine for itself what kind of punishment is applied, the punishment must fit the crime. However, no punishments may permanently affect a Citizens participation in the Democracy Game and the Court may not dismiss active members of government (although it is allowed to start up impeachment procedures as described in Article V).
(d) Punishments the Court hands out must include but are not limited to: warnings, impeachment procedures, barring Citizens from specific or any government offices in future elections, banning Citizens from the Democracy Game, declaring resolutions void, closing threads or polls, deleting or editing posts or threads, declaring polls invalid. Punishments which require action from the CtP2-Democracy Game forum moderator must be approved by this moderator, who shall offer an explanation to the Court if approval is not given.
(e) The Court may issue an injunction to halt any aspect of the game for up to 72 hours if at least two Judges agree to do so. Injunctions may only be issued for good cause. An injunction may only be continued beyond 72 hours if all three Judges agrees to do so. An injunction may be overturned at any time by a majority of the Court.

---


Changes: section 2 and 4 were radically changed, in section 3(f) I added a line to deal with appeals faster if the outcome is obvious.

This hasn't been updated in ages and I had to fill in a lot of the details on my own, so I'm sure there will be a lot to discuss...

[Gilgamensch]

Good job Locutus,

But for 3 b:
Why not giving the 'leader' the possibility/power to overrule the court, meaning a case will have to be opened anyway.

For punishment: Should we not give the 'leader' the possibility to (sh.... missing the right word here) 'free' the convict?

Otherwise (again) good job

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Locutus
Article: The Court

1. Purpose:

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

Possibly I'm being overly picky, but I think we should really only be considering legal disputes which are internal to the game, rather than all those involving it.

2. Construct of the Court:

(d) Section 2(c) only applies to regular elections at the end of a Judge's term. It does not apply to elections that take place to replace impeached Judges. Impeached Judges shall serve for the remainder of the term that their predecessor was serving. If the Senior Justice was impeached, the new Judge shall become the Senior Justice. If another Judge was impeached, the Senior Justice shall keep his position.

I assume you really mean:

(d) Section 2(c) only applies to regular elections at the end of a Judge's term. It does not apply to elections that take place to replace impeached Judges. The replacement for an impeached Judge shall serve for the remainder of the term that their predecessor was serving. If the Senior Justice was impeached, the new Judge shall become the Senior Justice. If another Judge was impeached, the Senior Justice shall keep his position.

4. Rights and responsibilities:

(a) The Court may make its own rules of procedure and enforce them upon citizens who are before it.

It shouldn't be necessary really, but it might be a good idea to clarify this by adding "so long as such rules are in accordance with the constitution".

(b) The Court will keep a record of all disputes, issues, and hearings before the Court. The Court will also keep a public record of the Constitution in its most current form.

You don't need to say most current, there can only be one current form.

(e) The Court may issue an injunction to halt any aspect of the game for up to 72 hours if at least two Judges agree to do so. Injunctions may only be issued for good cause. An injunction may only be continued beyond 72 hours if all three Judges agrees to do so. An injunction may be overturned at any time by a majority of the Court.

This power goes beyond the purpose as set out in section 1, doesn't it?

You might also wish to add a note that the court may not alter the constitution (which they might concievably wish to do as a punishment).

[Locutus]

Regarding 1 and 4(b) and 4(e), those are straight copy-pasts from the C3DG Constitution, so I blame adaMada for that

2(d): obviously, will change that.

4(a): good point, will change that.

Good point on the altering of the Constitution, will add that.

I think it would be good to keep the injunction in place though, so that the President can be prevented from playing the game if people think he's out of line and needs to be stopped before he does irrepairable damage. But that's just my opinion, I don't know how others feel about it.

I'm not sure what you mean with the difference between 'involving' and 'internal to' the game (or how injunctions fit in), could you elaborate on that?

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Locutus
I'm not sure what you mean with the difference between 'involving' and 'internal to' the game (or how injunctions fit in), could you elaborate on that?

I mean, a case involving, but not internal to the game might be when the government of Lemuria emerges from the mythical past and sues us for stealing their name. It's not totally inconcievable that there might be a real world lawsuit involving the game, and a citizen could rightly require that the court make a ruling on it according to this constitution. Of course, that's pretty unlikely, so I think I'm being overly picky

[H Tower]

I like it, especially with all the little fixes proposed, i was going to comment on those myself but the others got to it first.

However, I think the judges should be able to strike down a new version of the constitution if they feel it contradicts itself or if for some reason, a dictatorship kind of constitution is voted for, which would violate the whole spirit of the game

[Pedrunn]

CTP2DG Constitution draft
(c) The moment the election of a Judge position starts, shall be the moment on which the Judge who enters the last month of his term becomes the Senior Justice.

What happenned to the poll among the two veteran to be senior?
Although i do believe this way is better. After all the court cant have this kind of dispute among them. They have to be friends. I am for it!

CTP2DG Constitution draft
(a) The Court can only rule on cases filed. A case may be filed by any citizen who is not a Judge, by publically notifying the Senior Justice. This case must involve a dispute that the Court is empowered to rule upon.
(b) The Senior Justice will either accept or deny the case. This decision cannot be appealed. If the case is denied, the Senior Justice will publically inform the filer of the case, explaining the reason for the denial.

What you mean by publically notify? Post in the Court's thread. You should be more specific. How many threads will the court have?

CTP2DG Constitution draft
(e) The only possibilty of an appeal is a lawsuit poll put up by the citizen that filed the case or by a Minister or by the President. In that case, the current verdict is placed on hold until after the appeal is voted upon. The ruling of the Court is declared void if 2/3 of the votes disapproves of it.

I think you mean a resolution poll as discribed in the Article II of the constitution. If so much of the info here is not needed. Otherwise we need more info about this poll (Will this be a totally new type of poll?).

[H Tower]

locutus, could you get a final draft of this ready for the people to vote on? it seems that the people want to install a court before the rest of the elections take place, so that the court could rule over the first elections and help make a fix if something goes wrong, a tie, cheating by DL's, etc. So the article about the court needs to be done so that the court and the people can point to it.

i figure we need to finish up the rest of the connie so that people can vote on that and have it finish up right before the general elections take place

[Pedrunn]

And please answer my questions
They are only misunderstoodments. Not really to be debated (tey can became though).

[Locutus]

However, I think the judges should be able to strike down a new version of the constitution if they feel it contradicts itself or if for some reason, a dictatorship kind of constitution is voted for, which would violate the whole spirit of the game

Hmm, but how should this be enforced without allowing 3 people to completely take over the game? The way I see it, anyone can propose changes to the Constitution at any point in the game (Judge or no Judge), the changes will be accepted as soon as 2/3 of the voters agree with them... I get the idea, but I don't think it's needed with our current system. Correct me if I'm wrong though...

Originally posted by Pedrunn
What happenned to the poll among the two veteran to be senior?
Although i do believe this way is better. After all the court cant have this kind of dispute among them. They have to be friends. I am for it!

John proposed this new system and I liked it Glad you agree

What you mean by publically notify? Post in the Court's thread. You should be more specific. How many threads will the court have?

Yes, post it in a Court thread, that's what I had in mind, as long as everyone can see it. That way the Court doesn't have to treat 20 similar cases at once when a problem presents itself and everyone informs the Court at the same time but in private. I think 1, maybe 2 Court threads should be enough (1 for filing and accept/refuse cases and 1 to keep an official record of events), but basically it's up to the discression of the Court, as far as I'm concerned.

I think you mean a resolution poll as discribed in the Article II of the constitution. If so much of the info here is not needed. Otherwise we need more info about this poll (Will this be a totally new type of poll?).

Hmm, a remnant of the past Yes, a resolution poll sounds good enough. Will change that.


I will make a new draft later today or tomorrow at the latest. I think for the first elections it might be best to just have me as moderator organize those and have the game start only once the entire Constitution is in place. Not sure how others feel about this though...