[Discussion] Court Nominees Question Thread

[Roavin]

Are you comfortable with Mandate 12 (Article V, Section 3) requiring that the Court's procedures be defined by law, or do you think that should be amended? If the latter, how do you think the Court's procedures should be defined?

I think that's fine, and really, it's an option that leaves all doors open. The Assembly can choose to regulate the Court in meticulous detail, or just grant the justices wide sweeping discretionary powers, or anything in between. It may have been easier for the initial period to rephrase it as "may be defined by law" rather than "will be defined by law" so that the justices can set their own procedures in absence of procedures given by the assembly (similar to how the Speaker set procedures in place while there were none defined by law), but I don't see that as a huge issue.

On a related note, do any of the three of you plan to put forward Court procedures to be defined by law? Not that I think you necessarily should (or shouldn't), I'm just wondering because so far we haven't seen any movement from anyone to do that.

We haven't talked about it, though I had it in the back of my mind — and I'm sure Sheepshape did as well. Since we both are principal authors of court procedures in active use by feeders, it's probably a good idea if we get the process going by sharing our experience in the matter and recalling what has worked and what hasn't (though, to be fair, the court procedures I wrote for TSP have only been enacted for a few months, while Sheepshape's have been in place for several years), and then have everyone hash it out together in the Assembly.

Though you didn't ask it, I'll answer the question what kind of procedures I think should exist . I generally favor sensible discretionary powers over strict regulation of all details, and non-adversarial systems in which justices can and will ask questions and specifically request (and even compel) the evidence they need to make the best possible ruling.

Do you think the Court should have jurisdiction over criminal matters or are you comfortable with the process established by Article II, Section 6 of Mandate 12?

There are advantages to both. Article II Section 6 is a very fast process; having the Court handle it is a slower, though more thorough process. I argue, however, that we can have our cake and can eat it, too, in the following fashion: The Delegate, or any citizen, can request that the Court investigates whether or not a criminal action occurred by asking a legal question about it (Article V, Section 6). The Court, operating in a non-adversarial manner, would initiate a thorough investigation to determine whether or not they consider the accused guilty according to whatever standard of evidence is required ("clear and convincing evidence" is what TSP uses, for example). The Delegate can then use the result of the Court's investigation to impose a ban, or to revoke a ban, or to do nothing, while still having the fast route of doing it directly when necessary.

(That does require an established criminal code, of course)

[Mavis]

Against.

[Sheepshape]

Are you comfortable with Mandate 12 (Article V, Section 3) requiring that the Court's procedures be defined by law, or do you think that should be amended? If the latter, how do you think the Court's procedures should be defined?

I'm not generally thrilled with it, honestly. In general I think defining procedures in the law is problematic - the law is generally pretty inflexible and it's extremely hard to account for needed variations. For example, people often want to write in strict deadlines. "The court will issue a ruling within five days", or something like that. But in actual practice... one justice has a RL emergency and is too busy dealing with that to take point on a question. The other two live in opposite time zones and can't find a convenient time to get online together and hash things out, so the discussion takes days to get anywhere conclusive. Then there's writing the ruling, and touching on all the points that need to be touched on, and vetting it to make sure it doesn't conflict with other things, and proofreading to make sure you didn't miss a critical "not". So now you're on, say, day six... and now you're in violation of the law, not just an internal procedure.

I think the members of the court have a better view of how well procedures are or are not working, or what restrictions are reasonable or unreasonable to impose. They're also able to move more quickly to amend a problematic section of the law, simply by talking about it and taking a quick three-person vote, versus the Assembly which has to have a proper discussion period and voting period (and could very well vote *against* what all three justices want, forcing them to continue to use something they think is bad).

So yes, my preference would be to amend that section. I don't mind the Assembly having some say in things - for example, I think it would be reasonable for the Assembly to specify whether anyone can bring a legal question, or just citizens, or just government officials, etc. Or, it would be reasonable for it to mandate that there be some period of time where people can submit amicus briefs before the justices rule. But the specifics are just too fiddly to make sense as law.

On a related note, do any of the three of you plan to put forward Court procedures to be defined by law? Not that I think you necessarily should (or shouldn't), I'm just wondering because so far we haven't seen any movement from anyone to do that.

Well... maybe. My first intention is to talk all of this over with my fellow justices to decide on a plan - if both of them think that assembly-defined procedures are better than court-defined, I'm not gonna force the issue by bringing an amendment, and will jump straight to drafting something for the Assembly. But if they agree with me that it's better to have them written by the Court, I plan on proposing a Mandate amendment instead.

Do you think the Court should have jurisdiction over criminal matters or are you comfortable with the process established by Article II, Section 6 of Mandate 12?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxK_nA2iVXw

It's a smidge more complicated than that, I just wanted an excuse to use that clip. In general I have no particular attachment to a criminal court. I'm very willing to try out alternate dispute resolution systems, including mediation, inquisition, and such. And if there is a criminal process, I'm also not averse to it being handled by a separate group of people than those that handle constitutional questions.

But... the current process doesn't thrill me. It seems too open for abuse. A delegate could, with the consent of a majority of the CLS, make a political move (such as revoking the citizenship anybody also a citizen in any other GCR), and rely on the remaining members of the Assembly to not have enough opposition to muster up a 75% override. As I recall, this is something like what Feux did way back when.

I would be more comfortable (though still not completely comfortable; at heart executive power unnerves me) with it if it required a majority vote by both the CLS and the Assembly to confirm such a revocation. Alternatively, I could go for adding the right for anybody whose citizenship was stripped in this way to appeal to the court, which could overturn the decision if it found there was no evidence of a security threat.

The other thing is, I don't think "taking away their citizenship and banning them from the region" suffices to cover all reasonable punishments for various crimes, and I also don't think that all crimes threaten the "security and stability" of Lazarus. Treason and espionage? Sure. But lying about having citizenship in another region, or misusing your power as a government official, or other smaller things don't quite meet that same bar. If the Assembly Speaker deliberately discounts valid votes to sway the results, they should lose their office, but probably don't need to be outright banned.

I'll also caveat this with saying that I generally have an opposition to making the body responsible for regional security also the body responsible for carrying out or approving justice. A court, in general, has the goal of interpreting the law and ensuring it is upheld, and furthering the course of justice as best they can. But the security apparatus can be prone to paranoia or excessive concern, out of the desire to protect the region, and are not tasked with ensuring that decisions are just or right. I think the security apparatus is more prone to violating peoples' rights and violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the governing document than the court is. And I think we can see an example of this in TSP, with their CRS taking some decidedly undemocratic steps to remove or exclude people in a way that is or can easily be politicized.

The court, ideally, exists in opposition to these impulses. It stops the will of the powerful from simply holding sway in all cases. I am wary about this role being assigned to another body.

[Amerion]

My memory is a tad hazy so while I recall the name Derps, I'm not sure where from. Could you please give a rundown of your NS history?

[TempestShadow]

I can respect that Derps, tis basically what I do

[Devi]

First of all, thanks for the questions; I'll do my best to give a reasonably satisfactory answer ^^

Are you comfortable with Mandate 12 (Article V, Section 3) requiring that the Court's procedures be defined by law, or do you think that should be amended? If the latter, how do you think the Court's procedures should be defined?

I'm all for a consistent set of procedures to be used for the Court, certainly. On the other hand, I'm not so certain that said procedures should be set as a strict law, given the near-inevitable need for variance from them in some way or another.

As far as alternatives go, having a run-down on procedures be made publicly available- say, pinned in the relevant subforum- but not having it be as binding as a law would be, seems like the best compromise.

On a related note, do any of the three of you plan to put forward Court procedures to be defined by law? Not that I think you necessarily should (or shouldn't), I'm just wondering because so far we haven't seen any movement from anyone to do that.

I certainly don't feel that I have the practical experience to determine what works and what doesn't right now, to be perfectly honest.

Do you think the Court should have jurisdiction over criminal matters or are you comfortable with the process established by Article II, Section 6 of Mandate 12?

I'm not convinced that there's a complete overlap between the two- not all criminal matters necessarily require a punishment outlined in II.6.

That quibble aside, the court having jurisdictions over criminal matters has its pros and cons. As has been mentioned by Roavin, it typically results in more thorough investigation being made, and a higher chance of getting things right as a result. On the other hand, there's certainly potential problems- the current situation in TSP seems to me to be an example. Sensitive information used to inform EWS's proscription may be forced to be brought to light in some capacity, because not doing so denies him the ability to appropriately appeal that particular charge. Beyond that, there's more potential pitfalls- judges using their position to push a political agenda, and so on.

Ultimately, though, I have no strong preference one way or another- both Court-run criminal matters and CLS/Delegate-run criminal matters seem like viable options.

My memory is a tad hazy so while I recall the name Derps, I'm not sure where from. Could you please give a rundown of your NS history?

Likely due to a lack of doing anything notable :^)
I'm a fairly new player, by NS standards, and only seriously started to get into the game in early 2016ish. For most of the time since then, I've been involved in r/d, among other things by writing scripts that are somewhat widely used.

Outside of r/d, I had a cosmopolitan streak for a while, holding citizenships in Lazarus, Osiris, TWP, a generous handful of raider organisations, and several other regions. As most cosmopolitans do, though, I was not particularly active in the vast majority of those regions.

Nowadays, I'd like to think I'm a bit more selective about where I give my attention- I still script, and I'm currently serving as MoIA in Yggdrasil, but that's the bulk of my activity.

[Constie]

What are your views on judical activism?

[Roavin]

What are your views on judical activism?

I guess the question here is in which sense? 

Judicial activism in the strict sense means ruling according to personal and political wishes. In a wider sense, it can also refer to decisions that can't be read through plain reading of the law and may require some subjective judgement to come to a sensible result. I prefer the stricter definition.

If you mean the strict definition: I don't think it belongs in a court. Period.

If you mean the wider definition: I like the three rules of statutory interpretation that RL English courts use: First, use the plain meaning rule (rule as written unless the result is cruel or absurd), then the mischief rule (rule according to intent unless the result is cruel or absurd), and finally the golden rule (adapt what is written just enough to make the result not cruel or absurd). That may involve some subjectivity, but we will be three judges with pretty different backgrounds, so the likelihood that the result will end up being motivated by personal or political ambition is, I think, very unlikely.

[Imkihca]

I would like to motion for these appointments to go to vote please, Speaker @"Cormac"

[Cormac]

Seconded. I'll start the vote shortly.