VOTE: Romanoffia for Justice

Romanoffia

Romanoffia

Garde à l'eau!
Once again, I am running for a seat on the court.

* Most experienced candidate for Justice - has served a total of four terms on the court over the past several years.

* RL experience as a Magistrate Judge.

I would like to continue on the Court in hopes of actually accomplishing some kind of procedural reform to simplify the legal/trial process. There have been a couple of minor changes in procedure enacted a few months ago, but they did not go far enough to really amount to serious change. Hopefully, we will get a good slate on the bench this election which can make the goal of procedural change a reality.

One of the major problems we have is that our current procedure somewhat mirrors RL legal proceedings. While this framework serves as a 'starting point' for us to work with, it is unnecessarily complicated and results in overly long trials and run-ups to trials. This situation needs to change. Trial lengths should be in the order of ten days to two weeks, and consist of only three or four procedural steps.

A general 'work schedule' needs to be formed in which all issues before the bench should be addressed in an orderly fashion, and to help assure that the Justices are attentive to matters on a daily basis. This requires that whoever sits as Chief Justice needs to crack the whip, so to speak, in order to keep things moving at an appropriate pace and to assure that everything gets done in a timely fashion. Recent events (COE's resignation from the Court and the subsequent special election for a replacement) has thrown a spanner into the works. With a new term, we need to start working on all outstanding matters and clear the docket as quickly as practicable.

Everyone is encouraged to ask me any questions you may have about my candidacy and policies.

Roman
 
What is the advantage of shorter trials? Why "ten days to two weeks" and not two months? How can the court strike a balance between expediency and justice?
 
Crushing Our Enemies:
What is the advantage of shorter trials? Why "ten days to two weeks" and not two months? How can the court strike a balance between expediency and justice?
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People get impatient. The procedures get drawn out. Trials drag on unnecessarily. As a result, someone, somewhere makes political hay and then blames the Court for the log-jam. Then you get a new crop of Justices who find themselves in the same position and it starts all over again always ending up in a bureaucratic log-jam of overly complex rules. It's a matter of breaking out of the pattern which results in everything getting stuck in the process.

One of the things that can be done to reduce this stagnant process is to make sure that the prosecution actually develops a proper case (meaning having all the evidence assembled already) before an actual indictment is presented to the Court. Too many times I have seen prosecutors struggle to prosecute a case because the procedure almost requires them to file an indictment before enough evidence is accumulated to have a viable case for prosecution.

The root of this problem is that out of political hay-making in the past, prosecutors are actually required to indict regardless of whether or not a case is viable (meaning that there is any real evidence to warrant a prosecution). This results, once again, in the Court being blamed for all manner of clusterf*ckery that is neither the Court's fault nor the Prosecutor's fault - it is the fault of the whole process.

That forces the actual burden of making the decision to prosecute or not right into the lap of the Court who when presented with a case lacking a sufficient body of evidence to render a viable prosecution gets blamed for sweeping a case under the carpet when the prosecutor has been essentially forced to present a case that doesn't hold water. The way to solve this is to simply permit the prosecutor to decide if there is enough evidence to actually run a good probability of a case being successfully prosecuted. That alone will cut down on a lot of unnecessary clutter in the legal system.

Too much preparatory work for trials is conducted after the trial procedure begins instead of before. Trials should not begin until the prosecution has accumulated all of its evidence and the Defense has constructed its defense. The actual trials should not take months. Lack of appropriate participation by litigants should be dealt with in a less flexible fashion.

mcmasterdonia:
How would you describe the working relationship of the court justices in the past term?
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Actually, the working relationship is fairly good despite the system in place. Given COE's resignation, a special election resulting in a justice who had only a month to get up to speed before yet another election, I suspect that, once again, despite the system we operate under, we actually got some 'internal' work accomplished.

The working relationship of the Justices is as good as can be expected - where the difficulties come into play has to do with the level of activity required for the Court to keep up to speed. The Court requires an unusual amount of attention and activity of the Justices. In fact, having served in a large number of government positions over the years, I would say that Justices in general have a very time-consuming occupation which requires a good hour or two on a daily basis to actually get everything done.

It's a matter of organization and the framework of organization in terms of scheduling the mundane affairs of procedure needs to outlined and enforced by either the Chief Justice or a Justice specifically assigned to that task. Only then can things be moved along.
 
I want to vote for you, I have a vested interest in certain reviews never being completed. :P

Real questions: Why did you not want to be Chief Justice when COE resigned? Why did you use your vote to put a novice in that seat? Did you feel that decision would help the court be more effective than if it were you or Flemingovia? On a scale of one to ten Punk D's, with one Punk D being completely consistent, and ten Punk Ds being overbearingly hypocritical, how would you rate COE's performance as a Justice, who retired for the stated reason of not having enough time to devote to the office, yet seemingly has endless amounts of time to post on these fora in other contexts?
 
Democratic Donkeys:
how would you rate COE's performance as a Justice, who retired for the stated reason of not having enough time to devote to the office, yet seemingly has endless amounts of time to post on these fora in other contexts?
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Fuck you. I quit student teaching because it became too stressful and was ruining my life. Now everything's a little up in the air because I've drastically altered my college plans mid-stream and I have a meeting on Wednesday to decide pretty much my whole future. So I've had a little extra time to spend on the forum. I could do without a passive-aggressive statement from you casting doubt on my RL justifications for leaving office.

EDIT: Roman, sorry for the thread-jack. You have my vote.
 
My sincerest apologies for not being aware of your real life circumstances. I am sorry for your troubles and wish you the best for your future. I was operating on the information that was available to me, and the reference to Punk D, I thought, made it clear that I was joking. I will refrain from such joking in the future, in light of your present troubles.
 
Democratic Donkeys:
I want to vote for you, I have a vested interest in certain reviews never being completed. :P

Real questions: Why did you not want to be Chief Justice when COE resigned? Why did you use your vote to put a novice in that seat? Did you feel that decision would help the court be more effective than if it were you or Flemingovia? On a scale of one to ten Punk D's, with one Punk D being completely consistent, and ten Punk Ds being overbearingly hypocritical, how would you rate COE's performance as a Justice, who retired for the stated reason of not having enough time to devote to the office, yet seemingly has endless amounts of time to post on these fora in other contexts?
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1.) "Why did you not want to be Chief Justice when COE resigned?"

Actually, I wanted to be Chief Justice but at the last moment, Flemingovia and Leekem decided that Leekem should be Chief Justice for the last term of the month, apparently to get some kind of judicial reform accomplished. What I wanted, I being in the minority, didn't matter.

I was working on a reform (that is to say, meaningful, rational and specifically objective reform and not reform for the sake of reform) of the indictment/trial process to simplify the actual trial process, you know, cut out all the rigmarole and dancing around that has become the hallmark of the legal system in TNP.

Essentially, my idea is to make sure that the Prosecutor develops a case that can be prosecuted rather than being forced to perfunctorily present an indictment that may have no substance. It would be best to alter and simplify the court rules rather than to simply have the court dismiss a case (since the AG has no choice but to present even if the AG knows there isn't enough evidence to prosecute).

2.) "Why did you use your vote to put a novice in that seat?"

In all honesty, my vote, being in the minority, would have made no difference either way. I didn't think it was wise to put a brand new Justice in as Chief Justice, but what I felt made no difference.

3.) "Did you feel that decision would help the court be more effective than if it were you or Flemingovia?"



Well, in all honesty, no. Flemingovia and Leekem are quite capable, but to put a new Justice in as Chief Justice for the last month of a Court term totally disrupted continuity. I am the most senior Justice on the bench and naturally the Justice who is most familiar with what is going on and how business has been conducted. I've served before in the remote past as a Justice, so I have a longer view of how business is conducted and should be conducted especially since certain changes in procedure are needed. That said, one month's time to enact any changes in the Court Rules was impossible because of a break in continuity and the attendant disregard for seniority and experience on the court.

My idea of efficiency is that the Court, as a whole, should deliver justice in a rational and objective fashion in as timely a manner as possible despite the system as it stands.

4.) "On a scale of one to ten Punk D's, with one Punk D being completely consistent, and ten Punk Ds being overbearingly hypocritical, how would you rate COE's performance as a Justice, who retired for the stated reason of not having enough time to devote to the office, yet seemingly has endless amounts of time to post on these fora in other contexts?"

All things considered, and extenuating circumstances involved, COE's performance as a Justice was stellar.

Being a Chief Justice means having to deal with a constipated system under any circumstances - It's like a horse show: hurry up and wait. Believe me when I say it, COE was very active in dealing with court business that is conducted nominally out of the public view, more so than other CJs in the past.
 
Romanoffia:
No one's asking me question. Not even inane ones. I feel so unloved. :tb3:
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It is better than being told you won't win but that the person telling you hopes you won't give up running in the future... :eyeroll:
 
Gracius Maximus:
Romanoffia:
No one's asking me question. Not even inane ones. I feel so unloved. :tb3:
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It is better than being told you won't win but that the person telling you hopes you won't give up running in the future... :eyeroll:
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Heh. How ironically true.

But nevertheless, I think you stand a pretty good chance of winning a seat on the Court. In fact, I would be surprised if you didn't.
 
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