Pallaith for Justice 7: Back Again

Pallaith

TNPer
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We've seen this movie before, but some movies are timeless. I have written a lot of things at this point for the Court, I have established some cool things, and I want to come back and keep these things going and update them (which from the look of it is sorely needed). This time around I think I want to find a way to emphasize legal education in this region, because it seems like it's come up a lot lately and it would be useful for the citizenry to have. I have opinions on laws and the law, I think you know what they are by now. I know my way around this place, happy to make a return again. Your questions and comments are (probably) encouraged and appreciated.
 
It's actually gonna be tough to vote given we have four highly qualified candidates for three positions.
 
This time around I think I want to find a way to emphasize legal education in this region, because it seems like it's come up a lot lately and it would be useful for the citizenry to have.
How will you do that?
I have opinions on laws and the law, I think you know what they are by now.
Can you give us a couple of examples for the people who don't?
 
How will you do that?

Can you give us a couple of examples for the people who don't?
Well I’ve posted the link to the court decisions page multiple times in the last few weeks. That page has a table which provides a lot of information about prior case law, including a summary of the decision and its impact. Yet many people seem unaware of it, or even having it aren’t quite sure what to do with it. That tells me that we need to do a better job of getting them used to consulting it, or perhaps need to further simplify the presentation of the page in some way. I confess I don’t know how to do that effectively off the top of my head, but it’s something I’ll be exploring if I’m back on the bench. One proposed solution I remember being suggested was that we have notation on the legal code pages referring to where the law is impacted by those rulings. I’m intrigued by the idea, but it would require cooperation from the Speaker since the Court cannot edit those pages. There’s also readability concerns, and we don’t want people being confused by footnotes and other markings which refer to an entirely different place, and will also have to be frequently changed as laws and rulings change. It’s more missing pieces to keep track of, but it would clearly connect legal decisions and their impact to the basic appraisal of the law, which I think we need.

I provided links to my prior campaign threads and the decisions I have authored on the Court. Have you had a chance to review those? If my legal principles and opinions are still unclear to you after that, I’ll be happy to explain further.
 
How would you handle a justice who’s activity , while enough to avoid the automatic removal, but who’s lack of activity or participation delays the court from accomplishing its duties?


Do you think participants in a trail have a duty to instruct the court on how to do its job?
 
Okay. I will vote for you!
Yay.

Not enough experience imo
Okay.

I endorse this product and or service
Great.

It's actually gonna be tough to vote given we have four highly qualified candidates for three positions.
Good luck.

How would you handle a justice who’s activity , while enough to avoid the automatic removal, but who’s lack of activity or participation delays the court from accomplishing its duties?


Do you think participants in a trail have a duty to instruct the court on how to do its job?
Above all else I hope the justices can communicate with each other even if they aren't necessarily communicating with the region in general. If that is a chronic issue then I believe it is incumbent on whichever justices are more present and communicative to take steps to elicit response from the justice(s) who are not being responsive. The nuclear option is, of course, recall, and I believe the justices who witness a sudden collapse in activity or response from any of their number ultimately will have to speak up if it calls for it. I don't think that's the first resort, the justices should police each other and rouse any who are sleeping, and maybe even be willing to point the finger at the culprit if they get public questions about a delay. The Court is often sleepy and people are used to delays, so they don't insist on a higher standard, and the justices know this and are willing to let the time pass and cut each other slack. It starts with them not doing that anymore, and making an active, swift, and engaged Court the norm and not the exception. But as far as actual levers, I don't think the Court has a lot of those it can employ outside of the informal communication methods.

Participants in a trial do not have a duty to instruct the Court on how to do its job. I can see litigants arguing their case and citing a justice's failure to follow proper procedure as part of their argument, I can see them giving the Court a heads up if they are missing something important, but there is no actual duty to do so. Prosecutors and defense counsel are not officers charged with oversight of the Court - if anything, the Court has some oversight over them. Note that Court procedures currently contemplates an option for the justice to extend timetables for the trial in order to point out or elicit cooperation from litigants so that they complete their submissions or perform the steps outlined in Court procedure - this was done to encourage justices to help litigants avoid the trap that happened in the past, where prosecutors failed to complete their submission of evidence and the ruling had to be thrown out. For the litigants to do this with a justice would be odd. I would expect one side of the trial to be inclined to remind justices of errors they are making, and the other to be silent, but that's just common sense. If a litigant sees an opening because a justice missed something in procedure and the entire trial is threatened by this error, surely the other side can see the same opening and defend against it. It's possible only one side sees it, or no sides see it, and the outcome will be what it is as a result. As annoying as it is to see a trial derailed because of a procedural error, that is one of the pitfalls with our system of justice, and good-natured or mean-spirited these actions may be, they are not precluded by our system and they are not an expectation we should place on the litigants, who (especially defense counsel) are not your typical sworn officers in our laws, but have a very limited purpose.

Don’t you have enough to do?
Guess not.
 
Do you have enough experience to also make the "a" in "...a lot of things" and make both of the words in "cool things" individual links? This is a make-or-break voter issue for me and my OCD.
 
Do you have enough experience to also make the "a" in "...a lot of things" and make both of the words in "cool things" individual links? This is a make-or-break voter issue for me and my OCD.
I do actually, I just didn’t think the other campaigns were worth posting here. I have given it some thought and I think I can accommodate you! Take another peak after tonight ;)
what is your favorite TNP court case?
I’m quite partial to On the Delegate’s Authority to Staff the Executive Branch because aside from involving myself, it broke a lot of ground that other court opinions just didn’t. It is one of the only opinions with a dissent, it was the first (I think) to be partially overturned, and it was one of the few opinions that outright overturned another case in an explicit way. It’s been a great reference to use in other opinions and it is also one of the only free speech cases the region has. Not to mention that dissent was ultimately vindicated and adopted in another landmark free speech that some other justice wrote, can’t remember his name. This is a very important decision despite the seemingly low stakes of the facts of the case, and if you have the ocassion, it led to one of the most interesting internal justice discussions of any case I’ve seen.

The only case more interesting when you look at the behind the scenes is On Recognizing Outdated Rulings, which took two months to decide, involved an aborted single-justice ruling featuring the most convoluted legalese ever seen in TNP, backlash, an angry resignation from the Court, and the establishment of the first ever overturned ruling and I believe the only time to date the AG had used universal standing to challenge something. And this was all because the law literally did the opposite of what an old court ruling said had to be done. It was amazing. And obviously that decision is super important and is especially relevant nowadays with the examiner’s recent campaign to update old rulings, making it one of the most crucial decisions. So I guess it’s a close second for me for favorite ruling.
 
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