I use BBcode below to highlight the changes effected by this bill, specifically in Article 5, Section 1 of the Constitution:
1. The Court will try all criminal and civil cases, resolve conflicts or ambiguities in the law, and review the constitutionality of laws or legality of government policies by request of an affected party.
I had in the past proposed a
similar bill, though at the time I was unable to keep up with the debate because of RL workload. When I did return to regular activity, the debate had progressed and the RA was discussing the Civil Omnibus Bill. I decided to wait for the outcome of that bill before I reintroduced this one.
The effect of this bill is simple. It removes the civil jurisdiction of the court. There will no longer be civil cases.
As far as I am aware, four arguments have been offered supporting the utility of civil cases. The first argument is that that civil cases offer the possibility of a plaintiff winning a case while satisfying a lower standard of proof than what would be required in a criminal case. While I am not completely convinced this is even true, I also question that this is desirable. If it is possible for a member to be handed the same punishment for the same action through two different judicial avenues, then a fair Court should require that the same standard should be satisfied in both cases.
The second argument is partially related to the previous one. It says that there are "lesser" offenses that either warrant smaller sentences, or ought to be provable before Court easier than other, more serious offenses. I don't see why this cannot be achieved through the criminal jurisdiction. All it takes is an appropriate (re)definition of these offences in the Criminal Code, as well as clauses providing for these smaller sentences.
The third argument is that there are offenses where a trial is better dealt as an arbirtration between the plaintiff and the defendant, than as a prosecution by the State against the defendant). One example would be cases of Fraud that amount to essentially defamation. With the recent passage of the
Attorney General Amendment Act, this should no longer be an issue. When such a case is brought, the Attorney General is now able to decline to prosecute it, and instead defer prosecution to the complainant. Therefore, we have a mechanism essentially equivalent to that of a civil trial, without the need for an whole extra jurisdictional layer.
The fourth argument is that having a civil jurisdiction offers flexibility, by allowing people to file complaints for actions that are not otherwise defined as offenses in the Legal Code. This may be true, but I do not accept that this is an advantage. It is a loophole that ought to be fixed. Culpable actions ought to be well-defined in legislation, so that a member can inform themselves through a simple reading of the statute, and not be afraid of having to face a civil suit whenever someone becomes creative. If members think there are actions beyond those defined in the Criminal Code that ought to be culpable, then they should propose an amendment to have those actions added there.
I do not believe there is anything a civil jurisdiction offers that cannot already be achieved through the criminal jurisdiction. There are indeed cases which the court lacks the proper means to address, such as certain kinds of disputes between members. But civil trials are
not the solution to those cases, and this has been repeatedly demonstrated whenever in the past the Court was asked to hear a civil trial.
For all these reasons, I believe that the civil jurisdiction is extraneous and redundant. Now that the RA has rejected the Civil Omnibus Bill, I propose that we finally repeal the civil jurisdiction entirely.
The concept of 'actual damages' (and the proving thereof) was problematic for me.
