[Shelved] General Statute of The North Pacific's Bar Association

[Vivanco]

Taking in consideration the last attempt to create this institution by @Oracle as inspiration and previous talks in multiple instances within the region, I would like to bring this up to the table once again, with a few clear ideas in mind.
The first and most clear difference I will point out between this statue and Oracle's is that the bar association will not be selecting prosecutors (but the members can be chosen as such). I intend this association to be what is commonly referred as a bar association as lawyers, to have a determined set of people who have been considered as knowledgeable of the law enough to act with it. It will work in more of a status-way and a method for people who don't know who should defend themselves in the case of need, or should the court need specialized people in the law, or even the Delegate to appoint prosecution, it will be coming from this list of members.

At most, in the way of behavior within the judiciary, I believe we could ease the court's job of finding a suitable lawyer by having a certain order of people, a system of duty lawyers (who will add themselves to this list in a optional manner), but to ensure no stagnancy and people being on the top happen, to be considered "active" within the association, you should have been by will in the duty lawyer system for a period of three months. If they don't, they will still be part of the bar association, but will not be considered as active members. They can still interact and act on behalf of the law if called to court as counsels, but it's more of, again, status.

The bar association I believe should not have a maximum of members. Any person who would like to be a part of this region's legal system in the form of a counselor should not be denied such, but of course, the entry would be restricted to an acceptance by the Regional Assembly, Court, in a way to legislatively justify it is the will of the people that consider the person worthy and knowledgeable enough to be trusted in the position of member of the bar assembly, as part of the democratic spirit of our region.

With this clear, I will make the draft public.


The Legal Code of The North Pacific shall be amended as follows:
Chapter 3 shall be amended to introduce a new section after Section 3.4, to add the following section in the chapter:

Section 3.5. Bar Association of The North Pacific
28. The Bar Association of The North Pacific will be the pool of those citizens in good standing in the region that are considered to have a relevant knowledge of the law of the region by the will of the Regional Assembly.
29. Any citizen in the region may be proposed by any other member or themselves to be a part of the bar association to the Court, being considered accepted with a majority vote.
30. Every member of the Bar Association will be considered as such from the moment they take their oath. However, that oath will only count for membership purposes they will not be part of considered government officials.
31. The Court will have the power to revoke a member's status within the Bar Association by majority vote if they deem it necessary for malpractice.
34. The members of the Bar Association will select among their peers each 6 months a Dean of the Bar Association.
35. It is the responsability of the Dean to choose among the members the person who will serve as council in the time of need in the case of the defendant in a criminal trial not being able to get a counselor in cooperation with the Justices.
36. In the case of conflict of interests for the Dean, the Dean can voluntarily recluse themselves from making a decision, or the members of the bar can vote for their reclusion by majority.
37. When the Dean recluses themselves from choice, the choice will be done by the Court.
36. A member can decline the representation of a person in Court, as long as they are the first choice. The second option, in order to guarantee the representation of the defendant in case of request of a duty lawyer, will not be able to decline.

Any suggestions and/or improvements are welcomed (and if you find any typo, or ways to improve the writing, let me know! English is not my main language.)

 

[Comfed]

Is this really necessary?

 

[Vivanco]

Is this really necessary?

There has been talks about this form of organisation to help up speed the procedures in court. And if we think of the solutions to which I speak, it makes sense.
A list of people willing to act in the interpretation and defense of hte law at the complete disposal of the public, and to set a standard of knowledge upon the law of the region.
If we look at it from a closed mindset, nothing is necessary, absolutely nothing. But more than need, it has a purpose. Which is to have a better access to act with the law.
And plus, it gives the people who want to be active within the law community of the region a reason to be active and reflect on the law in order to have such status.

Again, need? It's a broad term. It would serve the purpose explained.

 

[Comfed]

There has been talks about this form of organisation to help up speed the procedures in court. And if we think of the solutions to which I speak, it makes sense.
A list of people willing to act in the interpretation and defense of hte law at the complete disposal of the public, and to set a standard of knowledge upon the law of the region.
If we look at it from a closed mindset, nothing is necessary, absolutely nothing. But more than need, it has a purpose. Which is to have a better access to act with the law.
And plus, it gives the people who want to be active within the law community of the region a reason to be active and reflect on the law in order to have such status.

Again, need? It's a broad term. It would serve the purpose explained.

Fair enough. I don’t see the purpose of the active duties system, and it just strikes me as an unnecessary barrier.

 

[Vivanco]

Fair enough. I don’t see the purpose of the active duties system, and it just strikes me as an unnecessary barrier.

It isn't a barrier, one can be a part of the bar association, but if you want to be considered active, you'd have to do something for the rest of the community in the form of serving duty time. It's a way of guaranteeing knowledgeable counsel can be given to those in a court case who require it and are unable of recieving such. And for the Court and President to know who, among the members, are willing to be the defense.
And since it is the President of the Bar's work to select who would be the defense, it would be unfair to be selected by the people who haven't gone by the duty system.

 

[Vivanco]

In fact, more than a barrier, I expect it to encourage people to be active within the legal system of the region.

 

[Sil Dorsett]

Given how infrequent criminal cases are, I also don't see a need for an activity measurement.

 

[Vivanco]

Given how infrequent criminal cases are, I also don't see a need for an activity measurement.

That is true, but just because of how infrequent they are makes you wonder on the activity side of the legal sector of the region at large.
The active / passive membership is merely for votings for President who's role is limited to those active members, as a way of keeping things "alive" and to introduce new members into the legal system.
This kind of association may introduce people who up to this point may not have any interest in the region's law, or that they do and don't know how they can contribute, to have something there.

 

[Gorundu]

I'm generally skeptical of the concept of only applying this to defence lawyers, because usually it doesn't seem that the Justices have much trouble in finding one for the defendent and it's the prosecutor confirmation that holds up the process. That said, I'm not completely dismissing the idea, and I recognise it might have a use for the Delegate in finding prosecutors as well. However, I do have a few concerns:

1. I'm not sure the activity system really makes sense. If I understand correctly, all one has to do to make themselves an active member is to opt in to a roster? And then there's no way for them to be removed from the active members list? Like Sil said, I think it's probably more practical to deal away with the activity system.

2. There needs to be some provision to take into account of cases when the President has a conflict of interest. Perhaps the membership can vote to recuse the President from the case and choose a counsel by vote.

3. The proposal is not very clear on whether members of the Bar are considered government officials for legal purposes. It mentions an oath, but the appointment process doesn't follow any of the processes described in the Constitution that would make someone a government official. My feeling is that it's unnecessary to make them government officials because it'll bloat the government official roster too much, and because you would then have to make an exemption for them to serve as Justice or Prosecutor while in the association. There could perhaps still be an oath though, separate from the normal government official oath.

4. I feel like this is heaping too much onto the plate for the Regional Assembly. Perhaps it makes more sense to assign the process of accepting people into the Bar to the Justices. And the Justices can use whatever method they want to determine whether someone is suitable, like a Bar exam or just legal questions for them to answer. Gives them something to do as well with so few actual cases.

 

[Comfed]

I feel like this project should be run by the Court - I’m not a big fan of RA confirmation and I feel like the President would risk being a position suffering from lack of activity.

 

[Vivanco]

After some consideration, I have made some changes to the draft:
1. Considering everyone's imput about the activity system, it has been discarded.
2. Considering the weight put in the RA, that has been changed to the responsability of the Court.
3. There has been a clarification of the oaths: They will not be a government official.

 

[Vivanco]

Oh, and the figure of "President" has been changed to Dean.

It fits better IMO.