Misconduct Punishment Narrowing Act

Lord Dominator

Lord Dominator

Citizen
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Misconduct Punishment Narrowing Act:
Chapter 2, clause 10 of the Legal Code will be amended as follows:
10. Gross Misconduct will be punished by removal from the office(s) relevant to the nature of the offense and the suspension of voting rights for whatever finite duration the Court sees fit.
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As recent events have indicated, it may be a bit much for the punishment for one oath violation to result in removal from all offices, and not just the one.

I am open to alternate wordings.
Misconduct Punishment Narrowing Act:
Chapter 2, clause 10 of the Legal Code will be amended as follows:
10. Gross Misconduct will be punished by removal from the office of the oath violated and the suspension of voting rights for whatever finite duration the Court sees fit.
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In my opinion it’s already limited to one office, but I see the value in making it iron clad in law. I don’t think your wording avoids the problem though. Depending on how you look at if, since the oath is the same for every office, they may still be said to be violating the others too.

A better approach is to say removal from the office their misconduct involves or something to that effect. Whatever their bad action is, it probably only applies to one of their jobs, and if it applies to more than one, then they ought to lose all of the related offices anyway.
 
The court could decide which offices the official in question should be removed from based on evidence of the specific violations and a cross-examination of their shared responsibilities. I don't think it's a one or the other situation, the court could ascertain if the violations relate to one, more, or all of their oaths and provide sentencing based on their decision. We allow flexibility in the finite duration for which voting rights are suspended, why not allow the court flexibility in deciding the degree to which multiple, or one, oaths are violated and therefore should result in the removal of office? Oath violations can be multifaceted and warrant removal from multiple offices, so why be restrictive on the freedom for the court to decide?
 
Kaschovia:
The court could decide which offices the official in question should be removed from based on evidence of the specific violations and a cross-examination of their shared responsibilities. I don't think it's a one or the other situation, the court could ascertain if the violations relate to one, more, or all of their oaths and provide sentencing based on their decision. We allow flexibility in the finite duration for which voting rights are suspended, why not allow the court flexibility in deciding the degree to which multiple, or one, oaths are violated and therefore should result in the removal of office? Oath violations can be multifaceted and warrant removal from multiple offices, so why be restrictive on the freedom for the court to decide?
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I don't think this is restrictive to the degree that you suggest. If the court decides that an official has violated multiple oaths of office, they can be removed from all of those offices.
 
The way I would word it is this:

10. Gross Misconduct will be punished by removal from the office(s) relevant to the nature of the offense and the suspension of voting rights for whatever finite duration the Court sees fit.
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This wouldn't change the ability of the court to remove someone from all of their offices, but it would provide a path of appeal for the defendant to say "Hey, the charge had nothing to do with the X office. You shouldn't be removing me from that."
 
Terra dei Cittadini:
I'm sure that if someone violates the oath of one office, they ought to be removed from all.

Opposed.
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The reason this is being proposed is because of the recent criminal charges against most of the Election Commission where a guilty verdict could require removing half the Security Council from office--and that was basically for an honest mistake. Not all Gross Misconduct cases are created equal, because malicious intent isn't relevant in determining your guilt, only your sentence, and since removal from office is basically a mandatory minimum no considerations can actually be made to mitigating factors. Providing justice is important but we also can't have a situation where we... you know... remove half the SC.
 
Has a case been made that such removal from office would have been mandated? (As opposed to merely allowed.)
 
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Eluvatar:
Has a case been made that such removal from office would have been mandated? (As opposed to merely allowed.)
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Personally, I think that it is not mandated as the law is currently written. However that is clearly a minority view and thus should be clarified by law.
 
The operative word in the clause is "will", not "may". "Will" indicates that it is mandatory. "May" indicates an optional component.


1. Criminal acts may be punished by restrictions on basic rights, in a manner proportionate to the crime at the discretion of the Court unless specified in this chapter.
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All punishments optional, unless specified below

2. Treason will be punished by ejection and banning, and removal of any basic rights for whatever duration the Court sees fit.
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Mandatory ejection/ban. Mandatory removal of basic rights for court-determined duration.

3. Espionage will be punished by the suspension of speech and/or voting rights for whatever finite duration the Court sees fit.
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It is mandatory that espionage be punished by suspension of speech, loss of voting rights, or both. At least one of these punishments must be implemented.

4. Perjury may be punished by the suspension of voting rights, restriction on standing for election, and/or restriction on serving as a government official for whatever finite duration the Court sees fit.
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All punishments here are optional.

5. Evidence Tampering may be punished by the removal from office, suspension of voting rights, and/or restriction on standing for election for whatever finite duration the Court sees fit.
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All punishments here are optional.

6. Crashing, Phishing, or Spamming may be punished by ejection and banning, the removal of any and all basic rights for whatever duration the Court sees fit, and/or banning by forum administration.
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All punishments here are optional.

7. Proxying may be punished by ejection and banning, the removal of any basic rights for whatever duration the Court sees fit, and/or banning by forum administration.
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All punishments here are optional.

8. Adspam prohibited by the Delegate may be punished by adspam suppression and summary ejection and/or banning from the region.
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All punishments here are optional.

9. Conspiracy will be punished by a sentence strictly less than what would be appropriate for the original crime.
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It is mandatory that a punishment be less than appropriate for the original crime. However, technically, punishments that are optional for the original crime are still optional.

10. Gross Misconduct will be punished by removal from office and the suspension of voting rights for whatever finite duration the Court sees fit.
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Mandatory removal from office and suspension of voting rights.



Another possible solution to the scenario could be to change "Gross Misconduct will be punished..." to "Gross Misconduct may be punished...", but it is still unclear whether "removal from office" means "all" offices or "any" offices.
 
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Sil Dorsett:
Another possible solution to the scenario could be to change "Gross Misconduct will be punished..." to "Gross Misconduct may be punished...", but it is still unclear whether "removal from office" means "all" offices or "any" offices.
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That's what I was referring to, to be clear--it is unambiguous that Gross Misconduct, at the very least, requires removal from some office if the convict has broken an oath of office.
 
Eluvatar:
Has a case been made that such removal from office would have been mandated? (As opposed to merely allowed.)
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The problem isn't whether it was mandated or not. The problem that caused the withdrawal of Dreadton's indictment was that it was possibly allowed.

Terra dei Cittadini:
I'd have to say, perhaps letting the judiciary decide whether an individual office is removed would be best?
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Checks and balances, dude.
 
I have adopted Sil's version of the wording, thanks for that Sil.

Personally I do agree that the current wording can be argued to only apply to one office at a time (as oaths are sworn individually and you change the office for each one) but prefer that to be a guarantee. Arguably you should perhaps have to prove a gross misconduct charge for each office in question for a suitably serious offense, but I can respect the view that one might also wish to group all of them together and count based on offense instead.
 
Sil Dorsett:
The problem isn't whether it was mandated or not. The problem that caused the withdrawal of Dreadton's indictment was that it was possibly allowed.


Checks and balances, dude.
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I mean, when someone is accused of or found to have been guilty to gross misconduct, we allow the judicature to decide whether (a) the violator will be removed from the individual office of oath violated, or (b) the violator will have all positions terminated and replaced with someone else.

If we explain to the judges our situation and don't want the SC removed, we'll save ourselves the issue while still maintaining integrity within these halls.

Heck, we could add our own separate categories of misconduct and corruption if that would assist in fixing it.
 
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You're missing the point. The status quo is that the court doesn't have to listen to anyone when making their sentences. It's routine for the prosecution and defense to make sentencing recommendations, but those are just recommendations. Also, plea deals don't exist in TNP. It's entirely possible for the prosecution and defense to agree on a recommendation, even after a guilty plea, and for the court to completely ignore it and issue a more severe penalty. It's happened before.

It is entirely within the rights of the legislature to clamp down on what the judiciary can do. Legislating from the legislature is always preferable to legislating from the bench. We can debate what the court would have done all we want, but the fact is we don't know. Even if we asked all three justices right now what they would have done, that wouldn't set precedent because a decision hasn't been applied to a case, and a new slate of Justices may set a different precedent. This bill creates the answer.

Also, when regional security is on the line, we have to be a bit more clear about the limits of judicial discretion. I'll remind you that it wasn't just the SC that could have lost four members (which are not automatically replaced, btw). The Delegate would have been removed if the court interpreted "removal from office" as meaning "all" offices, for something completely unrelated to their duties as Delegate.
 
You can mandate that it triggers removal from the office in which the GM was conducted, and that it automatically triggers a recall debate in the RA for the remaining offices.
 
I'm not a fan of the existing unspecific "whatever finite duration" that is allowable for voter rights suspension. The Courts could easily appoint a punishment of 10 years, which would not only meet the "finite duration" requirement, but also be one of the harshest punishments that TNP can hand out short of banning.

Although, if a Court handed out a 10 year suspension for Gross Misconduct, would that qualify as Gross Misconduct?
 
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Blue Wolf II:
Although, if a Court handed out a 10 year suspension for Gross Misconduct, would that qualify as Gross Misconduct?
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If we're having to ask ourselves what qualifies as Gross Misconduct, then we've done a terrible job defining it and perhaps we should be looking at the definition itself.

I may be a bit biased, but I think it's way too easy to slap an indictment on someone for misfeasance. We seem to have developed a culture of only caring about the specific actions and penalizing them, and not caring enough about whether there was corrective action taken before things end up as a court case. Mistakes happen, and it's how we respond to those mistakes, and how we respond to the mistakes we've been told we've made, that really should matter.
 
The problem with gross misconduct is that it's clearly for things like malfeasance--like willfully suppressing BoR rights, political corruption, etc.--but can and has been interpreted to mean violating any law, even by mistake. Even if that law is the EC's procedures. Some people have been convicted of gross misconduct in addition to other crimes that they committed because... committing a crime is breaking the law.

This is problematic for judicial correction of legal violations because if the Court finds in an R4R that a government official did something illegal, maybe that government official is also guilty of committing a crime. This has been raised before:
SillyString:
This is what I said in Discord:

[6:46 PM] King SillyString: soo.... I have some concerns about this r4r, but not specifically about accepting it.
[6:48 PM] King SillyString: Namely, I am somewhat concerned that if we were to rule that pallaith's actions did violate abc's freedom of speech, that we would be de facto convicting pallaith of grosse misconduct (or cleanly paving the way to a conviction), without a proper trial.
[6:49 PM] King SillyString: But this definitely seems like a case where the petitioner has standing and cause to bring the review.
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Sil Dorsett:
I may be a bit biased, but I think it's way too easy to slap an indictment on someone for misfeasance. We seem to have developed a culture of only caring about the specific actions and penalizing them, and not caring enough about whether there was corrective action taken before things end up as a court case. Mistakes happen, and it's how we respond to those mistakes, and how we respond to the mistakes we've been told we've made, that really should matter.
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This. Judicial correction of legal violations should not implicate people in possible criminality. I have heard some discussions of various possible cases of gross misconduct for essentially political disagreements. For example, suppose we have a treaty with Region P, but we have a diplomatic spat with that region and the allege that we are violating our treaty obligations to them. Let's also say that Person Q is a casual citizen of TNP in addition to being in the government of Region P. Person Q charges the delegate with gross misconduct for violating the treaty. Or as BW suggests, the Court hands out a harsh sentence for something minor. Instead of, or in addition to, appealing the sentence in an R4R, the defence charges the Court with gross misconduct.
Blue Wolf II:
I'm not a fan of the existing unspecific "whatever finite duration" that is allowable for voter rights suspension. The Courts could easily appoint a punishment of 10 years, which would not only meet the "finite duration" requirement, but also be one of the harshest punishments that TNP can hand out short of banning.
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This is true of every crime except for treason and the COPS ones, fwiw. I agree that we should change this.
 
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In the review Comfed references, I vehemently disagreed with the notion that finding something illegal automatically makes someone guilty of gross misconduct. I think our definition of Gross Misconduct works very hard to narrow itself to apply only to egregious misdeeds.

Edit: and it appears my dissent was later cited in overturning that part of that ruling:

Pallaith:
On the Court’s Prior Ruling on the Delegate’s Authority to Staff the Executive Branch
This is not the first time the Court has been asked to review government action that the petitioner alleges violated their freedom of speech. It previously ruled in On the Delegate’s Authority to Staff the Executive Branch that it could not directly answer the question of whether the delegate violated the petitioner’s freedom of speech, so as not to prejudice any future criminal trial, and because the information needed to determine such a question would be best gathered and considered through the criminal trial process. We appreciate that any potential criminal case would undoubtedly take into account this ruling’s determination that MadJack and Kastonvia engaged in unconstitutional actions – as it should. But we must echo Justice Eluvatar from his dissent in that case. The facts that must be discovered and considered in such a criminal trial would aim to prove more than simply whether or not the actions committed were unconstitutional. Such a trial would be concerned with intent and possible deliberate malfeasance. Gross Misconduct is a very different charge than simply identifying whether or not some act is unconstitutional, as it requires looking beyond case law and prior precedent and how the two are applied to what is readily available to us when examining the question brought by the petitioner.

The Court was right to note that a request for review is not the proper venue to consider evidence intended to prove a case at a criminal trial, or to consider the questions relevant to that trial. But that does not preclude this Court from answering the question posed by DiamondComodo, nor does it preclude this Court from examining evidence relevant to determining strictly whether a constitutional violation occurred. The context in which we view what is provided in briefs, or what is publicly available to us, is very different from the context of a criminal trial. The Constitution charges us with answering his query and determining the legality of the actions of government officials. The possibility of a future criminal trial does not make free speech queries immune from this Court’s consideration. As Justice Eluvatar noted, if this Court believes it cannot consider a question, then it should not answer that question. And the Court erred in not doing so back then. We hereby overturn this portion of the ruling. The ruling’s conclusion, that the Delegate has broad authority to manage the executive staff, and that free speech is more limited for government officials, is still correct, and still useful in navigating the question before us in this review.
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