RA Review of Sentencing Review

Praetor

Praetor

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Praetor#6889
This is a rewrite of Kondratev's previous proposal in the RA that ended due to him losing citizenship. The text comes from COE's suggested rewrite but clause 22 has been added to prevent a recursive loop. This was a significant amount of interest in the proposal (and disinterest :P ) the first time around. For those of you newer to the Regional Assembly, this bill came after The North Pacific v. The Swedish Republic of New Kenya; Accused of Treason, Fraud, Gross Misconduct, and Conspiracy to commit the same crimes which culminated in a decision that some members of the Assembly have found either too lenient or too harsh.

The purpose of the bill is to permit the Regional Assembly to review the sentence, not the verdict.

Section 3.4 Sentencing Review

18. No sentence will be carried out until it has been reviewed by the Regional Assembly.
19. Each time a sentence is issued by the Court, the Regional Assembly will promptly hold a majority vote on whether to uphold it, reject it for being too lenient, or reject it for being too harsh. The vote will last for seven days.
20. If there is no majority, or a majority votes to uphold, the original sentence will be carried out.
21. If a majority votes to reject a sentence for being too harsh or too lenient, the Court will change the sentence accordingly, and the new sentence will be carried out.
22. The Court's revised sentence is not subject to further review from the Regional Assembly.
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I'll note that there have been other alternative suggestions for addressing the situation: setting a minimum and maximum for punishments (McMasterdonia) or an appeals court made up of former AGs, Justices and Speakers (GM).

Personally, I'm not too set on one method over another but I do think some form of judicial reform is needed---moving away from punitive justice and towards restorative justice.

Please let me know if I've made any mistakes. :)
 
I have problems with language that requires the court to change its sentence. The purpose of this bill is to help calibrate and standardize the court's sentencing guidelines, so that different courts do not come up with radically different ideas of what kind of sentences are appropriate. It's not to remove the court's discretion to, ultimately, act as the final authority on judicial functions. I think it's necessary for the court to be able to respond to the RA's opinion that a sentence is too harsh or lenient with "No, actually, we think this is correct and here's why".

The potential workaround to that language where the court changes the sentence by one day (for example) seems fraught with problems. It encourages disrespect for the law, in my opinion, and also forces the court to engage in technicalities and letter-of-the-law footwork that in general it does not like to do.

I'm also not sure that the RA requiring the court to make a sentence harsher passes Bill of Rightsical muster. I'm not sure it doesn't, either, mind you - but it's something I'm skeptical of.
 
SillyString:
I have problems with language that requires the court to change its sentence. The purpose of this bill is to help calibrate and standardize the court's sentencing guidelines, so that different courts do not come up with radically different ideas of what kind of sentences are appropriate. It's not to remove the court's discretion to, ultimately, act as the final authority on judicial functions. I think it's necessary for the court to be able to respond to the RA's opinion that a sentence is too harsh or lenient with "No, actually, we think this is correct and here's why".

The potential workaround to that language where the court changes the sentence by one day (for example) seems fraught with problems. It encourages disrespect for the law, in my opinion, and also forces the court to engage in technicalities and letter-of-the-law footwork that in general it does not like to do.

I'm also not sure that the RA requiring the court to make a sentence harsher passes Bill of Rightsical muster. I'm not sure it doesn't, either, mind you - but it's something I'm skeptical of.
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I'm not opposed to removing the language creating the court to change the sentence. Obviously, the Court could respond by changing the sentence by simply making a small adjustment to the sentence that is functionally equivalent but that goes both ways so removing that doesn't bother me.

As for this bill passing BoR muster, I'm not sure about that either. :P Which clauses were you looking at in particular?
 
Mmmmm. This is a really, really terrible idea. "Let's elect an independent judiciary, with the understanding that while we may not approve of all of their decisions, on the whole it is better to have a judiciary that doesn't answer directly to the whims of the RA on every decision."

"OH MY GOD THAT ONE CASE DIDN'T COME OUT THE WAY I WANTED, STRIP THE COURT OF ITS POWERS TO SENTENCE AND TOSS IT TO THE MOB"
 
In my opinion, I have no issue with sentences being too lenient, however I do have an issue with them being too harsh. This is due to the fact that obviously the burden of proof in an online game is realisticly nothing like that which is routinely used in the criminal courts: therefore it is not wise to over-punish on this sort of proof. So although I agree that the RA should have some review power over judiciary, I would not agree to allowing it to insist sentences be harsher.
 
Mall is right. The RA does not need to have this type of oversight. Besides, trials already take long enough as it is. Extending the sentencing period while the RA (read, "peanut gallery") rehashes the case and takes a vote is going to add at least another 2 weeks to the process.

And another thing, how often do we even have a guilty party who requires sentencing? Is there really a problem here that needs fixing?
 
Mall:
Mmmmm. This is a really, really terrible idea. "Let's elect an independent judiciary, with the understanding that while we may not approve of all of their decisions, on the whole it is better to have a judiciary that doesn't answer directly to the whims of the RA on every decision."

"OH MY GOD THAT ONE CASE DIDN'T COME OUT THE WAY I WANTED, STRIP THE COURT OF ITS POWERS TO SENTENCE AND TOSS IT TO THE MOB"
Click to expand...
:agree:
 
I still can't support this. The RA acting as a sentence oversight committee is an overstep. In my opinion, the Legal Code is sufficient on this matter. Against.

GBM:
And another thing, how often do we even have a guilty party who requires sentencing? Is there really a problem here that needs fixing?
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Tomb's Gross Misconduct trial comes to mind. I recall a big hubbub about the sentence in that case.
 
Mall:
Mmmmm. This is a really, really terrible idea. "Let's elect an independent judiciary, with the understanding that while we may not approve of all of their decisions, on the whole it is better to have a judiciary that doesn't answer directly to the whims of the RA on every decision."

"OH MY GOD THAT ONE CASE DIDN'T COME OUT THE WAY I WANTED, STRIP THE COURT OF ITS POWERS TO SENTENCE AND TOSS IT TO THE MOB"
Click to expand...
:agree:
 
I agree with the sentiment of everyone else opposed to this bill. Note that this bill basically died without a vote before, I haven't a clue why it's being resurrected.
 
You know what, I'm starting to think you guys are right: this bill doesn't go far enough. I'm going to make some drastic changes and submit a new proposal hopefully sometime next month.

Until then, I unpropose this bill? Whatever is needed to get this proposal deproposed. :P
 
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