[DRAFT] Agora Go Act

[Pallaith]

After seeing our bar commission drop once again to a single member, and noticing the list of bar members drop to 3, in conjunction with our recent history of trials or lack thereof, I am forced to conclude that this latest iteration of our judicial process has also failed . We cannot keep up with the arbitrary needs of this system and it is more of a nuisance than anything. As an aside, messing around with this are yet again does not properly address the fundamental rot of our judicial system: that it exists. I would sooner throw the whole thing out but we never know what to replace it with; given that, I am going to try to simplify this one aspect of the system until we have the difficult conversation of how to do the judicial system in this region.

Everything I stood for when we put forward the AGORA Act remains. I do not wish to return to that old system. But I think we need to simplify this area, and we can utilize many of the mechanics from the old Attorney General office in doing so. I propose to eliminate our bar commission system. Keep in mind, I do believe it is worthy to encourage legal education in this region, if we must have a judicial system as complicated as ours, but in practice this method has not prevented more of the nonsense that so often crops up in our criminal trials. For that reason, I encourage the Court to maintain something like our current bar commission system in their court procedures. My draft will include an enabling clause to give them this option. And I will establish a primary prosecutor, selected the way we should have done this all along: an appointee of the Delegate protected from removal by that Delegate. Finally, due to the elimination of the bar commission, I will adjust the way the Court Examiner is selected. Behold:

Chapter 3 of the Legal Code is hereby amended to read as follows:

Section 3.3: Regional Bar of The North Pacific
11. All prosecutors in criminal trials must be members of the regional bar.
12. Any citizen who is not currently serving a judicially-imposed sentence may apply for admission to the regional bar. Any citizen who is given a judicially-imposed sentence while a member of the regional bar will have their admission to the regional bar revoked.
13. The regional bar will be governed by the Bar Commission, which consists of three citizens, one a Justice of the Court elected by a majority of the Court, one appointed by the Delegate, and one appointed by the Court and confirmed by a majority of the Regional Assembly. The citizens appointed by the Delegate and the Court may not be elected government officials, but will otherwise be exempt from constitutional restrictions on holding multiple government offices for purposes of their appointment to the Bar Commission.
14. The term of a Bar Commissioner will be six months, beginning on the day they take the Oath of Office. The Delegate and the Court do not have the power to remove Bar Commissioners.
15. Applicants to the regional bar must be evaluated by the Bar Commission for acceptability and must demonstrate adequate and reasonable knowledge of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Legal Code of The North Pacific, and prior judicial rulings on requests for review.
16. A standard procedure for passing the bar evaluation, and for managing membership of the bar, will be established by majority agreement of the Bar Commission.

Section 3.43.3: Criminal Trial Procedure
1711. A standard procedure for all criminal trials will be established by majority agreement of the Court.
12. Qualifications for service as a prosecutor may be established by majority agreement of the Court, but cannot conflict with any qualifications listed in this chapter.
18. Any person may present criminal charges to the Court. If the charges are accepted, the Delegate will appoint a prosecutor to manage the prosecution of the case. If the Delegate is the accused or unavailable, the next available person in the Line of Succession will appoint a prosecutor to manage prosecution of the case.
19. Any member of the regional bar may be appointed as a prosecutor and will be exempt from constitutional restrictions on holding multiple government offices for purposes of their appointment as a prosecutor.
20. The Delegate and other officials who may have appointed a prosecutor do not have the power to remove a prosecutor.
21. No one may prosecute or appoint prosecutors to a case in which they are the defendant or part of the defense.
22. If the original prosecutor is unable to see a case to completion, another prosecutor will be selected by the same procedure as the original prosecutor.
23. If the prosecutor discontinues management of the prosecution of a criminal case, then the complainant may, at their discretion, request another prosecutor be selected or withdraw the complaint.
24. If the complainant has not withdrawn the complaint within 7 days of the prosecutor discontinuing management of the case, the complaint will be considered withdrawn.
25. For the purposes of this section, "managing the prosecution of a case" includes but is not limited to:
acting as the prosecutor for the duration of all stages of the criminal trial heard for the case;
and representing the prosecution in any separate judicial review hearings arising from the criminal trial.
26. When the management of the prosecution of a case is completed, all records associated with that prosecution will be transferred to the Court.

Section 3.53.4: Pre-Sentencing Ejections and Bans
2713. The Delegate may eject and/or ban a particular nation from the region pending criminal charges against them, or prior to the conclusion of an ongoing criminal trial in which they are the defendant, only when that nation poses a clear security threat and their removal is necessary for the protection of the region.
2814. The Delegate must seek the approval of the Court for any such ejection or ban. Where possible, this approval must be sought prior to the nation's removal from the region. Otherwise, it must be sought within one day of the action.
2915. If the ejection or ban is performed during a criminal trial against that nation, approval will be at the discretion of the justice moderating the trial. Otherwise, any single justice may approve or deny the Delegate's request.
3016. Any nation ejected or banned under this section may file an appeal of the decision. These appeals may not be denied, and must be decided by the full court.
3117. The Delegate must immediately provide any nation ejected or banned under this section with a link to the Courtroom and inform them of their right to file an appeal.
3218. If criminal charges are not brought against a nation ejected or banned under this section, or if the criminal charges are rejected by the Court, or if the nation is not found Guilty at the conclusion of the trial, any ban against that nation which was imposed under this section must be revoked.

Section 3.5: The Advocate General
19. Whenever the position is vacant, the Delegate shall appoint, and a majority of the Regional Assembly shall confirm, an Advocate General. Citizens will be exempt from constitutional restrictions on holding multiple government offices for purposes of their appointment as Advocate General.
20. The Advocate General will have discretion to manage the prosecution of all criminal cases brought before the Court, save those outlined below, and will also act as a legal advisor to the Delegate and the Executive of The North Pacific upon request.
21. The Advocate General shall not be involved in the prosecution of any criminal case in which they are a defendant, a defense attorney, or a witness.
22. The Advocate General may appoint deputies to assist them in the execution of any of their powers and duties.
23. The term of the Advocate General will last until the end of the next regular Judicial election. The Delegate does not have the power to remove the Advocate General.

Section 3.6: The Court Examiner
3324. Whenever the position is vacant, the Bar Commission Delegate shall select from among the members of the regional bar by a majority vote, and the Chief Justice shall appoint, a Court Examiner. Citizens will be exempt from constitutional restrictions on holding multiple government offices for purposes of their appointment as Court Examiner.
3425. The Court Examiner will have standing in all cases of judicial review brought before the Court.
3526. The term of the Court Examiner will last until the end of the next regular Judicial election. The Delegate does not have the power to remove the Court Examiner.

EDIT: Added deputies provision for Advocate General

 

[Halsoni]

Big judicial reform bill that's been on our minds for a bit now. I support this.

 

[Comfed]

Who manages the prosecution of a case which the advocate general is statutorily barred from prosecuting? Is that included in the Court's power to determine criminal procedure and the qualifications of prosecutors?

 

[Foskeburg]

Perhaps an Advocate General Pro Tempore could be appointed for such a case.

 

[Pallaith]

Who manages the prosecution of a case which the advocate general is statutorily barred from prosecuting? Is that included in the Court's power to determine criminal procedure and the qualifications of prosecutors?

Perhaps an Advocate General Pro Tempore could be appointed for such a case.

The original AG language included a provision for deputies, which would handle these matters when the AG could not. I can see that leaving that out of the bill is opening a potential can of worms, so it looks like I will have to adapt this language as well. I left it out because it was not my intent to introduce some of the same problems we sought to eliminate with the AGORA Act, but there is typically a reason for every part of the law that is there, and we are seeing a fine example of that here.

 

[Sil Dorsett]

@Pallaith, I know you don't want to name the position "Attorney General", but can we please just do that? Not out of any gripe I have about the AGORA act, but purely from an administrative perspective. We already have the User Banners for Attorney General and Deputy AG. The User Groups still exist. It would just be much easier administratively to reuse what we already have available, especially if the position is remotely similar to what we had before.

 

[Pallaith]

@Pallaith, I know you don't want to name the position "Attorney General", but can we please just do that? Not out of any gripe I have about the AGORA act, but purely from an administrative perspective. We already have the User Banners for Attorney General and Deputy AG. The User Groups still exist. It would just be much easier administratively to reuse what we already have available, especially if the position is remotely similar to what we had before.

I actually don’t see why we would use these. The new AG is a position equivalent to the Court Examiner, which doesn’t have a user group. Like the Court Examiner, there’s no guarantee the new AG will actually do anything during the four months they’re appointed. They have no standard or regular duties - this was one of the reasons we advanced the AGORA Act in the first place.

So I would sooner we carry on with the new AG without using any special assets.

 

[Simone]

Maybe just call it Court Examiner?

 

[Chipoli]

This bill is sound, and it has my support in principle. One note I do have, though, - I don't see why we simply bring back the position of the attorney general or the last, at least - it doesn't seem clear to me why we wouldn't want to do that, although I concede that I may be missing some context because that position came before my time here.

 

[Pallaith]

In my opinion, the Attorney General as a concept wasn’t just the specific duties were mimicking with this bill. It was an elected office that stood alongside the others, it had weight and a symbolic place in our regional makeup. I do not wish to create a new, lesser Attorney General office.

Ultimately those of us who advanced or supported the AGORA Act felt that the ideal of the Attorney General could not exist given the nature of our elections, the patterns of our citizenry, and probably most significantly, though we didn’t consider this much at the time, the inadequacy of our justice system. We elected people who did not have the ability to serve effectively in the office, and this would be exacerbated when they trained their deputies. They would often sit idle with nothing to do, because while they didn’t have a purely reactive role, they still needed to take action only when some alleged criminal act had taken place. This made them the least engaged and least consistent of our elected positions in terms of opportunities to take action in office. When someone ill-suited to the office was there, this period of nothing happening was fine, but we’d be in trouble if we happened to need a good prosecutor while such a person was in office. So we decided if the job couldn’t be consistently done right we ought to find another way to handle prosecution.

Today I believe a singular prosecutor is the simplest and best way to approach this compared to the convoluted alternatives we’ve tried. But I believe the delegate appointment method is the better way to pick that person to avoid the issues the old AG selection method created. And since I do put an elected position on a higher tier than an appointed one, and since Attorney General was such a position, I would prefer to keep that title retired rather than diminish it in a new form. Not to mention, with the Court Examiner, we have already split part of its identity as it is, so it’s still not even quite the same office it once was.