[Proposal] Criminal Procedures Act

[Sheepshape]

First, what Cormac said, second plz no adversarial systems, they rarely rarely work well in NS.

I don't think it's so much a matter of whether we need a criminal court as whether we want one. In making a criminal court a temporary duty of the constitutional Justices, I think I've made it a fairly slimline thing.

I'd be interested in details about what is wrong with adversarial systems. 

They don't tend to work super well. Proof can be hard to come by, and intent is extremely difficult to establish unless someone tells the world "yeah I'm definitely defrauding people here". You have to argue "what reasonable people would think" and, well, being reasonable is generally a disqualifier for playing NS.

For example, you define treason as "willfully" defying the endorsement cap - what is willful? How do you prove it? Or for misrepresentation, how do you demonstrate someone "knowingly" lied for citizenship, and they weren't just forgetful one day?

I haven't seen many alternatives that work well, though. Trial by Delegate works fine until the Delegate uses it to start banjecting dissenters because "treason!" Mediator systems can't always force people to show up and talk it out. I'm certainly open to us trying a different approach, though, and I am going to hold off on offering suggestions on your procedural section until this question is established.

As for the crimes, I have some specific suggestions and concerns , as well as a few broader suggestions.

Broad first. To start with, I think defining crimes should be in an entirely separate document from establishing trial procedures. If laws are not going to be contained within a single document, I strongly believe it is critical to keep them streamlined and simple to categorize. If I wanted to make an index of laws, I should easily be able to say if it is for "Trials, Criminal, Procedure" or for "Crimes" or for "Appointment of Temporary Justices" or what have you. It is bad to have to index one law in multiple spots.

Second, I don't think that the crimes should be constitutional law. They simply don't need to be. Regular law is perfectly sufficient to create a robust criminal code, and if a simple majority of citizens think a certain thing should or shouldn't be a crime, that seems perfectly good enough to me for a change to be made. It shouldn't take a higher majority than that.

Third, I think it's a really bad idea to enshrine court procedures in a law, let alone a law with constitutional force. Require a ruling within five weeks? What if a trial is still going on? And insisting that someone be found guilty or not guilty because someone else is being difficult? That's a gross miscarriage of justice either way. The law should lay out who will run trials and how they will be chosen - leave establishing solid procedures to the people selected to serve. (This is harder if it's done by Not Standing Judges, and is a reason I'm against the required appointment of temporary judges regardless of the situation.)

As for specifics on crimes:
 

It shall be considered a criminal act to commit treason.

Okay so first of all, I don't think you need to say that it's a criminal act to do all of these things every time. I think it's fine to start off with "The following are defined as criminal acts in Lazarus:" and then just jump straight to your definitions.
 

To commit treason is to wilfully damage or subvert the state created by the Twelfth Mandate of Lazarus by word or deed or to wilfully violate the endorsement cap.

Willful is hard to prove, and "damage or subvert" is pretty broad. You might think I'm willfully damaging the state by proposing a bill that changes how elections work, because you think it will disenfranchise voters. I might think you're willfully subverting the state by voting against it, because not passing it leaves our borders wide open to foreign subversives. Realistically, we'd both be silly if we charged one another with a crime.
 

Those found guilty of treason must be ejected and banned, stripped of citizenship and henceforth denied citizenship.

I'll comment on this because it's first, but I oppose all use of required punishments. Specifics of a case matter, and I strongly feel the court should have discretion to determine appropriate sentences. Mandating a sentence really ties their hands, and could lead to verdicts of not guilty if they feel the required punishment is far too harsh.
 

To commit misrepresentation is to knowingly lie in order to gain citizenship.

I don't like the requirement of knowingly, and I think it's too specific to define as in order to gain citizenship. "Misrepresentation" isn't a great word if that's what you want to cover, and it doesn't include other areas of committing fraud. I would probably prefer to call it something like Gaining Citizenship by False Pretenses, and define it as making a false statement in a citizenship application. That removes the requirement that it be knowingly, and removing the minimum penalty means that a court could say "yeah you shouldn't have said your nation was Sheepship when it's Sheepshape; we sentence you to seven days of no sheep avatar." (THE HORROR.) Or it could just dismiss a complaint as frivolous if it was as silly as that.
 

To pervert the course of justice is to wilfully violate the procedures set forth by Article I of this law in order to prevent a just ruling being made, to knowingly lie in a Criminal Court or to violate a punishment resulting from a court ruling unlawfully.

Okay so a few things. Violating the procedures would be best described as obstruction of justice, lying in court is perjury, and the last bit reads like it's a crime to violate an unlawful ruling of the court.

I don't think it's necessary to have all of these be criminal. If someone is banned for a year and comes back early, just ban 'em again. There's no need to put them on trial for it. If they gain citizenship under a new name, try them under False Pretenses instead. Criminalize perjury, and make an official abusing their powers to violate court procedures a general Misconduct crime. It doesn't need to be separate from a different official abusing their powers in a different way.
 

To commit vexatious litigation is to make repeated, unmeritable criminal accusations about a citizen or group of citizens.

This seems unnecessary. Just let the court decline to hear a case. Problem solved.
 

To conspire to commit a criminal act is to plan a criminal act with the intention of committing it, to attempt to commit a criminal act or to incite others to commit a criminal act.

Intention again is a tricky beast. If I just plan a crime for the fun of it, can you prove I seriously intended to carry it out? This also falls into the somewhat silly situation of defining a crime planned and attempted by one person as a "conspiracy". I generally prefer something like defining any attempt to commit one of the defined crimes as "attempted" crime, also itself a crime, and to define conspiracy as planning with others or inciting others to commit a crime, but not the actual attempt to do so.