[Proposal] Criminal Procedures Act

[McChimp]

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?

Willful is hard to prove

I don't like the requirement of knowingly

If I just plan a crime for the fun of it, can you prove I seriously intended to carry it out?

 

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.

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.)

I think that the adversarial system depends upon reasonable doubt and trusting the judges to determine where that line lies. I'd trust the Justices to accept the reasonable doubt that somebody might have typo'd their citizenship application but not accept the idea that somebody "forgot" a major, relevant proscription. I suppose I ought to actually enshrine that in the law, given that the court's ability to prosecute depends upon it.

Five weeks is ample time to organise a court case that lasts a week. It doesn't even require anybody to be in a discord room together at one time. They have whole days to post and whole days to respond and write statements. If the court could not rule guilty as a result of prolonged absence, people could simply not show up and they'd get off scot-free.

An alternative I would be happy to implement would be allowing the Justices themselves to select a suitable system on a case-by-case basis. That could help to avoid organizing a huge court case over a trivial matter-the court could simply opt to mediate instead of prosecute.
 

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.

Laws could be categorized by branch. This one, for example would fall under >Court>Criminal. Contemporary acts regarding assembly procedure would fall under >Assembly>Procedure. I don't see any benefit to centralizing a law for the appointment of temporary Justices-I can think of very few circumstances in which it would be necessary and their powers, as in this case, should be limited as is contextually appropriate. This really requires the procedure in those cases to be set out within context.
 

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.

I agree with this-I might split and reformat it into two different laws, the Constitutional one being for the procedure. I do believe that there ought to be a constitutional law establishing that criminal proceedings may actually take place.
 

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.

I think I shall split the two laws. When I've done that, I'll include something along those lines in the preamble.

"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.

I'll make this more specific-the ICU or whatever it was the CU had had a list of actions that were treasonable, I'll do something like that.
 

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.

I may also introduce maximum sentences for most of the crimes. In the case of treason, though, I think the required weighty sentence is suitable. My own concerns about this section are the way in which it infringes on the duties of the CLS.
 

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.

I'll replace this with a broader fraud law. Misleading executive officials perhaps. A broader range of sentences and the court being able to mediate instead of prosecute ought to solve issues regarding simple mistakes.

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 see no reason to split what is essentially a catch-all crime for subverting the courts into three separate crimes. There's something neat about having a law making criminal subversion of the executive, judicial and legislative branches. I think I'll write another one for subverting the assembly-perversion of democracy or something like that. Seeing as those are the basic moral misconducts behind each of those types of crime, it would make sense that they have the same sentences, too.

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.

I'll remove the section criminalising violating your sentence. It's unnecessary. I still think a system where laws are separated by which moral institution you're subverting: democracy, justice or order would be a good idea.
 

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

I'll add a vote amongst the involved Justices about whether the case is even worth it and remove this section.
 

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. 

I might rename it, but I think that a single criminal act catching attempts, conspiracy or solicitation and ensuring that they are punishable in the same manner as the crime they attempted, solicited or conspired to commit is sensible. There's no need to split it up.