Romanoffia objects to being removed as moderating justice

Romanoffia

Garde à l'eau!
Crushing Our Enemies:
Romanoffia has not logged on in nearly 48 hours. As we are in a rather crucial junction in the trial, I am removing him as Moderating Justice to ensure that the remainder of the trial proceeds on schedule. For the remainder of the proceedings, I will moderate this trial.

The extension of Discovery has expired, and no response by the defense to the prosecution's motions will be permitted.

Mr. Attorney General, regarding your evidentiary motions:
Kiwi:
Firstly I submit to the Court that any evidence pertaining to the potential coup of the region by Tim is irrelevant and should be removed. Even if it can be established that Tim, JAL or King were in reality planning to coup the region, there is no evidence that Grosse was aware of this. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the actions in question (i.e. invalidating a vote in the RA) would have any impact on a coup attempt, particularly where the vote itself has no consequence on the legislation in question. JAL or Tim planning or considering a coup of the region has no "tendency to prove or disprove that the alleged offending occurred", the later quote being a more accurate definition of relevance. Even if the alleged coup or considered coup was factually correct, this has no impact on the allegations made against Kingborough by Grosse. This evidence is thus irrelevant and should be stricken from the proceedings.
If this evidence is irrelevant, as you say, then the defense's argument will not benefit from its inclusion in the record, and yours will not suffer from it. I am willing to give defense counsel the benefit of the doubt on this, and see how he includes it in his argument, and let the members of the Court decide what bearing it shall have on their decision afterward. Motion denied.

Kiwi:
Secondly, I submit to the Court that deposition evidence given by JAL be removed. The reasons for this are twofold. Primarily this evidence is not relevant at all to the situation at hand. The defence has already conceded that the offence in question does not pertain to JAL attempting to coup the region or attempting to do so with Tim. Kingborough was accused by Grosse of aiding in a coup perpetrated by Tim, not JAL. As well as this, currently our evidential rules although terrible and difficult to understand are lacking in one fundamental area of coverage. I submit to the Court today that this Court should not accept unreliable evidence from a witness in a situation where its probative value is far overshadowed by its illegitimate prejudice to the proceedings.
Denied. I reject your irrelevance assertion for the same reason as the previous motion. Furthermore, JAL's testimony authenticated pieces of documentary evidence submitted by the defense.

Kiwi:
Thirdly, I ask that Defense Evidentiary Submission 1 be removed on the basis that it is not relevant. Whether JAL and Tim talked about a coup is irrelevant. Furthermore, the tone of all parties involved suggests that this thread was never meant to be taken seriously and to use it this way takes it entirely out of context.
Denied, for the same reason as the first motion.

Kiwi:
Fourthly, Defense Evidentiary Submission 2 is hearsay. Period. It cannot in good conscience be admitted into evidence. Eluvatar had the opportunity to visit this conversation in the deposition and if he failed to do so, that is the defence's problem. Such evidence could only be remedied by witness testimony.
Actually, this evidence was authenticated by JAL's testimony:
[Dec 6 2013, 10:10 PM] <Eluvatar> omgitsjackwtf, is http://forum.thenorthpacific.org/single/?p=8118505&t=6991367 an accurate transcription of a conversation we had, at the time described?
[Dec 6 2013, 10:11 PM] <omgitsjackwtf> correct, it is
[Dec 6 2013, 10:12 PM] <Kiwi> no objection (lol wrong order but oh well)
Motion denied.

Kiwi:
Fifthly, Defense Evidentiary Submission 3 is also irrelevant. These types of conversations occur all the time in #tnp and other chat-like areas utilised by TNP citizens. Even if the latter point is disregarded, JAL and Tim discussing a coup proves nothing. There is nothing in the allegation which alleges that JAL and Tim work together to take over the region. Also as has previously been mentioned, whether Tim ultimately considered couping the region is irrelevant. Tim couping the region is half the allegation from Grosse and it would be disingenuous to allow this evidence to stand.
Your irrelevance assertion is rejected for the same reason as those above. Your claim that such conversations occur all the time is not a reason to exclude the evidence from the record, merely a possible reason that the members of the court might choose to disregard it when making their decisions on the case. It might more properly appear in your arguments on the evidence. Motion denied.

Kiwi:
Sixthly, Defense Evidentiary Submission 4 & 5 are statements made during an entirely different period of time. These suffer from the same defect as the other "Tim coups" evidence but given the humourous tone of the thread and the different context given the time and place, this evidence is also irrelevant.
Again, you assertion regarding the tone of the evidence is not a reason to exclude it from the record. Even if I were to accept it as given that the posts were humorous, it would not follow that such evidence is inadmissible, merely that it is humorous. In addition, the relevance of documentary evidence is not a fucntion of the time and place that documentary evidence was recorded. Motion denied.

Both parties have the next three days to submit their arguments on the evidence and the law. Please submit your full argument in one post. Arguments must be submitted by (time=1387413660) in your time zone. A verdict will be posted by (time=1387759260).
Excuse me, I have indeed logged in the past 48 hours and I responded to your recent PM just moments ago, and now I have noticed that you have taken the liberty of not affording me the time to actually to render a decision as per Kiwi's motions, which I am constructing now.

If you will check the logs, I did indeed log in in the past 48 hours in my process of mediating this case. You removal of me as the Mediating Justice is arbitrary and not in keeping with the time line I established and variation in that time line of which I am entitled to allow.

As such, you may have caused a mistrial as I have not violated anything in the time-line I am at liberty to set and did set as I saw fit in order to render a just an legal decision in this matter.

I will not see this case rushed at the expense of justice.

As such, I submit to the entire court that if such a removal of the Moderating Justice is permitted, a mistrial has occurred.




 
1. I said "nearly 48 hours," not 48.

2. Allow me to quote the constitution:
TNP Constitution:
3. The Chief Justice will administer the rules of the Court. Where no rules exist, the Chief Justice may use their discretion.
No rules exist for the selection of a Moderation Justice, and no procedure exists for the removal of one. As such, I may use my discretion. Seeing that discovery was being prolonged yet again, and that your 24-hour extension had turned into a 48-hour extension, I saw a necessity for the trial to move into arguments immediately.

3. No mistrial has occurred. I have merely exercised my powers as Chief Justice to administer the rules of the court in a manner that will allow this trial to proceed on schedule.

Please confine discussion of this matter to this thread, and do not hijack the trial thread.
 
And you know I will not discuss this matter in the public gallery as it would be improper for a Justice to comment at all about an on-going trial.
 
[me] discovers the "me" tag.

Welp, sorry for derailing the thread. Go on with your debates and whatever it is the judges do.
 
This is some BS....serious BS.

Not illegal by any means...but geeze given how slowly this thing had been moving, to remove the current moderating justice for not being around for 'nearly' 48 reeks of CoE simply wanting to moderate this thing and looking for an excuse, any excuse, to do so.

Why not just tell Roman that you'd be taking over this rather than the BS....and I do mean B to the S method of Roman's 'inactivity'?
 
Punk, the slow-moving nature of this trial is the reason I took it over. And you are not privy to the private communication between Roman and I, so you have no idea what I have or have not told him.

My reasons for taking over the trial are entirely procedural, and if you think anyone would want to moderate this trial you're out of your mind.
 
As the only justice not involved in this episode, I have opened up a thread in the private court area where the justices can discuss this out of the public gaze.
 
No comment. Well, actually, strictly speaking, "no comment" is indeed a comment, or, rather, a non-comment.
 
Yup, and you don't know the half of it. :lol:

I would have had the trial over with had I not been interfered with.
 
The trial actually seemed to be running fairly smoothly once I left the AG's office and Roman was installed as a moderator.

Despite CoE's comments, this still reeks of BS and completely unnecessary. Roman brought a lot of common sense to the position and as an observer, I thought the case was fairly close to coming to an end.

Something is just not right here.
 
punk d:
The trial actually seemed to be running fairly smoothly once I left the AG's office and Roman was installed as a moderator.

Despite CoE's comments, this still reeks of BS and completely unnecessary. Roman brought a lot of common sense to the position and as an observer, I thought the case was fairly close to coming to an end.

Something is just not right here.
There are lots of things not right here. People get elected into positions of power based upon IRC activity instead of competence. Those with the willingness to serve, and do so coherently, are told that they will not be allowed into positions under any circumstance because the cabal of chat-friends has decided against it. People in positions of power can run roughshod over the law without recourse because the Court can not keep its own house in order, much less so the land's rule of law.

The whole process is a joke from the top down.
 
Gracius Maximus:
punk d:
The trial actually seemed to be running fairly smoothly once I left the AG's office and Roman was installed as a moderator.

Despite CoE's comments, this still reeks of BS and completely unnecessary. Roman brought a lot of common sense to the position and as an observer, I thought the case was fairly close to coming to an end.

Something is just not right here.
There are lots of things not right here. People get elected into positions of power based upon IRC activity instead of competence. Those with the willingness to serve, and do so coherently, are told that they will not be allowed into positions under any circumstance because the cabal of chat-friends has decided against it. People in positions of power can run roughshod over the law without recourse because the Court can not keep its own house in order, much less so the land's rule of law.

The whole process is a joke from the top down.
To frame this decision as a result of the "problem" with us having the fucking gall to make friends with each other is just patently sodding ridiculous. Yes, I'm not entirely sure this decision makes sense, although I can somewhat see COE's reasoning. However, this is not down to some grand conspiracy of those of us who talk to each other outside of these forums, of that I'm pretty damn sure. The Court seemed to have been making slow progress towards functionality, and it should be noted that basically any NS Court system will /always/ have major issues because at the end of the day, we're all amateurs and we will make stupid idiotic mistakes. The whole process is always a bit of a joke, so rather than assuming that everything that goes wrong is because of some sort of exclusive social-club that's actually got sod all to do with the running of the region, why don't you try contributing to efforts to help fix the region, give suggestions as to what to do instead rather than just shouting "THIS IS WRONG."
 
Abbey Anumia:
Gracius Maximus:
punk d:
The trial actually seemed to be running fairly smoothly once I left the AG's office and Roman was installed as a moderator.

Despite CoE's comments, this still reeks of BS and completely unnecessary. Roman brought a lot of common sense to the position and as an observer, I thought the case was fairly close to coming to an end.

Something is just not right here.
There are lots of things not right here. People get elected into positions of power based upon IRC activity instead of competence. Those with the willingness to serve, and do so coherently, are told that they will not be allowed into positions under any circumstance because the cabal of chat-friends has decided against it. People in positions of power can run roughshod over the law without recourse because the Court can not keep its own house in order, much less so the land's rule of law.

The whole process is a joke from the top down.
To frame this decision as a result of the "problem" with us having the fucking gall to make friends with each other is just patently sodding ridiculous. Yes, I'm not entirely sure this decision makes sense, although I can somewhat see COE's reasoning. However, this is not down to some grand conspiracy of those of us who talk to each other outside of these forums, of that I'm pretty damn sure. The Court seemed to have been making slow progress towards functionality, and it should be noted that basically any NS Court system will /always/ have major issues because at the end of the day, we're all amateurs and we will make stupid idiotic mistakes. The whole process is always a bit of a joke, so rather than assuming that everything that goes wrong is because of some sort of exclusive social-club that's actually got sod all to do with the running of the region, why don't you try contributing to efforts to help fix the region, give suggestions as to what to do instead rather than just shouting "THIS IS WRONG."
You seem upset. Did I hit a nerve?

I am fairly certain no one has expressed anything untoward in regards to these actions outside of the seemingly inexplicable usurpation of the presiding justice for no apparent reason and the airing of private disagreement within the Court for public consumption.

That said, there is indeed nothing wrong with "making friends" in this world of ones and zeroes, however, I would posit that placing the value of those supposed friendships over the welfare of the region as a whole, specifically in light of the election cycles, which have repeatedly shown that higher qualified candidates lose to more "popular" ones is descriptive of the problem as a whole.

As to your last point, you are incorrect. The judicial system in TNP has not always been a joke. It is just that mentality that has caused the ongoing problems.
 
Politics is usually a popularity contest. It's not a meritocracy.

One could and should argue being popular with the right people is political power by definition. I'm sure if went throughout history and looked at the "most qualified" candidates versus who actually rose to power, the two lists would share maybe 10 to 15 names.
 
OK, as the former Presiding Justice and a Justice sitting in judgment on the case of TNP v. Grosseschnauzer I have to express my utter disgust with the conduct of this trial.

To wit:

Chief Justice COE removed me from the case because he claimed that I was taking too long to adjudicate this case mostly by granting extension in excess of the time-line (which I was entitled to do by court rules). Then, in the ultimate act of hypocrisy, COE extends the testimony section of the trial:

See for yourselves: http://forum.thenorthpacific.org/single/?p=8123236&t=6991367

For the Chief Justice to remove a Presiding Justice for doing what a Presiding Justice is entitled to do according to the Court Rules, and then assuming the role of Presiding Justice, and then engaging in exactly the same activity (extending the time-line) for which he removed the previous Presiding Justice, is Gross Misconduct, unethical, and a display of incompetence and behavior not becoming of a Chief Justice.

I am preparing a complaint against COE under the following item in the legal code:

Chapter One, TNP Legal Code;

Section 1.8. Gross Misconduct
20. "Gross Misconduct" is defined as the violation of an individual's legally mandated sworn oath, either willfully or through negligence.

I've had enough of this crap.
 
My opinion on extensions in trials is summed up in this statement: The defense and prosecution get any reasonable amount of time they need to have a fair and productive trial; justices do not get extra time.

In other words, extensions of discovery and argumentation are permitted if more evidence is being gathered, or arguments are still being prepared. But to extend a step to allow a justice to deliberate longer on a motion, or for the court to deliberate on the verdict, is unnecessary and should not be permitted.
 
OK, you are wrong.

You removed me for doing exactly what you just did.

You are rushing this trial and then you do exactly what you removed me for doing. This is absurd in the extreme.
 
Ironically,

Let the Court Decide:

http://forum.thenorthpacific.org/single/?p=8123261&t=7135059

And, ironically, none of the elected Justices can sit on the case (Conflict of interest because one is a witness in TNP v. Grosseschnauzer and the other two are parties to the case). Nevertheless, the AG is required to indict because that's what the court rules say. The rules are the rules.

That is unless the Chief Justice creates a new rule on the fly that he can dismiss cases against himself. :P
 
This whole thread is just stupid. Both of you need to grow up. Roman was removed (I don't agree with the removal) and that is the end of it. The extension is a slap in the face as one of the reasons for the removal is the trial moving too slowly. Threads like these need to be kept internally to work out your issues so we can have a functioning court.
 
Hileville:
This whole thread is just stupid. Both of you need to grow up. Roman was removed (I don't agree with the removal) and that is the end of it. The extension is a slap in the face as one of the reasons for the removal is the trial moving too slowly. Threads like these need to be kept internally to work out your issues so we can have a functioning court.
I wish I could say this better. I can't so I won't try. I'll just say this.


:agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree: :agree:
 
Romanoffia:
Ironically,

Let the Court Decide:

http://forum.thenorthpacific.org/single/?p=8123261&t=7135059

And, ironically, none of the elected Justices can sit on the case (Conflict of interest because one is a witness in TNP v. Grosseschnauzer and the other two are parties to the case). Nevertheless, the AG is required to indict because that's what the court rules say. The rules are the rules.

That is unless the Chief Justice creates a new rule on the fly that he can dismiss cases against himself. :P
I do not think my impartiality is compromised in this case. The fact that I was recused in TNP vs GRosse does not mean that I am compromised in TNP vs CoE.

However, can I just state that this sort of episode is not what I thought I was signing up for when I stood as justice.
 
punk d:
Politics is usually a popularity contest. It's not a meritocracy.

One could and should argue being popular with the right people is political power by definition. I'm sure if went throughout history and looked at the "most qualified" candidates versus who actually rose to power, the two lists would share maybe 10 to 15 names.
In general, I agree, politics are a popularity contest. However, the judicial system is somewhat different. Popularity in regards to the process of justice is doomed to failure, as we have consistently seen demonstrated within these halls.

It has been my experience that the best judicial constructs in this realm function well when those most capable and not necessarily popular are in control. For this region specifically, I can point to myself and Gross. We are both fairly unpopular overall (and I find Gross's overly verbose methods annoying) but have both run this legal system effectively and with little complaint or asshattery.

Also, I am of the opinion that political power and popularity are not necessarily one and the same. I have yielded great political power in various places over the years and have never, not once, counted myself as "popular".
 
One must be popular with the right people.


In other news, the AG joining the defense in the case against CoE is an absolute mockery of justice. An absolute mockery. The AG is tasked with prosecuting cases for TNP.


Anyone other than me have a problem with this?
 
The Bill of Rights says that nations are entitled to whoever they want as their defence lawyer.

We've had issues in the past where the AG (and indeed Justices) stepped aside for a particular trial so they could act as Defence Attorney, idk why you suddenly have a problem with it now.
 
I would be happy to act as prosecutor on behalf of TNP in the case if such is needed. I have prosecuted cases before this court in the past.
 
I think in other cases the Attorney General was already serving as the Defence when they were elected to the position of Attorney General - such as Gaspo when he served as Eluvatar's (?) defence lawyer. I can't recall a time when the Attorney General has decided not to prosecute a case to join the defence instead.
 
I am increasingly beginning to feel that I have been elected to join a kindergarten class not a judicial department.

I am trying to get both Roman and CoE to engage in conversation that would, hopefully, render legal action unnecessary. But I am not confident of success.
 
Democratic Donkeys:
Abbey Anumia:
why don't you try contributing to efforts to help fix the region, give suggestions as to what to do instead rather than just shouting "THIS IS WRONG."
:lol:

And what a great service you do for this region, thusly.
I think you find, that not all that long ago, that is precisely what I was doing, but RL has intervened in a big way and so my activity and my patience for the crud here has fallen through the floor. Sorry about that.

But flem has a point (think I might be able to see a pig flying outside :P) - much of this should have been an internal court matter and certainly shouldn't be ending in legal action.
 
Abbey Anumia:
But flem has a point (think I might be able to see a pig flying outside :P) - much of this should have been an internal court matter and certainly shouldn't be ending in legal action.
You have forgotten the flemingovian mantra, haven't you?
 
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