Bill to reform the courts

Funkadelia

Funkadelia

TNPer
TNP Nation
Funkadelia Island
I propose we enact the following changes to the legal code, in light of the recent (and past) dysfunction we've seen with the courts:

Replace the text of Legal Code Chapter 3, Section 3.1 "The Attorney General" to read:
2. The Attorney General will be appointed by the Delegate.
3. The Attorney General must not have been convicted of any crime in the North Pacific within the past 3 years.
4. The Attorney General will serve as Chief Prosecutor in all cases brought before the Court of the North Pacific.
5. It is the duty of the Attorney General to see to completion any proceeding they are prosecuting.
6. If the original Attorney General is unable to complete a pending case, the successor Attorney General will take over as prosecutor and complete the pending proceedings.
7. The Attorney General may request expedited judicial review of any executive action by any official.
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EDIT: I have also changed clause 3 to limit the time that one can be barred from being an AG. In the immortal words of Flemingovia: "I think barring someone PERMANENTLY from a role is a bit draconian. You could, potentially, be convicted for something quite minor." I echo his sentiments.

This way, when conflicts such as what we've seen recently arise, it will be crystal clear that the executive branch of government will hold the power to manage such things.

Additionally, Strike the Legal Code Chapter 4 section 4.5: "Judicial Elections" totally, and add a Chapter 3, Section 3.1 (Effectively all following sections of Chapter 3 would be changed in number as well) that reads:

1. The Court Justices and Chief Justice will be nominated by the Delegate to a life term. 2. Judicial nominees will be confirmed by the Regional Assembly by a simple majority vote. 3. Sitting Court Justices may resign and/or be recalled at any time during their tenure 4. In the event that a Justice vacates their seat, the Delegate must nominate a Justice to replace them.
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This way, we will see 2 things happen. Firstly, we will not see the courts rocked by massive shifts in the makeup of the court, causing for big delays as we've seen before. Secondly, the court will be insulated from popular opinion in that they won't have to be on their toes to make it through the next elections. Also, credit to Cormac for helping me with the ideas.
 
Funkadelia:
The justices would be appointed by the Delegate, yes, but the RA would confirm them. In what radical way is this different from the current system?
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Because in a region as politicized as this I don't think having the Delegate appoint both the Justices and the Court is a good idea. RA confirmation is not sufficient protection from abuse.
 
Belschaft:
Funkadelia:
The justices would be appointed by the Delegate, yes, but the RA would confirm them. In what radical way is this different from the current system?
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Because in a region as politicized as this I don't think having the Delegate appoint both the Justices and the Court is a good idea. RA confirmation is not sufficient protection from abuse.
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But an election where the voters are all RA members is?
 
I agree with the Delegate being able to appoint the AG (with RA confirmation), mainly because the AG is an executive function, not a Judicial function.
 
Sorry I'm confused. I thought that this would only mean the AG is appointed... not justices.

If it's just the AG, I'm fine with him being appointed. Considering he has to prosecute all cases... not really going to make much difference. If he's incompetent he can be quickly removed. Most of the time there isn't much competition for the role anyway.

So assuming this doesn't impact justices... yes... I'm in support.
 
Why shouldn't it impact justices? Having the justices involved in the political process is counterproductive. The court interprets the laws, it shouldn't have to be subservient to the whims of the ever changing political climate. They should be isolated so they can make rulings regardless of the political climate and fear of reelection, not to mention the unnecessary delay and constant interruption of court cases for the sake of elections. Nothing ever gets done as is because of the ever changing composition of the court.
 
Kiwi:
Sorry I'm confused. I thought that this would only mean the AG is appointed... not justices.

If it's just the AG, I'm fine with him being appointed. Considering he has to prosecute all cases... not really going to make much difference. If he's incompetent he can be quickly removed. Most of the time there isn't much competition for the role anyway.

So assuming this doesn't impact justices... yes... I'm in support.
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No, it does impact justices. Why should we have democracy tampering with the Judicial system, that sets legal precedents for years in the future? It simply does not make sense.
 
Ah right but I would argue the courts aren't bound by previous decisions or are they? O_o
 
I've tried to stay out of this conversation, but if you'll allow some latitude I'd like to give my opinion on the matter.

I don't have a problem with appointed justices as a rule. I do however, have a problem with the number of justices we have if we did appoint them for life. 3 Justices could hang around for ages and while it's great they will become proficient, when they leave they take with them a considerable amount of institutional knowledge.

If we had between 5-7 I'd feel better about an appointment system, but I'm not sure there's enough work on the courts for that (not saying that we're not busy enough).

How about this idea. A justice is appointed by a delegate for a year. The delegate's selection would then be vetted by the Regional Assembly. There should be a question and answer period, not just a 'campaign' thread and then a vote. That's silly if you're looking to move away from campaigns. No, this is a legit vetting process.

We'd then need to stagger the delegate appointments such that if we had 3 justices each would be appointed after the General Elections where we select the delegate. We would not need to put a term restriction on the justices and obviously any member of the community could solicit the delegate for an appointment and would have 3 opportunities throughout the year to do as much.

In this way, it removes delegate 'elections', gives additional power to the del to appoint a legislative mind that is in keeping with his own legal philosophy, but still provides the opportunity 3 times a year for the RA vetting process and potentially a newcomer to try and win the appointment by soliciting the delegate.

EDIT: As an aside, should the method above be amenable, we could handle the current court in two ways. Least vote totals would be up for appointment first. This would mean, my position on the bench would be up in May, Sanc in Sept, and Abbey in Jan.

OR

We could have the current del appoint the 3 of us to whatever term (Jan-May), (Jan-Sep), (Jan-Jan) they so chose for any of us. So that could change the order, though I'd argue we should go with how the RA voted. But, meh...overall point here is stagger terms if we want to go appointment and do not do lifetime appointments without increasing the size of the courts.
 
Karpathos:
Kiwi:
Ah right but I would argue the courts aren't bound by previous decisions or are they? O_o
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Why not?
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Without any means of appeal... I don't really agree that they should be able to bind their successors. Granted I guess the RA can always legislate to override their decisions.
 
Kiwi, that's the point. The court cannot undo the precedent of their predecessors, and only the RA can do that with new legislation. Punk, I have considered that, and it is an interesting point. I'm considering increasing the court size to 5, and maintaining an appointment system. Staggering sounds interesting, but I'm a bit tired at the moment so I'll reread that point tomorrow and decipher it better.
 
When I was a Justice, I distinctly remember a few instances when we were forced to observe the precedent set by previous courts. It is possible that the decision may just lay with the Chief Justice.
 
Oh interesting. Well if more than just deference is shown to previous decisions and you have to follow them... appointed judges is probably better.
 
After reading over the laws, I noticed that Article 4 of the Constitution contains a clause stating that the Court will be elected by a plurality vote. If we agree to move this omnibus bill to a vote, I highly suggest first moving to amend the constitution to remove the clause, and then moving this bill to a vote.
 
Previous cases carry weight and it's expected that the courts provide significant detail and reasoning as to why they overturned a previous decision if they do so.

I personally would prefer an appointed Attorney General. I'm more uncertain about the Justices though.
 
With all due respect, Mcmasterdonia, I and other posters in this thread have already stated good reasons why we should not be electing Justices. However I am interested to hear your reasoning.
 
Bokeryville:
I'm against this bill. Invader Delegates shouldn't be given so much control over our judicial branch.
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This is implying that we will only ever have invader Delegates. Additionally, what bearing does this have over the apolitical Court system? In fact, even further than that, are you disregarding the fact that the RA must vote on these nominees?
 
Seeing as how we have had plenty of discussion on this topic, I'd like to get the ball rolling by moving to amend the North Pacific constitution to strike Article 4, Section 5. This way none of the original omnibus bill will be unconstitutional.
 
On a point of fact, I'd like to point out that precedent is not binding, and may be revised or overturned with any opinion the court writes.

It's just like how previous laws made by the RA aren't binding on what laws we're allowed to pass in the future.
 
Bokeryville:
I'm against this bill. Invader Delegates shouldn't be given so much control over our judicial branch.
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Jerks shouldn't be given so much control over our Regional Assembly, let's ban jerks who vote based upon Defender/Raider bias only from the RA. :eyeroll:
 
Due to the public response to the expansion of court numbers, I'm removing the exact definition of court numbers from the bill. I ask that the motion to vote be transferred to the current version of the bill.
 
Bokeryville:
Invader Delegates shouldn't be given so much control over our judicial branch.
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I am really growing tired of you trying to push a defender agenda down our throats. We are a neutral region and will have raider/defender Delegates. Get used to it.
 
I'm having trouble distinguishing between actual proposal and commentary in the OP. Please create a complete, uninterrupted draft, preferably inside a quote tag if you want this to go to vote.
 
  • Replace the text of Legal Code Chapter 3, Section 3.1 "The Attorney General" to read:
2. The Attorney General will be appointed by the Delegate.
3. The Attorney General must not have been convicted of any crime in the North Pacific within the past 3 years.
4. The Attorney General will serve as Chief Prosecutor in all cases brought before the Court of the North Pacific.
5. It is the duty of the Attorney General to see to completion any proceeding they are prosecuting.
6. If the original Attorney General is unable to complete a pending case, the successor Attorney General will take over as prosecutor and complete the pending proceedings.
7. The Attorney General may request expedited judicial review of any executive action by any official.
Click to expand...
[*]Strike the Legal Code Chapter 4 section 4.5: "Judicial Elections" totally.
[*]Add a Chapter 3, Section 3.1 (Effectively all following sections of Chapter 3 would be changed in number as well) that reads:
1. The Court Justices and Chief Justice will be nominated by the Delegate to a life term. 2. Judicial nominees will be confirmed by the Regional Assembly by a simple majority vote. 3. Sitting Court Justices may resign and/or be recalled at any time during their tenure 4. In the event that a Justice vacates their seat, the Delegate must nominate a Justice to replace them. 5. Upon the passing of this law, the Court in office at that time will serve the rest of its current term based on the previous system, and the new appointment based system will be utilized as dictated by law.
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Also, my apologies Mr. Speaker, I did not mean to ask to move to vote on this above legislature but rather I move to vote on the following:

Amend the North Pacific Constitution:
Strike Article 4, Section 5 from the Constitution
 
There's nothing in here about how to transition to this system. Would you have all the recently-elected officers vacate their offices as they no longer legally occupy them? Or would you prefer the terrifying prospect of our current Court occupying their positions for life?
 
If you would like, I can change the bill to add a clause that only effects the state of things at the time that the bill is passed. I would rather force the current court to vacate their seats in order to immediately start appointments.
 
Funkadelia:
If you would like, I can change the bill to add a clause that only effects the state of things at the time that the bill is passed. I would rather force the current court to vacate their seats in order to immediately start appointments.
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Some sort of transitional clause is needed. Whether it be the current court staying in power until the Delegate appoints replacements or the current court holding life terms (which I won't support).

This could also take effect at the end of the Current Courts term.
 
Funkadelia, I think it would be wise to withdraw your motion to vote, and spend a few more days in debate. It sounds like there are a lot of things about this bill to be worked out.
 
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