[Private] Court Rules Amendments

Zyvetskistaahn

Zyvetskistaahn

TNPer
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TNP Nation
Zyvetskistaahn
Discord
zyvet.
Below are amendments that I have in mind for the Court Rules, my thinking in relation to most of them can be found here. There are some slight changes that I have made between then and this variation, mostly aimed at clearing up the language a bit; some additions that are not aimed at clarification are to add a version of the deferral mechanism I had drafted for the FOI Rules into the criminal disclosure Rules and to delay the Moderating Justice's order in the criminal process from taking effect immediately (so as to allow for appeals). I have also altered the SHO rule so that it clearly applies to any recusal, I don't see why it should apply only to the Moderating Justice.

The most notable addition that was not present in the previous drafts is the section on guilty pleas. This has, essentially, been added because of the intensely strange belief that has arisen among some that Whole India was sentenced improperly. To my mind, that belief is flawed, however, I think there could be some benefit to having a process to ensure that everyone understands the basis on which the Court will be sentencing and to ensure that, where a Defendant pleads guilty but disagrees with important facts in the indictment (for instance, that one has doctored images), the Defendant must so state and be open to having a determination made that the indictment is correct.
Court Rules and Procedures

These rules are established by the Court and are binding on all matters brought before it. Amendments to this document may be passed by a majority vote of the Justices.

Chapter 1: Criminal Trials

Section 1: Indictments
  1. All criminal charges brought before the Court must be presented in the form of an indictment.
  2. All indictments must be publicly accepted or rejected, and the Court will endeavor to do so within 72 hours of filing.
  3. An indictment may be rejected for procedural or substantive reasons, and the reasons for rejecting an indictment will be publicly disclosed in full.
  4. A rejected indictment may only be resubmitted if significant changes have been made to address the reasons it was rejected.
  5. When an indictment is accepted, the Chief Justice will promptly appoint a Moderating Justice and a Standby Hearing Officer.
  6. The Standby Hearing Officer will be available to serve as a Hearing Officer should any matter requiring the recusal of the Moderating a Justice arise during the trial.
  7. The Moderating Justice will promptly inform the Defendant of the charges against them.
  8. In the case of indictments seeking to impose penalties on a Defendant prior to the conclusion of a trial, including their removal from the region or expulsion from the Regional Assembly, the procedures established by the Legal Code must be followed as stated and will override any conflicting adopted rules and procedures of the Court.
Section 2: Criminal Trial Procedure
  1. The Moderating Justice will open a trial thread promptly once an indictment has been accepted.
  2. When a trial thread is opened, the Moderating Justice will notify the Defendant via a Private Message to their forum account and a Telegram to their nation. Alternate methods of notification may also be used so long as the Moderating Justice has a reasonable expectation that these methods will be more effective than the above options.
  3. The Moderating Justice will work with both the Defense and the Prosecution to establish a reasonable timetable for the trial. Trials shall proceed linearly through the following stages:
    • Plea Submission: The Defendant will be given a period of time to enter a plea and to choose any desired legal representation. If no plea has been submitted by the end of this period, a plea of Not Guilty will be entered into the record on the Defendant's behalf. If the Defendant has not declared either their intent to represent themselves or the identity of their chosen counsel by the end of this period, an attorney will be appointed for them by the court.
    • Evidence Submission: Following the end of Plea Submission, both the Defense and the Prosecution will be given a period of time to present gathered evidence in full, object to evidence submitted by opposing counsel, and present motions to the Moderating Justice.
    • Argumentation: When all outstanding motions and objections have been settled, the Prosecution and Defense will be given a period of time to make arguments on the evidence and the law, as well as to respond to the arguments made by opposing counsel.
    • Deliberation: After argumentation has concluded and any outstanding motions and requests have been resolved, the Court will deliberate amongst itself in order to reach a verdict. The Court will endeavor to keep this period below a maximum of five days.
    • Sentencing: When the Court renders a verdict of Guilty, the Prosecution and the Defense will be given a period of time to make sentencing recommendations before the Court makes an ultimate determination. Once a sentence has been issued, the Moderating Justice must personally notify the defendant as well as any government or administration officials who must act to carry out the sentence.
  4. The defendant may, at any time, replace their legal counsel or choose to represent themselves.
  5. As necessary, and in the interests of justice, the Moderating Justice may alter the established timetable to ensure a fair trial.
  6. The Moderating Justice may, at any time, ask questions of the prosecution or the defense in order to get clarification on relevant issues.
Section 3: Evidence
  1. The Court accepts both documentary evidence and witness testimony as valid submissions.
  2. Objections to evidence by either the Prosecution or the Defense must clearly explain why, in accordance with the Court Rules and general legal principles, the evidence in question should not be admitted into the court record.
  3. Relevant evidence may be admitted or excluded at the discretion of the Moderating Justice after hearing from both sides.
  4. Documentary evidence, which includes forum posts or threads, off-site chat logs, screenshots and other evidence of a similar nature, must be authenticated according to the criteria below:
    • Content which does not appear in its original form and location, such as off-site chat logs, screenshots, transcripts, or quotes, must be authenticated through witness testimony regardless of how public it is when it is presented as evidence.
    • Forum posts and threads may be accepted without authentication, as long as the Moderating Justice is provided with a direct link to the posts and threads entered into evidence and is able to view them in their original locations. The Moderating Justice must confirm that the evidence submitted does not contain any content that does not appear in the original location before accepting it without authentication.
    • Witness testimony is always an acceptable way to authenticate evidence.
    • The Moderating Justice may, when appropriate, waive authentication requirements for individual pieces of evidence. They must provide an explanation for doing so.
  5. Witness testimony must be gathered in the form of a deposition or a statement.
  6. Depositions will adhere to the following procedures:
    • Witness depositions must be conducted in a forum thread separate from the trial thread.
    • Any Justice may moderate a deposition.
    • Before answering any questions, the witness must swear the following oath: "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
    • Both parties will have the opportunity to ask questions of the witness, in turn.
    • Each party will have the opportunity to object to questions posed to the witness by the other party before the questions are answered.
    • If an objection is made, the questioning party will have the opportunity to withdraw the question or defend against the objection.
    • The Justice present will rule on objections to questions that are not withdrawn.
    • The witness will answer all remaining questions.
    • At the completion of a deposition, the Moderating Justice will publish an official record version of the deposition in the trial thread, with appropriate edits in accordance with any sustained objections.
    • Depositions which deviate from the above procedures may be admitted at the discretion of the Moderating Justice.
  7. Witness statements must be sent directly to the Moderating Justice by the witness before the scheduled end of Evidence Submission. Witness statements must begin with the following oath: "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." The Moderating Justice will post the statement in the trial thread.
  8. During Evidence Submission, either party may make a motion to require a deposition from a particular witness providing a statement.
Section 4: Mandatory Disclosure
  1. Where a request has been made to a governmental authority for the release of information and that authority has either made a decision in relation to that request, the Court may hear motions to overturn that decision in whole or in part. The Court may also hear motions to decide a request for the release of information if a request for its release has not been decided in a timely manner.
  2. Where a motion under this section is made, the Moderating Justice will, unless they consider the motion was made without giving the governmental authority a reasonable opportunity to respond to the request, order the governmental authority to provide a copy of the information to the Court.
  3. Where the Moderating Justice considers a motion made under this section was made without giving the governmental authority a reasonable opportunity to respond to the request, they will order the governmental authority to decide the request within seven days and, if the governmental authority does not decide the request within seven days, will order the governmental authority to provide a copy of the information to the Court.
  4. A copy provided under the above rules:
    • May omit any withheld private information;
    • Must include any withheld sensitive information; and,
    • Must note all withheld information.
  5. The Moderating Justice, in determining a motion under this section, may provide a copy of the information it is provided with to either party or both, unless the Court considers:
    • That doing so would lead to the release of sensitive information without the leave of the Court; or,
    • That the copy includes private information.
  6. The Moderating Justice may, on a motion under this section, order the release of information which is withheld if:
    • The information is not private or sensitive;
    • The information is sensitive but is of an exculpatory nature; or,
    • The information is sensitive but ought to be disclosed for some other compelling reason.
  7. The Moderating Justice must not order the release of private information.
  8. Where the Moderating Justice orders the release of information, the order will not take effect until three days after it is made or until such later time as the Moderating Justice specifies.
  9. Where the Moderating Justice considers that information is of an exculpatory nature but that information is not released, the trial will conclude immediately and the Court will render a verdict of Not Guilty.
  10. Information is private if it is:
    • Real life information about any NationStates player from which there is a risk of inferring that player's real life identity and which has not willingly been disclosed to the public, including, but not limited to, an individual's name, IP address, physical address or location, phone number, place of employment or education, appearance, social media accounts, and other knowledge about a player, unless the player in question provides explicit consent for this information not to be considered private; or,
    • Real life information about any NationStates player for which there exists a reasonable real life expectation of privacy or discretion, including, but not limited to, health status, both mental and physical; financial status; personal tragedies; changes in personal status such as marriage, divorce, pregnancy, birth, or death; and other similar information, unless the player in question provides explicit consent for this information not to be considered private.
  11. Information is sensitive if it is information that, upon being made public, would jeopardize any ongoing military or intelligence operations; or jeopardize the security of units and agents participating in them, or be harmful to the diplomatic interests, military interests, or security of The North Pacific.
Section 5: Guilty Pleas and Sentencing
  1. A guilty plea may be either a plea that the Defendant committed the crime they are charged with as set out in the indictment or that they committed the crime they are charged with on some other basis.
  2. When a Defendant enters a guilty plea, they must specify whether they are pleading guilty on the basis set out in the indictment or on some other basis and, if it is on some other basis, must set out the basis of their plea.
  3. Where a Defendant enters a guilty plea but does not comply with the above rule, the Moderating Justice will seek to ascertain the basis on which the Defendant pleads guilty.
  4. Where a Defendant does not specify the basis on which they plead guilty, despite the Moderating Justice seeking to ascertain the basis from them, the Court will proceed on the basis set out in the indictment.
  5. Where a Defendant specifies some other basis, the Moderating Justice will seek to ascertain whether the Prosecutor accepts the plea on the basis specified by the Defendant.
  6. Where the Prosecutor accepts the plea on the basis specified by the Defendant or does not accept or deny a plea on that basis, despite the Moderating Justice seeking to ascertain whether they accepted the plea on that basis, the Court will proceed on the basis set out by the Defendant.
  7. Where the Prosecutor denies a plea on the basis specified, the Moderating Justice will determine whether the difference in the bases would significantly affect the sentence the Court would order.
  8. If the Moderating Justice determines that the difference would not significantly affect the sentence the Court would order, the Court will proceed on the basis set out by the Defendant.
  9. If the Moderating Justice determines that the difference would significantly affect the sentence the Court would order, the trial will continue but will be concerned only with deciding the basis of the Defendant's guilt.
Chapter 2: Requests for Review
  1. Anyone may submit a request to the Court for a review of government policy or law.
  2. Any Justice may accept or deny a request for review, at their discretion. The Justice who accepts a request for review will become its Moderating Justice.
  3. The Moderating Justice will promptly identify the government officials whose actions or policies are impugned by a request, or, in relation to a government body, the government official ultimately responsible for leading that body. Those identified, in relation to a request, will be respondents to it.
  4. The Moderating Justice will contact the respondents to a request for review, inform them of the review, and invite them to make submissions to the Court in relation to it.
  5. During the five days after a request for review has been accepted, anyone may offer information that is relevant to the case and/or advise the Court on how to rule in the form of a brief.
  6. The period for submitting briefs may be altered at the discretion of the Moderating Justice.
  7. A petitioner in a request for review may withdraw the request for review by a post in the thread for the review at any time before the Court delivers its opinion.
  8. The Court will endeavor to deliver an opinion answering the request for review within seven days after the end of the period for submitting briefs.
Chapter 3: Freedom of Information Reviews
  1. Where an initial request has been made to the government for the release of information under the Legal Code and the resident making the initial request has not received the requested information, that resident may file a request for the information.
  2. Any Justice may accept or deny a request.
  3. A request for information may be denied only on the basis that it relates to information which is not owned by the government as defined by the Legal Code.
  4. Where it appears to the Court that the request has been filed without giving the government a reasonable opportunity to respond to the initial request, the Court may defer accepting or denying the request until the government has had such an opportunity. A deferral will last for a definite period of time of no more than seven days.
  5. When a request is accepted, the Chief Justice will promptly appoint a Moderating Justice.
  6. The Moderating Justice will promptly open a thread for the review and will notify the government of the review via private message on the forum.
  7. During the five days after a thread has been opened, the government may make arguments and present evidence to the Court demonstrating that one or more of the criteria for classification are met.
  8. Evidence may be presented privately where presenting it publicly would risk the release of classified information.
  9. The resident making the initial request may make arguments concerning whether the requested information meets the criteria for classification.
  10. The Court will endeavour to deliver a decision on the request within seven days of the conclusion of the period during which the government may present evidence.
  11. The decision of the Court must be accompanied with reasons for the decision.
  12. In all cases where the government does not present evidence to the Court, the Court will order the release of the information.
  13. In all other cases, the Court may order the release of all of the information or part of it or may determine that all of it or some of it meets the criteria for classification.
  14. For the purposes of this chapter, the definitions in the Legal Code in relation to requests for information from the Delegate and Executive Officers will apply.

Chapter 34: Decorum

Section 1: Judicial Conduct
  1. Justices are discouraged from posting in the Public Gallery except when making official announcements unrelated to any trial or review.
  2. A Moderating Justice is strictly prohibited from posting in any thread in the Public Gallery relating to the issue they are moderating, barring truly exceptional circumstances.
  3. Justices must endeavor to recuse themselves from matters where they have a conflict of interest.
  4. Justices are required to recuse themselves from any matter where the majority of the Court orders them to.
Section 2: General Conduct
  1. All indictments, requests for review, briefs, Court decisions, and other official filings must be presented using an established template, if one exists.
  2. All parties in any matter before the court must conduct themselves in an appropriate, legal, and civil manner.
  3. Posts which fail to meet the above requirements may be split at the discretion of the Moderating Justice, and will not be considered in the Court's deliberations.
  4. An individual may, by the unanimous decision of the Court and based on excessive or repeated poor behavior, be declared to be in contempt in a particular issue before the Court.
  5. Motions made by individuals declared to be in contempt may be summarily denied, and the timeline of relevant matters need not be altered in order to accommodate any disciplinary actions handed down by forum administration.
  6. Any finding of contempt will be immediately rescinded should the Regional Assembly object to that finding by majority vote.
Chapter 45: Precedent and Appeals

Section 1: Precedent
  1. All official Court decisions are legally binding on the Court as a whole as well as each individual Justice.
  2. Prior decisions made by the Court, regardless of its composition at the time, must continue to be obeyed by the Court and by each individual Justice until and unless their validity is formally overturned in a new request for review.
  3. The Court is a reactive body. Without any such request, the Court may not proactively overturn previous rulings.
  4. No Justice may act contrary to the opinions and decisions of the Court as a whole.
Section 2: Appeals
  1. The petitioner in a rejected request for review, as well as any of the participating parties in a criminal trial, may appeal a decision made by an individual Justice to the Court as a whole for consideration.
  2. The petitioner in an accepted request for review, as well as any of the participating parties in a criminal trial, may file a request asking the Court to order the recusal of any Justice from hearing or ruling on a particular case.
  3. During the proceedings onf a matter before the Court, substantive appeals and requests which relate to that matter must be addressedresolved before the proceedings can continue, unless the contrary is allowed under this section.
  4. The Court determining an appeal or review relating to Court proceedings may, if it determines that the appeal or review is being made frivolously or solely for the purpose of delaying the proceedings to which the appeal or review relates, may, by unanimous vote, allow the proceedings to which the appeal or review relates to continue before the appeal or review is resolved.
  5. A decision to allow proceedings to continue despite an appeal or review not yet being resolved will apply to all appeals or reviews relating to those proceedings unless the Court determining an appeal or review decides to the contrary, in which case the proceedings must not continue until that appeal or review is resolved.
Chapter 56: Declassification and Privacy

Section 1: Declassification of Records
  1. Private Court records, in either the Justices' private forum or the private archive, which reach one year of age will be relocated to the Declassified Justice Archive.
  2. Private Court records which have reached six months of age may be released early in the same manner when requested by a Citizen.
  3. Private Court records which are younger than six months but predate the sitting Court may be requested by a Citizen and released if the Court finds a compelling benefit to their publication.
  4. Private Court records from within the term of the sitting Court will not be released.
  5. Private Court records which pertain to open or ongoing cases will not be released, regardless of their age.
Section 2: Privacy of Information
  1. Information protected as private is defined as follows:
    • Real life information about any NationStates player from which there is a risk of inferring that player's real life identity and which has not willingly been disclosed to the public, including, but not limited to, an individual's name, IP address, physical address or location, phone number, place of employment or education, appearance, social media accounts, and other knowledge about a player, unless the player in question provides explicit consent for this information not to be considered private.
    • Real life information about any NationStates player for which there exists a reasonable real life expectation of privacy or discretion, including, but not limited to, health status, both mental and physical; financial status; personal tragedies; changes in personal status such as marriage, divorce, pregnancy, birth, or death; and other similar information, unless the player in question provides explicit consent for this information not to be considered private.
    • Information that, upon being made public, would jeopardize any ongoing military or intelligence operations; or jeopardize the security of units and agents participating in them, or be harmful to the diplomatic interests, military interests, or security of The North Pacific.
  2. The Court will not release Private information during its declassification process. This may take the form of withholding a thread in its entirety, or producing a copy of of the original thread with the Private information or posts redacted.
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I don't see any major issues on my first read though. Though I do want to lobby for a rewriting of Request for Review. Section 8. Changing it to something more along the line of "The Court will endeavor to promptly deliver its final opinion". That specifically named 7 day period tends to get the court in trouble its honestly not usually feasible since normally only one justice is actively overseeing the R4R and then all justices have review all the information, debate, draft, and etc etc etc.

(Also do have to point out a weird formatting thing just before chapter 4.)
 
Lord Lore:
I don't see any major issues on my first read though. Though I do want to lobby for a rewriting of Request for Review. Section 8. Changing it to something more along the line of "The Court will endeavor to promptly deliver its final opinion". That specifically named 7 day period tends to get the court in trouble its honestly not usually feasible since normally only one justice is actively overseeing the R4R and then all justices have review all the information, debate, draft, and etc etc etc.

(Also do have to point out a weird formatting thing just before chapter 4.)
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I am not averse to changing that provision. I think I would like to keep some timeframe, as I do think there is use in the Court having a goal and for those outside of the Court in assessing whether a review is taking an unduly lengthy amount of time, but I can accept that the seven day goal has proven difficult, though not impossible, to achieve.

I've had a brief look through the rulings that were made since (I think) the adoption of the seven day rule in June 2014 and most reviews since that time have not actually had that long between the end of briefs and the ruling (as opposed to taking a long time for other reasons, such not being properly accepted or it taking too long to find THOs), the majority took 14 days or thereabout that time. Those which did not conclude in 14 days generally took at least 30 days.

With that in mind, I wonder if a simple extension of the timeframe would suffice to take it to the point where it would be generally achievable and still a meaningful measure.

May 24 - Jun 27 (Content Ownership and Freedom of Information Requests against the Security Council) 34 days
Jul 1 - Jul 31 (Meaning of Private Citizen) 30 days
Aug 9 - Aug 24 (Use of the Speaker's Power to End Debate) 15 days
Aug 30 - Sep 7 (Promptness and the Time at which Regional Assembly Membership Begins and Ends) 9 days
Nov 24 - Feb 15 (Physical Representation of Outdated Rulings on Requests for Review) 83 days
Mar 25 - Apr 4 (Judicial Recusals) 10 days
Apr 16 - Apr 21 (Need for Further Clarification on Restarting Voting Periods) 5 days
May 16 - May 27 (Regional Assembly Oversight of the North Pacific Armed Forces) 11 days
Aug 12 - Aug 22 (Suppression of Posts on the Regional Message Board) 10 days
Sep 7 - Sep 18 (Endorsement Count Requirements and the Solicitation of Endorsements) 11 days
Oct 11 - Oct 17 (Power of the Court to Compel the Disclosure of Information) 6 days
Nov 25 - Dec 9 (Process for Declassifying Information for Use as Evidence in a Criminal Trial) 14 days
Nov 24 - Jan 9 (Regional Officer Banning Nations during NationStates Events) 46 days
Mar 14 - Mar 25 (Election Commissioners Failing to Take Their Oaths) 11 days
Oct 15 - Oct 22 (Speaker's Power to Extend Voting Periods) 7 days
Jan 3 - Mar 11 (Validity of a Previous Ruling) 68 days
Mar 18 - Mar 22 (Court Review of RA Proposals) 4 days
Feb 16 - Mar 1 (Freedom of Information Act and Off-forum Content) 13 days
Jan 27 - Mar 2 (Alterations to the Citizenship Oath) 34 days

Rulings since rule: 19 (average: 22 days)
Within 7 days: 4 (average: 6 days)
Within 14 days: 12 (average: 9 days)
Within 21 days: 13 (average: 10 days)
Over 21 days: 6 (average: 49 days)

(and I'm not sure what has caused the formatting error)
 
The recent requests for indictment have reminded me of another change that needs to be made, amending Chapter 1, section 1, clause 8 to remove references to removal from the Assembly and to better reflect other changes in the law around pre-trial ejections and bans.

8. In the case of indictments seeking to impose penalties on a Defendant prior to the conclusion of a trial, including their removal from the region or expulsion from the Regional Assemblyapproval of ejections or bans prior to the conclusion of a trial against them, the procedures established by the Legal Code must be followed as stated and will override any conflicting adopted rules and procedures of the Court.
9. In the case of requests seeking approval of ejections or bans pending charges being brought against a nation, the procedures established by the Legal Code must be followed as stated and will override any conflicting adopted rules and procedures of the Court and any approval given will lapse after two days if criminal charges are not brought within that time.
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This differentiates between requests made with indictments and requests made prior to indictment, as the law does provide for requests to be made before charges are brought. I think that in the case of requests for approval made before charges are brought, any approval should be time limited and two days seems to me to be a reasonable period when considering that sometimes requests may be urgent and could require the AG to only be instructed and draft the indictment after they are made.

Given that the Legal Code includes different provisions for requests made during trials (that is, they can only be approved by the Moderating Justice), I wonder if it may make sense to also add a provision in section 2?

On a linked issue around indictments, I think it may make sense to specify who may bring indictments and in what circumstances.

To my mind, the rules should essentially be: the AG can bring indictments; the Delegate can bring indictments seeking approval of requests to eject or ban; anyone can bring indictments that the AG has refused to bring. In the case of indictments brought other than by the AG, I think it would make sense for the indictments to have to specify whether the AG has refused to bring the indictment (this need not be done by the rules, it could instead be done by the Court adopting an indictment template) and/or for the Court to request the AG specify whether they will manage the prosecution of the case .
 
Further expanding on my thoughts in the discord, I think that the decision in the Whole India review has unfortunate implications for the handling of sentencing in connection with guilty pleas, in that I think that it effectively means that documentary evidence simply does exist unless authenticated or authentication is waived, with the result that there still really needs to be some authentication or waiver as otherwise the Court does not actually have a basis on which to determine sentence. Consequently, I would be minded to say that what should be done is that when a guilty plea is entered on the basis set out in the indictment, authentication for evidence contained in the indictment is automatically waived, and when it is entered on another basis, the defence should have to specify evidence that would require authentication they dispute with evidence that is not disputed having authentication automatically waived.
 
I agree on the first bit, but can't quite get what you mean on the second. Do you mean the Defense would need to counter with authenticated evidence to a given newly entered piece, otherwise the it'd be essentially counter-authenticated as we thought happened in the WI case?
 
As to the second, where the Defendant says that they are guilty of what they are charged with, but in a different way to what the prosecution says, the effect of the rule I have in mind would (essentially) be that the Defendant has to say which bits of evidence they accept and which bits they don't. For those bits they don't accept, they would need to be authenticated in the normal way; for the bits they do, authentication will be waived.

Suppose, by way of example, the prosecution contends the Defendant committed treason and plotted to seize the Delegacy together with a group of nations in TNP and a foreign power, exhibiting to the indictment evidence of two separate discord discussions, one set of images showing discussions with the nations in TNP and another set showing a discussion with a representative of the foreign power. The Defendant pleads guilty to treason, but on the basis that they only conspired with their allies in TNP, not with a foreign power. In my proposed ruleset, there would be a limited trial to decide the basis of the sentence and the Defendant, when pleading guilty, would be obliged to state the evidence they dispute; they would, presumably, dispute the set showing the discussion with the representative of the foreign power but not the set showing the discussion with other TNPers. The images showing the TNPer discussion would, therefore, automatically have authentication waived, while the other images would need to be proven by the prosecution in the trial in the normal way (having someone attest as to their being true images).
 
Apologies, meant to read things here sooner. The big 'ol chunk at the beginning of this thread looks fine to me right now, as does the smaller bit on (ban)jections prior to charges or a trial.

See above post regarding my thoughts with authentication of evidence.

I may or may not write up my thoughts regarding amendments for editing of indictments during the trial.
 
So, given that there are quite substantial changes to the criminal rules that we still need to give thought to and that I think further changes will now be required due to the AGORA Act (if only to add in a delay between charges been accepted and the trial thread opening, to allow the prosecutor to be appointed and to take a view on the matter), it seems fairly evident that those changes will not be finished before the term is out.

I think that the other changes, however, could still realistically be made. My sense is that we are broadly agreed on them. I think the one point that we may be slightly at odds is around the delivery of opinions for requests for review, as to whether there should be a timescale. I think there should be but I would accept it should be longer. I think 14 days would be appropriate, for the reasons I have indicated (and I would note that the Whole India review has since occurred and concluded within that time).

What I would suggest, if you would both agree, is that there should be some consultation on rule changes before they are made; I appreciate it does not form a required part of the process of adopting rules but I think that there would be an advantage to allowing the Assembly and other offices affected by the changes to comment on them before they are made. To that end, I would be minded to say that the changes, other than the criminal rule changes, should be put before the Assembly for comment with five days or thereabout allowed for comment. I would also be minded to contact the Delegate directly and seek comment from them, given the FOI rules will be of particular relevance to them, though I would assume McMasterdonia would notice consultation with the Assembly.
 
In relation to the rule on appeals, given the introduction of specific recognised respondents, it may make sense to allow respondents to appeal decisions of the moderating justice as the petitioner can.
 
It appears that the proposed changes (to the non-criminal Rules) are uncontroversial, given the lack of negative comment. The one point relating to the proposals that has been raised is in relation to the r4r time limit, though some further changes have been suggested.

I think that, considering the comment, I would still be minded to make the changes. I do not think that the current rule is really having the desired effect of encouraging timely rulings, having regard to the reality of the timescales for rulings being delivered, even with it having been in place for a long time. Also, its frequent breach reduces its value as a measure of the Court's timeliness.

Does the comment change your view on the timescale rule, @Lady Raven Wing?

What are your views on the changes, @Wonderess?

Unless there are views to the contrary, I would be minded to announce that the consultation will run for another three days and, if no further comment is received, to make the changes as indicated, except that I would also make the change indicated above in relation to allowing respondents to appeal.
 
As may or may not have been noticed, I indicated that there was a last call for comment on the Rules. Further comments were made by COE in connection with the changes to vexatious appeals and reviews. To summarise COE’s comments, he asks why the changes are necessary given that the Court could deny reviews and move on and punish repeated reviews by contempt.

I indicated my issues with those points. I do not think that the Court being reviewed could simply deny, by reason of conflict, so there would need to be delay for each application, and I do not think the contempt rule currently extends to this issue.

It is right, as COE and I, responding, note that there will still be delay for at least the first review before the decision to declare proceedings vexatious is taken. I think that is necessary for the rule to function, it would be wrong to presume appeals and reviews will be vexatious or to allow that decision to be taken by the Court being appealed or reviewed.

I have also thought somewhat about letting respondents to requests for review appeal the decision to accept. I actually do not think that I am minded to make that change. It seems to me that, if respondents want to argue against there being standing, that is really a matter for the final decision. There is a reason why the Court tends now to address standing in its actual decision separately from the initial decision of the single justice, it is because they are different points. If there is not standing, that should be a matter for the decision proper, as opposed to the odd system of internal appeal that exists.

That being so, I do not think there are other changes I would make to the proposed amendments to the non-criminal rules (save for the removal of the Chapter 3 formatting error). Unless either of you have changes you think should be made, I would suggest that those amendments be made.
 
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