[Private] You know what we need to add to the Court Rules?

Romanoffia

Romanoffia

Garde à l'eau!
I've been thinking about this one. We need to come up with a "Contempt of Court" rule by which a presiding justice can kick a disruptive person from the hearing thread, or the court section of the forum entirely as needed until they regain a civil tongue in their head.
 
Do either of you know of any instance when people have ignored the wishes of the justice - sometimes after a suitably stern reminder? I certainly cannot remember any.

I push the boundaries with the court - but when required to desist by a judge, I have always done so. I cannot think of anyone who has not.

I am against bloating our rules with any unnecessary provision. Since this does not seem to be a problem, I would rather concentrate on rules we DO need.
 
I'm not gonna dig through the archives, but there have definitely been cases where this would be useful - I think madjack is the one I'm thinking of. Also, this is a way for us to enforce our court rules - if we say "don't post pre-trial motions past X time" we need a way to enforce that, so that people don't lengthen our trials by disregarding deadlines - and *that's* something I see happen all the time.
 
Crushing Our Enemies:
I'm not gonna dig through the archives, but there have definitely been cases where this would be useful - I think madjack is the one I'm thinking of. Also, this is a way for us to enforce our court rules - if we say "don't post pre-trial motions past X time" we need a way to enforce that, so that people don't lengthen our trials by disregarding deadlines - and *that's* something I see happen all the time.
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The fact that you would need to hunt and hunt for an instance you can barely remember sort of proves my point.

Even in the madjack case, it was easily dealt with without further powers.

Justices already have powers to enforce deadlines. This would not come under contempt of court legislation, but under court proceedings.

Justices have been too lenient / understanding in the past. that is a given. But no further powers are needed.
 
Contempt of Court is a fairly obvious transgression. If a someone does something totally obnoxious and out of line it is easily spotted.

I agree that we don't need excessive rules to bloat the procedure; of that I am convinced. But when you get right down to it, Contempt of Court is such an obvious offense that a particular rule for it may not be needed - it is naturally presumed that a Justice is the moderator of a given thread in which a case is being tried.

What bothers me are rules and procedures that just beg participants in a trial (or leading up to a trial) to use the procedures and rules in a way that makes them a weapon that thwarts the delivery of justice. To echo Flemingovia's campaign thread in certain aspects, having a legal system in TNP that is imitating RL court procedures is not only overly complicated but undesirable because it tends to drive people away rather than encourage them to willingly participate. Rules of Evidence are one thing based upon logic and reason, but the whole procedure in terms of holding a trial have become so convoluted that nothing gets accomplished in a reasonable and rational span of time.

I also think we should look at pre-trial motions. If a prosecutor brings charges that are not sufficiently substantiated by the evidence presented in those charges, the Justices should have the authority to say so and tell the AG to come back later with better evidence or not at all.

One of the problems that arises with a complex system based too much upon RL systems is that people have the enticing opportunity to settle personal scores by using the Court as a personal bludgeon by keeping someone in constant litigation. The charges filed become a means unto itself to slander and libel.

For instance, I could render a decision in the current case over which I am presiding and deliver an appropriate decision but the intricacies of the procedural rules result in a never ending state of clusterfuckery. Well, I mean, a lot of it is because I don't want to violate the procedural rules and cause more clusterfuckery and the fact that I tend not to be anal-retentive to the point that I murder justice for the sake of the rules.

Getting to the point, as a Justice, I would like to hear what the the Prosecution charges; The Defense States; a simple rebuttal on both parts; and let me make a decision. If I think a case is BS, I can dismiss it at any stage. I don't want to have to be held prisoner with often idiotic rules designed to further obfuscate the matter.

I don't want to go Fiqh, but it would make our jobs a bit easier and less time consuming if we just said: Tell us your side of the story and we will let you know. And then don't just pillory people but arrive at a fair decision. We need Judge Judy, not the whole frigging US Supreme Court and all of its inane supplications.
 
I'm fine with leaving out a contempt of court option, but it seems like there aren't really any reasons not to include it besides "but we would almost never need to use it!" Seldom-used rules aren't bloat - they're just only seldom useful. Like keeping a flashlight in the house for when the power goes out. Almost never happens, but it's nice to have around when it does.

That said, it's not something I feel strongly about.
 
I know what you mean. I figure that if a participant in a case gets out of hand then 'contempt of court' becomes a moderation issue (as it is withing the scope of a Justice to remove or otherwise restrict or eliminate unnecessarily silly stuff from trial threads, etc.
 
I agree with Roman's long post above, especially this:

I also think we should look at pre-trial motions. If a prosecutor brings charges that are not sufficiently substantiated by the evidence presented in those charges, the Justices should have the authority to say so and tell the AG to come back later with better evidence or not at all.
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Justices already have considerable moderation powers in the court area. I still am not convinced that more powers are needed.
 
Indeed. I can think of a number of cases in the past that shouldn't have even been entertained because of insufficient or obscenely thin evidence. Specifically, most of them.
 
The court can already refuse to bring a case to trial for any reason, including lack of evidence. I'm not sure what that has to do with pre-trial motions?
 
Subject wandered a bit.

The problem is that pre-trial motions can turn into a tête à tête between the prosecution and defense that wastes time. If a Prosecutor/Plaintif in a case files charges and the enters a pre-trial motion that essentially says, "I need a couple of weeks to get all the evidence", the case should be chucked out on that claim alone because one should not bother the court with a case for which the evidence is not yet assembled in a complete fashion.
 
Ah, ok. Yeah, I'd be in favor of dismissing that case without prejudice, so it can be refiled when the evidence is assembled, which is something the court can already do, I think - nothing in the rules says we can't.
 
Indeed.

I'm beginning to think that the real delay in trials is largely a situation whereby the prosecution has not assembled evidence properly. That, and previous justices at times entertained cases that should not have been entertained in the first place.

Oh, and the fact that it is not unheard of people filing cases as a matter of inflicting personal spite.
 
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