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- Kim Philby#9330
Yes, I probably should have made a separate topic for this.
To just make sure we're on the same page, there's nothing here I suggest we do unilaterally. Some of it definitely requires changes to the legal code and/or buy-in from e.g. the Bar Members, and some should at least be up for public discussion and critique before we do anything.
In terms of legal reforms, I had one idea in my campaign:
This is just a first step to prevent the (perceived) need for targeting the Court for shenanigans by a defendant. If an indictment is brought, we as Justices can't go in and modify anything without appearing biased, but have to just hand over an accepted indictment to a prosecutor appointed by the Delegate. Why are we involved in this step? We have the Bar Members, one of whom will actually do the prosecution, who could take up the indictment instead and see if they believe the crime charged is the correct one, and whether they'd be able to get a conviction.
I would also suggest that the power to appoint a prosecutor is removed from the Delegate and given to the Bar Commission or Bar Members, perhaps with a Court veto power if we fear the selected prosecutor would be grossly biased.
I don't see how St George can argue that he was in the right to publish that dispatch (Especially as the declassified logs indicate that Gorundu was going to tell TRR about the breach, as he had Rand), but I think Gorundu's indictment for espionage was an overreaction. If the prosecutor who had taken the case had downgraded the charge to gross misconduct earlier, we might be in a situation where it had been easier to accept a punishment, and be able to move on rather than engage in whatever circus this turned out to be.
I had thought about some kind of contempt function to punish bad faith usage of the Court, but I don't think that's viable. My reasoning is that if we punish the person who is indicted, that's possibly double jeopardy, and at least a miscarriage of justice (Making it incompatible with the BoR). However, a defendant is allowed to select their own counsel, so a punishment levied against the defence counsel can't be effective to deter bad faith (Defence counsel can't be removed and thus, if already in bad faith, won't be dissuaded). I also can't see a way to punish submissions of indictments in bad faith without major issues in terms of the general and equal access to justice. So I ruled out contempt of Court as either ineffective or unjust. If I'm missing something please point it out.
However, I don't think that's entirely the end of it. We can still implement a system to enable a Court to reject bad faith submissions or arguments, especially if someone attempts to get the entire Court to recuse itself. Thinking back, while our recusals were noble, I don't think all of them were strictly speaking necessary. Dreadton's R4R and Cretox's indictment just asserted that we had a conflict of interest, which we granted. I'm not sure we all had to:
To follow this, as the Court can become more of a forum of neutral arbitration, we can begin to discuss restorative justice. That's unrelated to the current case, since St George doesn't want to admit guilt, but a move towards restorative justice may indicate to future defendants that they don't need to block the Court from hearing the case, because the punishment will fit the damage of the crime, rather than the allegations or the crime charged in the first indictment.
Next, plea of no contest:
This is perhaps a minor thing, but I want to enable a plea of no contest in the Court Procedures, explicitly for actions without criminal intent, and where the crime alleged doesn't require criminal intent. You can't say "oops, I treasoned by accident", but you can say "ah yeah shit, the EC screwed up in this case". This follows on from my point about restorative justice: We should emphasise on preventing crimes from happening -- i.e. focusing on damage or criminal intent -- rather than being a blunt instrument bashing accidents and organised crime equally.
Lastly I suggest that we establish a shortlist of people generally available as THOs (This is probably the closest to pure bookkeeping and not an actual reform). As I said in my campaign I have thought about what we can do to get more people involved, but I don't see how e.g. a Court Clerk position can be relevant without giving them access to our internal deliberations, which I am loath to offer as an entry-level position, and without access a Court Clerk becomes an empty position. So on this I am coming up short, and hope you have some ideas.
To just make sure we're on the same page, there's nothing here I suggest we do unilaterally. Some of it definitely requires changes to the legal code and/or buy-in from e.g. the Bar Members, and some should at least be up for public discussion and critique before we do anything.
In terms of legal reforms, I had one idea in my campaign:
The Court is a stickler for rules as written and technicalities. That’s inherent in the role. But we should not let that get in the way of evaluating whether the Court is used in good faith and to promote distributive justice where the possibility arises. The recent case has shown that defence counsel is incentivised to treat the Court as a cudgel to be disarmed, which in turn necessitates the weaponisation of arguing technicalities and engaging in shenanigans. The Court should not be a cudgel, but instead aim to become a forum of neutral arbitration (And be seen and recognised as such), and in turn, attempts at shenanigans should be rejected.
This requires an arms-length separation between elements of the Court system. Instead of having a Justice accept an indictment, and give it to an appointed prosecutor who may (Or may not) believe that the evidence provided can lead to a conviction, why not take advantage of the fact that we now do have a bench of Bar members who can take the case? This will allow the Justices to step away from the double role of both organising a prosecution and being impartial in the trial. This move would make the Court less of a battleground between the indicted (And their defence counsel), the person bringing the indictment, and other regional interests. The Justices would still have an overseeing role to ward off prosecutorial misconduct, but would be better freed up to serve as the impartial panel that the Bill of Rights grants to all citizens.
This requires an arms-length separation between elements of the Court system. Instead of having a Justice accept an indictment, and give it to an appointed prosecutor who may (Or may not) believe that the evidence provided can lead to a conviction, why not take advantage of the fact that we now do have a bench of Bar members who can take the case? This will allow the Justices to step away from the double role of both organising a prosecution and being impartial in the trial. This move would make the Court less of a battleground between the indicted (And their defence counsel), the person bringing the indictment, and other regional interests. The Justices would still have an overseeing role to ward off prosecutorial misconduct, but would be better freed up to serve as the impartial panel that the Bill of Rights grants to all citizens.
This is just a first step to prevent the (perceived) need for targeting the Court for shenanigans by a defendant. If an indictment is brought, we as Justices can't go in and modify anything without appearing biased, but have to just hand over an accepted indictment to a prosecutor appointed by the Delegate. Why are we involved in this step? We have the Bar Members, one of whom will actually do the prosecution, who could take up the indictment instead and see if they believe the crime charged is the correct one, and whether they'd be able to get a conviction.
I would also suggest that the power to appoint a prosecutor is removed from the Delegate and given to the Bar Commission or Bar Members, perhaps with a Court veto power if we fear the selected prosecutor would be grossly biased.
I don't see how St George can argue that he was in the right to publish that dispatch (Especially as the declassified logs indicate that Gorundu was going to tell TRR about the breach, as he had Rand), but I think Gorundu's indictment for espionage was an overreaction. If the prosecutor who had taken the case had downgraded the charge to gross misconduct earlier, we might be in a situation where it had been easier to accept a punishment, and be able to move on rather than engage in whatever circus this turned out to be.
I had thought about some kind of contempt function to punish bad faith usage of the Court, but I don't think that's viable. My reasoning is that if we punish the person who is indicted, that's possibly double jeopardy, and at least a miscarriage of justice (Making it incompatible with the BoR). However, a defendant is allowed to select their own counsel, so a punishment levied against the defence counsel can't be effective to deter bad faith (Defence counsel can't be removed and thus, if already in bad faith, won't be dissuaded). I also can't see a way to punish submissions of indictments in bad faith without major issues in terms of the general and equal access to justice. So I ruled out contempt of Court as either ineffective or unjust. If I'm missing something please point it out.
However, I don't think that's entirely the end of it. We can still implement a system to enable a Court to reject bad faith submissions or arguments, especially if someone attempts to get the entire Court to recuse itself. Thinking back, while our recusals were noble, I don't think all of them were strictly speaking necessary. Dreadton's R4R and Cretox's indictment just asserted that we had a conflict of interest, which we granted. I'm not sure we all had to:
Eluvatar had a vested interest in the indictment, and I had a vested interest in the R4R, but that would still have left 2 Justices in each case to either accept or reject the R4R/indictment. A blanket request of recusal should, in my opinion, be examined more closely than we did.
To follow this, as the Court can become more of a forum of neutral arbitration, we can begin to discuss restorative justice. That's unrelated to the current case, since St George doesn't want to admit guilt, but a move towards restorative justice may indicate to future defendants that they don't need to block the Court from hearing the case, because the punishment will fit the damage of the crime, rather than the allegations or the crime charged in the first indictment.
Next, plea of no contest:
Inspired by the current case before the Court I also want to specifically allow a plea of no contest in the Court Procedures, with a larger degree of deference to the agreement between defence counsel and prosecutor when it comes to sentencing.
Lastly I suggest that we establish a shortlist of people generally available as THOs (This is probably the closest to pure bookkeeping and not an actual reform). As I said in my campaign I have thought about what we can do to get more people involved, but I don't see how e.g. a Court Clerk position can be relevant without giving them access to our internal deliberations, which I am loath to offer as an entry-level position, and without access a Court Clerk becomes an empty position. So on this I am coming up short, and hope you have some ideas.
