Ator People:
I'm in favor of passing a bill of this nature. The specifics will have to be worked out. The defamation piece needs some more work, especially regarding private conversations.
And is contempt here a civil violation or a criminal one? What penalties can be imposed for contempt?
That's an interesting question - Contempt of Court being a civil or criminal issue.
In this instance as proposed in the law itself would technically be a civil offense as the law itself establishes a specific civil law and creates an actual civil code. That said, refusing to comply with a civil judgment would be a civil offense. Refusing to comply with a criminal judgment would only compound the criminal offense and be a criminal act in theory. But that brings up an interesting point that could be addressed in the criminal code as a criminal offense should a law be added to that effect.
Contempt of court in the context of TNP could nominally be punished by 'removal' of the offending participant from a court proceeding if they are disruptive, etc.,,,
Criminal Contempt is very specific in nature and usually only applies to criminal proceedings but could actually be applied in a civil matter.
Here is some relevant definitions that are fairly common in most legal systems as to what is considered 'Criminal contempt':
Criminal contempt:
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), each of the following is criminal contempt:
(1) Willful behavior committed during the sitting of a court and directly tending to interrupt its proceedings.
(2) Willful behavior committed during the sitting of a court in its immediate view and presence and directly tending to impair the respect due its authority.
(3) Willful disobedience of, resistance to, or interference with a court's lawful process, order,directive, or instruction or its execution.
(4) Willful refusal to be sworn or affirmed as a witness, or, when so sworn or affirmed, willful refusal to answer any legal and proper question when the refusal is not legally justified.
(5) Willful publication of a report of the proceedings in a court that is grossly inaccurate and presents a clear and present danger of imminent and serious threat to the administration of justice, made with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false. No person, however, may be punished for publishing a truthful report of proceedings in a court.
(6) Willful or grossly negligent failure by an officer of the court to perform his duties in an official transaction.
(7) Willful or grossly negligent failure to comply with schedules and practices of the court resulting in substantial interference with the business of the court.
(8) Willful refusal to testify or produce other information upon the order of a judge acting pursuant to Article 61 of Chapter 15A, Granting of Immunity to Witnesses.
(9) Willful communication with a juror in an improper attempt to influence his deliberations.
(9a) Willful refusal by a defendant to comply with a condition of probation.
(10) Any other act or omission specified elsewhere in the General Statutes of North Carolina as grounds for criminal contempt.
The grounds for criminal contempt specified here are exclusive, regardless of any other grounds for criminal contempt which existed at common law.
(b) No person may beheld in contempt under this section on the basis of the content of any broadcast, publication, or other communication unless it presents a clear and present danger of an imminent and serious threat to the administration of criminal justice.
(c) Court orders prohibiting publication or broadcast of reports of open court proceedings or reports of public records banned.
Normally, as precedent may dictate, 'contempt of court' is usually handled in TNP as a matter of moderation for inappropriate behavior and applied by the presiding justice in a particular case. Refusing to comply with a TNP Court decision is generally considered some kind of offense which usually results in affecting the sentence delivered upon a conviction despite the fact that we don't have any laws,
per se, that define refusal to comply as a criminal offense. Contempt of Court is a fairly obvious thing to determine even without a specific law to do it and is usually handled as a matter of court rules established by the court at the time.
That said, four our purposes, we don't really need to or even want to go into writing up laws that are unnecessarily complex for our purposes, but such laws need to specific enough and compact enough so as not to become voluminous.
The actual law concerning "Defamation
per se" that I propose is a standard definition boiled down to basic common denominators so that it specifically applies to the narrow actions that can be committed in the context of RP in TNP. I looked over actual contempt and defamations laws in the legal codes of several US States, Canadian Provinces, UK and Australia, as well as other nations in Europe, etc.,,, and some of those Defamation
per se laws can be several hundred pages long and containing an obscene level of minutiae so as to confound any reasonable mind (in some countries like Italy, simply criticizing a Judge or expression any disagreement with a court decision constitutes defamation or contempt of court - even if one is just some schmuck on the street who utters 'I think the court handed down a bad decision').
Usually, legal coded state a maximum and minimum penalty range for a given offense (which we don't really do in TNP but might look into) which allows a Judge to impose a sentence within that range or not at all (by commuting a sentence, etc.) as mitigating circumstances may require (this latter point is generally what we do in TNP).
What we don't want to have happen is everyone and anyone suing civilly or criminally for frivolous occurrences like "so-and-so called be a bastards" or other forms of having one's feelings hurt. That accounts for the narrowness of the law I propose.
I suppose, though, that as a penalty for certain criminal or civil offenses could be punished by increasing the 'warn level' for a period of time for the offender so that repeated offenses could accumulate into a forum ban. For instance, contempt of court or a civil offense could be punished by upping someone's 'warn level' by a certain percent for a given period of time and consecutively if multiple offenses are committed, or putting an offender into the dreaded 'moderated posting queue' category.
There are TOS violations that involve defamation, harassment, etc., if it is done in a manner that is not legitimate RP and is an actual personal attack on the real person and not the persona in game.
But a Defamation
per se law as a civil offense or even criminal offense (if we want to simply combine all offenses as 'criminal') would cut out a lot of crap for people claiming slander and libel as 'fraud' which they are not.
Also, the argument that 'suites at equity' are impossible to punish is a straw man considering that 'fraud' in and of itself is by definition a matter of equity as are all other offenses when you get down to it. The only difference is that a criminal penalty is a matter of retribution on behalf of the collective whole (the "People") as opposed to a civil offense being a matter of remuneration or equalization on the part of an individual.
I tend to take an objectivist view on government and law - the purpose of government is to protect, preserve and promote the rights of the individual and that laws must objectively serve this end; and that which is a crime for the individual is also a crime for the 'collective' or 'state' as it were.
Statements of fact or opinion (unless one claims that opinion to be a fact) are not defamatory because one is ultimately responsible for one's own actions and to suppress statements of fact as 'defamation' serves only to deny personal responsibility on one part and deny the right of free speech on the other.
