I fail to see how this line of questioning falls under "character assassination" and "identity politics". Two citizens have questioned about your past. You yourself brought up the past talking about being a justice going back 10 years. Successes and failures define individuals. I can understand how you would think that individuals asking about the "failures" (for lack of a better term) can seem like character assassination, but citizens have a right to know how you respond to your failings, how you have learned from your failings and how you have improved from your failings.
Grave digging might be, but your activity in the region in the past two years has been relatively quiet so some citizens look back on your history to see what you have to offer as a court justice. And some of the information they might find is the fact you have faced recalls before. That information is there for all to see. Are you saying that we should just ignore the past and not ask you questions on how/if you have learned from the past?
Now some questions about judicial matters:
Please review the following
Court Ruling.
Do you think that the Court ruled correctly?
What limits do you think the Court should have placed on the Powers of the Speaker?
What are your thoughts on Justices being appointed by the Delegate and confirmed by the Regional Assembly for a six-month term?
Reviewing the information regarding the R4R regarding the Citizenship Oath, how would you have ruled on that matter?
What are your thoughts on the extent of FOIA? Does it strictly extend to the Executive Government, or does it/should it extend to all branches of government in TNP?
What is your judicial philosophy and how does that fit into the judicial system here in TNP?
I am saying that the very second I decide to become active again because RL now affords me the time, I get piled on by a recall, never given the chance to properly provide a defence, and despite the fact that I violated no rules or laws, but did what was required of me. But that is besides the point because people already have their minds made up no matter what I say or do. If I do something, i get attacked. If I don't do something, I get attacked. Some people will always find an excuse to attack, or otherwise engage in the politics of personal destruction, and they never stop until they get their way.
Funny thing is that people will try to attack me to destroy my campaign but at the same time say I have no chance of winning? Why do they even bother if I have no chance of winning? The answer is clear; pile on, denigrate, insult and otherwise be bullies about the whole thing. Their strategy will no longer work be cause I do not intend to fight back. If they want to troll me, flame me, bully me, lie about me, go out of their way to get people to hate me and attack me or go grave digging, I can't stop them anyway and I have no intention of feeding the trolls or bonfires of flaming. I can't stop that behaviour in others so, I will simply let them have at it no matter what they pull. It then reflects upon them, not me. Eventually, one of them will cross the line either in the opinions of the people here or the rules of moderation. Just remember all the trolls in the particular incident that got their heads handed to them for trolling and flaming me. They got very easy, IMHO.
And this is the type of stuff we need to get over. That type of tactic for what is nothing more than a power play for one reason or another is a big load of you-know-what. As for me, if people want to attack and flame and bully me, I won't waste my time stopping them or lifting a finger unless what they say or do becomes a moderation issue, in which instance, I will gladly report it as such and I am sure the Moderators will enforce the rules on them if they transgress.
If I started grave-digging, I'm sure I could eventually find something said by anyone that would get them run up the flagpole on fire.
On to the Judicial matters:
Do you think that the Court ruled correctly?
I would have to say that the Court ruled correctly as the authority of the Speaker is defined, albeit, nebulously and fuzzily as to the 'discretionary' powers of the Speaker. I do have issue with the fact that it is only presumed that the Speaker must exercise discretionary powers within the confines of the rules, laws and Constitution. Nearly any excuse can be made to create a rule in any situation deemed 'unusual' and not covered under the exact rules of the RA, but the problem with that is the Speaker can do so arbitrarily as the Speaker defines what is 'unusual' and 'covered by RA Rules.' But that's the way the rules are written and no matter how tight you write the rules or laws or Constitution, there will always be some clever nobby who will figure out exactly how to exploit laws and rules in order to violate the same under colour of law, and inevitably get away with it.
In the thread, I did, however find the repeated use of the term 'f*ckwit' quite amusing.
What limits do you think the Court should have placed on the Powers of the Speaker?
AHA! This is a great question and you probably won't find any candidate who will give the answer I am about to give:
If the Court were to place restrictions on the Powers of the Speaker, the Court would be clearly and without any exception
legislating from the bench.
The purpose of the Court is to Adjudicate, not making decision that have the effect of creating new law. That is the job of the RA under separation of powers. That said, the Court may interpret a Law to either uphold or strike down a law, or to define an action as being in violation of a specific law. The RA has the right to define its own procedures and do so as it sees fit provided it does not in turn violate the Law or Constitution in which it would be legal or constitutional violation.
In pure and strict terms, the Speaker is well with the Speaker's power to simply not permit a bill to even go to a vote as there is no means to over-rule the speaker's Discretionary Power in most matters other than to recall the Speaker for an action a sufficient number of RA members decides they don't like. That is unfortunate because then the Recall procedure can be used simply for political ends and not legitimate ends. Of course, it could be argued that if people don't like a Speaker's name, they can Recall the speaker for his name or the weather on a particular day. In some ways, under our system, the Speaker can exercise powers that go contrary to the will of the RA and instead a proper procedural means to over-ride a Speaker's 'Discretionary Powers' that the Speaker cannot over-ride. In essence, that must be done by legislation and rule changes, which, of course the Speaker can essentially pocket.
The Court, despite its essentially correct decision should have thrown that matter back to the RA to determine if it was a violation of RA Rules or an unfair and make rule changes to fix the situation, after which the bill could be introduced again due to a procedural error. I would also hope that a Speaker who was in error should use his or her Discretionary Powers to correct a procedural error by allowing such a bill to actually go to a vote, and then if needs be, the resulting law can be tested before the Court.
Let me stop there before I get too deep in the weeds and fall down a rabbit hole.
What are your thoughts on Justices being appointed by the Delegate and confirmed by the Regional Assembly for a six-month term?
That would require a Constitutional Amendment, but I am extremely amenable to that idea. Having the Justices appointed by the Delegate at the end of staggered terms, or as an opening occurs, would be the best as it would tend to elevate the Justices above politics (such as playing to the gallery to get elected and then be subject to the whims of the public and the political pressures in deciding how to rule in a case or get recalled for a quite legal, yet unpopular decision). I would also like to see protections for the Justices so they cannot be subject to a recall for simply political reasons. But, that would be the purvey of the RA, not the Court to generate the proper amendment(s) and/or markups. Appointed Justices would also extend an Executive check on the Judicial Branch thus completing true checks and balances between the branches of government.
Reviewing the information regarding the R4R regarding the Citizenship Oath, how would you have ruled on that matter?
By the strict letter of the law, there is no 'wiggle room' in the Court's interpretation of Citizenship Oath. I would have ruled exactly the same way, especially on the Duality interpretation.
What are your thoughts on the extent of FOIA? Does it strictly extend to the Executive Government, or does it/should it extend to all branches of government in TNP?
I would say that the Freedom Of Information Act should extend to all branches of government equally so that relevant documents pertaining to a given subject, incident or other action, etc., can be gleaned across the three branches of government to get a better picture of the information being sought under FOIA. And that way,documents cannot be hidden in a branch that might not be subject to FOIA.
In simple terms, FOIA should and does apply equally to all branches of government IMHO. The only exception I can see is to specific documents that contain either information, which disclosed, would be damaging to the security of the region (specifically, NPA strategic documents which would put the NPA or the region in danger; documents involving 'proprietary' information that would expose and thus render useless any intelligence gathering capability; and intelligence documents which would hamper the ability to gather intelligence.)
What is your judicial philosophy and how does that fit into the judicial system here in TNP?
I have a very simple philosophy: To insure, preserve and promote Due Process, The Constitution, Legal Code, Separation of Powers and do so in an impartial manner devoid of personal opinion or political pressures to make a specific decision.
I thank you for your questions.
