McChimp;3002 said:
It is my opinion that the CLS ought to be confined as much as possible to matters regarding the mechanical security of the region. It's significance ought to be its ability to respond legally and rapidly to threats to the twelfth mandate.
On the other hand, there are less critical offences that it would be nice to see handled in a more democratic institution should the delegate decide on a case by case basis that that is an appropriate route to take.
Yes, I think I agree with this take. When the only use of the delegate's power to remove someone is defined as "regional security", you end up with an incentive to craft ridiculous justifications in order to meet that standard... or you ignore it and ban people just because you think they deserve it. I think someone can both not pose a threat to regional security and yet still deserve to be banned (or some lesser punishment).
And I think the court is generally the right body to make a determination of (il)legality - its whole purpose is to understand and interpret the law as best it can. Especially since justices serve life terms rather than being elected every few months, I think the court is probably better positioned to consider a matter impartially.
I would suggest rephrasing in the following way:
(8) The Delegate may impose a punishment on a person if the Court confirms by majority vote that that person has committed a criminal offense. Punishments should be proportionate to the crime that was committed, and may include, but are not limited to, revocation of citizenship, ejection and/or banishment from the region or forum of Lazarus, and restrictions on the person's ability to vote or hold office. The Assembly may overturn or reduce such punishments by three-quarters vote. The accused individual must be given a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves against the charges. Specific procedures for initiating a Court review will be defined by law.
I changed some of the wording around a bit for increased clarity, and added in a note about proportionality. I also gave the Assembly the power to reduce rather than simply overturn punishments; if the delegate imposes a ban of 12 months and the Assembly thinks 6 months is more appropriate, I don't want it to only be able to overturn the punishment in whole - that would probably prevent a number of people from voting in favor, since they wouldn't want to see the person not be punished at all.
I also took out the requirement that the Court present a report - I think what the court has to do is better determined by law, not by mandate, since it's more subject to change as we explore this approach. And I also clarified that regular law will address how one of these gets started, since we might want only the delegate to be able to initiate it, or we might want any citizen to be able to do so.
Also I think we will need to amend the section that deals with the Court itself, since right now that power of review is
not granted to it. I suggest this:
(7) The Court may conduct Criminal Reviews to determine if an individual has broken any laws in Lazarus.
I do have some other changes in the pipeline for the court section; we're not quite ready to roll them out (want to get everything that needs done written first, and presented as a package). But I think this addition would suffice for now.