Amendmend II - Apolytonian Court Mk. III

[Jon Shafer]

Again, we need to keep this issue viewable. New thread.

The amendment as it stands:

This amendment hereby creates an official Apolytonian Court (hereafter refered to as "The Court")

The Court is constituted to rule upon: contested disputes involving legal interpretation, validity of polls, violations of the Constitution, impeachment, or any other legal dispute of national importance.

The Court is composed of Five Justices. Each Justice is to be appointed by the President, and each must be approved by a majority of the populace in an Approval Vote.

The Court is to decide among itself a 'Senior Justice', who will be respondible for ensuring that a report is published for each decision that communicates the rationale behind the decision made, and presiding over any hearings before The Court.

A quorum of at least 3 Justices must be involved in any ruling that is made. Should The Court be tied about how to rule on an issue, the Senior Justice is to decide the result of the issue.

All rulings are immediately official and final. The same issue can only be brought back to The Court with 75% of the Justices agreeing to rehear the matter. All decisions must take place in real-time, as The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

The Court cannot act on any issue until a non-judicial citizen of the nation brings forth an Issue to The Court.

Issues to The Court should be posted publically and must involve a dispute that The Court is empowered to rule upon.

The court may impeach an official with a 75% vote within the court, and a majority vote amongst the people, but only after a Call for Impeachment has been made by a citizen of the nation.

A Justice may not serve in any other governmental post. Each Justice serves a term of two months in length. At the end of that term the Justice may be reappointed by the President. The President may be bypassed in this process if 75% of the populuce re-approve the Justice in a vote. There is no limit to the number of terms a Justice may serve. A Justice may be removed from his office by a majority vote amongst the officials and a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

Also, since many people support a staggered system, I will add this section, courtesy of Togas, once someone figures out how to word it nicely:

We will have:
1 "one month" Justice
2 "two month" Justices
2 "three month" Justices

All of which will be appointed during this term, then rotated for each subsequent month (i.e. next term, the President replaces 1 Justice, the next one gets 2 Justices, etc.)

[Papa Chubby]

Seems pretty solid. You should correct the grammar though. 3rd paragraph, respondible, probably should be responsible.

[wervdon]

It looks very solid to me accept this paragraph:

All rulings are immediately official and final. The same issue can only be brought back to The Court with 75% of the Justices agreeing to rehear the matter. All decisions must take place in real-time, as The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

1) 75% of the justices would be 4 out of 5, thats a bit too high if you ask me, because with a quorom of 3 justices present to vote, that means a vote could of passed by 2 justices, then the other 3 would be powerless to re-hear the case if they disagree. One or the other should be changed IMO. Either require 3 justices to make a decision, or allow 3 justices to re-hear the case if they disagree with the two who made the decision, or allow 2 justices + the chief justice to re-hear a case

2) The more important one.

All decisions must take place in real-time, as The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

Doesn't the act of polling for a 2/3 vote to halt the game requiring the game to halt? I can see why you don't want them to be able to halt the game since it could grind us to a stop if the justices got nit-picky since a 24 hour halt would really mean halt till the next turn chat..... I just don't think that language is practical though since its basically saying they can't halt the game without halting the game to poll

[Kuciwalker]

They should be able to, with a unanimous vote, order an injuction on the game.

[wervdon]

They should be able to, with a unanimous vote, order an injuction on the game.

Do you mean 5-0 unanimous or 3-0 unanimous

[civman2000]

Each Justice serves a term of two months in length. At the end of that term the Justice may be reappointed by the President.

I still think they should be elected, or at the very least approved by the people, but i guess that battle is already lost

[jdjdjd]

I brought it up in the other thread, the tie breaker should not be the Cheif Justice, since this could effectively give him two votes on an issue. The fifth justice who did not vote, should be made to vote to break a tie. Should there be a tie due to abstention or absence of one justice, then in effect there is no decision, i.e. the defendant would win, or the poll or law being disputed remains in effect. A tie seems highly improbable in any event. Since the Cheif Justice is appointed by the court itself, then for him to be able to vote twice, seems not in the people's interest.

Otherwise it is an OK document, maybe it needs change in structure for readability and to avoid ambiguity....but maybe thats not important.

I think the staggered idea is unnecessary.

I also think impeachment and removal from office needs to be a separate uniform amendemnt for all officials to be treated the same.

Finally, your removal from office paragraph...is that of an impeached justice, only?

[jdjdjd]

Here's the prior post I had on impeachment amendment, which is a proposal, and I thought had a way for the general populace to bypass the court and executive branch should they deem necessary. This of course would over ride what is already in the constitution.

"This amendment will hereby set the rules of impeachment for all officials of the governement in an elected or appointed post, and limited to these positions, President, Vice President, Justice of the High Court, and Minister.

1. Any citizen may bring the case of impeachment of an official to the President or Vice President, who then must poll the Ministers.

2. Should a majority agree, the case is then presented to the High Court, and the President or his dedignee will make the case for impeachment, and the defendent or his designee may present his defense.

3. The High Court will review the case and by vote of a simple majority can approve the case is with merit and to be brought to the people.

4. The general populace will then review the case and vote for removal from office of the defendant. This requires a 2/3 vote.

5. Should the general populace feel an official is being protected for political reasons, they may by referendum (a vote of the general populace), vote to impeach a party by a 75% margin, and therefore bypass the Minister's Vote and the Court's ruling. Then prosecution and defense arguments may be presented directly to the public, who then must conquer by 67% vote to remove the official from office. "


Or is this clogging up the thread on an unrelated topic...though I thought it was related.

[civman2000]

ministers, people, AND court??? THat makes it practically impossible to impeach.

I prefer how it will be after the amendment as it is now:
there are 2 choices.
1. poll the people for 2/3.
2. go to court for 75%, go to people for >50%

[wervdon]

I personally would rather the court not have a role in impeachment. It seems like how it was in the original constitution is quiet adequate to me, but its definately not enough to make me vote against this ammendment.

[Apocalypse]

The court needs to be involved in impeachment. That is one of the points. Make sure a minister is not overstepping the bounds. If it were only up to the people, then enough of them might support the overstepping.

[mtgillespie]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
The court needs to be involved in impeachment. That is one of the points. Make sure a minister is not overstepping the bounds. If it were only up to the people, then enough of them might support the overstepping.

If enough of the people support a minister, then by definition he's not overstepping his bounds, as his bounds are set by the people. This sounds like one of those unguarded politician comments, when they say things like "don't ask the electorate, what do they know". If it's clearly impeachment, he/she will get booted out. If not, they should stay and face the rigours of the ballot box next time round.

[ThePlagueRat]

Impeachment:

Next time I'll run for President.
If I win I'll break the law... Just to test the system.
I think that would be fine, a short, sharp war without the people supporting? (Burning down Paris perhaps)
Or passing a law on behalf of only 51% of the people?
Well, somebody should test this system... sue me!

[Sheik]

The Court is composed of Five Justices.

I liked the idea of 7 justices. I also think that 7 justices received support in the last discussion so maybe we should re-vote this subject. Seven is also good because a lot of people have an intrest in being a judge.

The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

I like the idea of having the court halt the game with an unanimous vote to do so. By unanimous I mean 5 if we don't have 7.

once someone figures out how to word it nicely:

1 "one month" Justice
2 "two month" Justices
2 "three month" Justices

Maybe something like this:

The court will consist of one judge that holds office for a one month term and two other sets of two judges each that will hold office for two and three month terms.

I know it isn't that great but it keeps it fairly simple.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by mtgillespie
If enough of the people support a minister, then by definition he's not overstepping his bounds, as his bounds are set by the people. This sounds like one of those unguarded politician comments, when they say things like "don't ask the electorate, what do they know". If it's clearly impeachment, he/she will get booted out. If not, they should stay and face the rigours of the ballot box next time round.

But if the judges have no say, and the people need a 2/3 majority, then 35% can support a minister and keep him in. 65% can still disagree with him overstepping the bounds but because there is no 2/3 majority, that minister would stay in.

[Togas]

I have only two signifigant issues to bring up:

First, why was this language added in the most recent version of the Amendment and how do you interpret it?

"All decisions must take place in real-time, as The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people"

How do you define "real-time"? Does that mean that the Justices cannot take the matter under submission and must rule on the issue now?

The Court cannot take the Consitutionally required time to poll the people and then halt the game. That language seems pointless. Why can't we replace this entire text with something like:

"The Court may only halt the game with agreement by 75% of the Justices." (or more legally correct: The Court may only issue an injunction which halts the game ...)
OR "The Court shall not halt the game."

Drop the "real-time" text entirely unless there's some necessary meaning that I'm overlooking, and if so, please explain it to me.


Second, let's do staggered appointments, please. I'm glad to see that citizens are volunteering to serve one month terms ... so this issue may resolve itself, but I'd be much happier to see a staggered appointment system and slightly longer terms.

Let every President appoint one-two Justices during his term of office. In the beginning let Ninot appoint two, and let the others (the short-termers) be decided democratically, or by the Ministers. I had some text written up to facilitate this in the previous thread but it was rather cumbersome.

--Togas

[Kuciwalker]

By unanimous, I meant 5.

We should get the court up and running with 5 people. After that we can add 2 more if we need to, but getting it running is imperative.

[Kramerman]

EDIT:
crap! sorry, disregard this, my real post is down below. It double posted it

[Kramerman]

Ok, everything of concern to me has pretty much been addressed except:

vote within the court, and a 50% plus 1 vote amongst the people,

I will address one more time my concern that "50%+1" needs to be reworded as "more than 50%". I will explain this again for those who haven't read my previous posts on the last thread:
50%+1 can be interpreted to mean 51%. However a true majority vote is merely more than 50%, so someone could win with as little as 50.6% or anything lower than even that, as long as its more than 50%.

This isn't too big of a deal, just one percent, but what if a judge is supported by 50.6% saying yes and 49.4% saying no. Then that Judge, as this bill stands presently, would be rejected even though the "true" majority due approve of him. This will probably never happen, but to be fair in the remote case that it does, then we should just go ahead and make this small change to the bill.

Kman

P.S. I dont really care whether its 5 or 7 (though I would lean towards 7), and i like the idea of the unanimous vote of all justices to be able to halt the game.

[jdjdjd]

How's this, using Trips latest proposal ( I cut and paste a little), and some of the ideas mentioned.
I forgo my prior suggestions, and include staggering as described by Togas and Moral Hazard in prior threads, with some slight changes, I think the Pres should be able to select two judges, VP 1, and then the domestic affairs ministers, i.e. Economy and IE.
Thats flexible, and could be changed if we went to seven ministers, but the initial unofficial poll asked for five.

I changed impeachment/removal form office to be consistent between executive branch and the court. Both need 2/3 of people to confirm before it occurs.

quote:

This amendment hereby creates an official Apolytonian Court (hereafter refered to as "The Court")

1. Purpose:

The Court is constituted to rule upon: contested disputes involving legal interpretation, validity of polls, violations of the Constitution, impeachment, or any other legal dispute of national importance.

2. Construct of the Court:

a. Size of Court:
The Court is composed of Five Justices. Each Justice is to be appointed by the President, and each must be approved by a majority of the populace in an Approval Vote.

b. Installing the First Court:
The First Court appointed, upon ratification of this amendment, are to be chosen to staggering terms. One member will serve for one month, two will serve for two months and the remaining two will serve for three months. These first Justices of the Court will be appointed in the following manner: President selects 2 (3 month terms), Vice President selects 1 (two month term), Minister of Imperial Expansion(two month term) selects 1 and Econimics Minister selects 1 (one month term). All appointments must be approved by a majority vote of the public.

c. Terms in office:
There is no limit to the number of terms a Justice may serve.
Each Justice serves a term of two months in length, except as indicated above in 2b. All appointments must be approved by a majority vote of the public.

d. Senior Justice:
The Court is to select a 'Senior Justice', who will be respondible for ensuring that a report is published for each decision made by the court that communicates the rationale behind the decision . The Senior Justice will also preside over any hearings before The Court.

e. Other Governemntal Posts:
A Justice may not serve in any other governmental post.

f. Reappointment:
At the end of that term a Justice may be reappointed by the President. In cases where a Justice is not being reappointed by the decision of The President, The President may be bypassed in this process if 75% of the populuce re-approve the Justice in a vote.

g. Impeachment and Removal from Office:
The court may impeach and remove a member of the Executive Branch from office with a majority vote by the court, and a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

A Justice may be impeached and removed from office by a majority vote amongst the Executive Branch and a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

Impeachment and removal from office can only occur after a Call for Impeachment has been made by a citizen of the nation.

3. Case Structure:

a. Quorum:
A quorum of at least 3 Justices must be involved in any ruling that is made. Should The Court be tied about how to rule on an issue, any non-voting justice is to then review the case and vote.

b. Rulings:
All rulings are immediately official and final.

c. Appeals:
The same issue can only be brought back to The Court with 75% of the Justices agreeing to rehear the matter.

d. Injunctions:
The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people. The court would have to present the poll to the people for their approval. Without approval the game continues as planned.

e. Case Presentation:
The Court cannot act on any issue until a non-judicial citizen of the nation brings forth an Issue to The Court. Issues to The Court should be posted publically and must involve a dispute that The Court is empowered to rule upon.

[jdjdjd]

Again, I think impeachment be set aside as a separate amendment once it is in its final form since its impact and application go beyond just the court, and

Because it overrides the original constitution.

[Decimus]

I would like to be a justice how would i go about obtaining this?

[Kramerman]

The First Court appointed, upon ratification of this amendment, are to be chosen to staggering terms. One member will serve for one month, two will serve for two months and the remaining two will serve for three months. These first Justices of the Court will be appointed in the following manner: President selects 2 (3 month terms), Vice President selects 1 (two month term), Minister of Imperial Expansion(two month term) selects 1 and Econimics Minister selects 1 (one month term). All appointments must be approved by a majority vote of the public.

I think we should leave the selection process as it was. It was nice and simple, and gave the President a little bit of extra power, which I think he/she shoud have. If I am the only one who feels this way, then I would still vote for the bill if they instituted the above change, but reluctantly.

Kman

P.S Decimus, we don't know yet, we are still going about how the justices should be chosen.

Kaptain Krux! Did THEY make you chamge your avatar? Damn it!

[Captain]

5, 7, 9... whatever, as long as it's an odd number.

No Senior Justice. If there is a tie (2-2), compel the remaining judge(s) to break it. That's why we have an ODD number of them.

There should be explicit mention that the Court cannot create laws. They can only rule based on existing ones. The Court can suggest that new laws be written but not force them. The Court is a check on the executive and the legislature, and barring the Court from creating laws will be a check on the Court's power.

Remove all % requirements. A simple majority of judges will do.

The judges do not indict in impeachment trials. They simply determine there is sufficient evidence that a LAW has been broken. If no, the case is dismissed. If yes, then they bring the matter to trial. It is the citizens (legislature) who then vote to indict or acquit. The requirement is 2/3 of votes cast, and there should be some type of quorum. If only 3 people vote and 2 indict, that should not be valid. Ministers should not be involved at all, except as voters in the citizens vote.

Staggered terms are good.

Appointment by President (assuming support from ministers) with confirmation by 50%+1 vote of the people is sufficient.

At the end of the term, again there must be an appointment and a confirmation.

As for real-time, I do not believe judges should have the power to halt the game whatsoever, for any reason. No one can stop time. Judges should only have the power of injuction to arrest/stop any further action of a specific, clearly defined issue. The status quo is maintained in the interim. For example: The SMC wants to raze a city. The populace is against it but the poll doesn't close until after the turnchat. To prevent the SMC from ignoring the poll results during the turnchat, the citizen(s) can take it to the Court. The Court can then issue an injunction to prevent the SMC from razing at until the poll closes. However, if the Court fails to issue the injunction in time, before the turnchat, and the SMC goes ahead based on incomplete feedback (although the COL says that ministers are not obliged to obey feedback), there is nothing the Court can do.
That is what I understand "real-time" to mean.

[Captain]

jdjdjd, good work. more complete than Trips' original but perhaps a few more changes?

[GodKing]

I took what Trip had at the top and edited it.

This amendment hereby creates an official Apolytonian Court (hereafter referred to as "The Court")

The Court is constituted to rule upon: contested disputes involving legal interpretation, validity of polls, violations of the Constitution, impeachment, or any other legal dispute of national importance.

The Court is to be composed of Five Justices. Each Justice is to be appointed by the President, and each must be approved by a simple majority of the populace in an Approval Vote.

The Court is to decide among itself a 'Senior Justice', who will be responsible for ensuring that a report is published for each decision that communicates the rationale behind the decision made. The Senior Justice is responsible for keeping, maintaining and providing to the public a record of all decisions in an archive so all may know the laws of the land.

A quorum of at least 3 Justices must be involved in any ruling that is made. In all instances, The Court shall have an odd number of Justices hearing any case. In the instance of a tie decision, either the Senior Justice or one of the Justices that hasn’t been involved shall make the final decision.

All rulings are immediately official and final. The same issue can only be appealed to The Court with the Senior Justice agreeing to rehear the matter. The Senior Justice is not obliged to have an appeal hearing. All appeals must be made on a point of law of Apolyton. The Senior Justice may choose to hear the appeal either alone or with fellow justices. All appeals are final.

The Court cannot act on any issue until a non-judicial citizen of the nation brings forth an Issue to The Court.

The Court has the power to stop the game (an injunction) for a limited amount of time. The Court must state publicly the rational behind the injunction with the injunction. An injunction shall not last more than sufficient time for the court to hear the case, which in no event shall be more than 72 hours. An injunction may only be renewed one time. In order to have an injunction, 3 justices must vote in favor thereof. In order to renew an injunction, all five justices must vote in favor thereof.

Issues to The Court should be posted publicly and must involve a dispute that The Court is empowered to rule upon.

A Justice may not serve in any other governmental post. Each Justice serves a term of two months in length. At the end of that term the President may reappoint the Justice. The President may be bypassed in this process if 75% of the populace re-approves the Justice in a vote. There is no limit to the number of terms a Justice may serve. A Justice may be removed from his office by a simple majority vote amongst the elected officials and a 2/3 vote amongst the people.

The biggest thing I did is I deleted the specifics regarding impeachment. I don't think that people agree enough on what the specifics should be. Therefor, I propose to leave that out at this time (particularly as it doesn't appear to be a pressing issue this close to the end of the elections...). We can include this as an ammendment later or as a seperate thing to say the bill of rights that is being proposed.

I also changed the injunction procedures. This I beleave gives the court the powers it needs to do their job, while still leaving in checks and balances. Worst case scenario is that the game would be halted for 72 hours, then rehalted by another 72 hours (or a total of 6 days if you don't want to do the math). Of course, all five justices need to agree to do this.... Low probability unless there realy is a serious problem. And if that is the situation, I suspect that our elected officials will halt things on their own at that stage.

[Kramerman]

The Court is a check on the executive and the legislature,

I completely agree that it is a check on the executive, but why would it be a check on the Legislature? Isn't that the people? Wouldn't that just negate the point of of our democracy if the people have to be checked by the government. I don't like that very much, but most of the rest of what you said is agreeable.

Kman

[Kramerman]

The biggest thing I did is I deleted the specifics regarding impeachment. I don't think that people agree enough on what the specifics should be. Therefor, I propose to leave that out at this time (particularly as it doesn't appear to be a pressing issue this close to the end of the elections...). We can include this as an ammendment later or as a seperate thing to say the bill of rights that is being proposed.

I agree. impeachment is definately an issue of great importance, but not of urgancy at this point. I think the procedures of impeachment would be better laid out in a seperate ammendment.

[jdjdjd]

Godking,

our posts must have crossed, please see mine and let me know what you think.

I agree with your issue on impeachment, and that it deserves separate consideration...but I left in as many seem to agree with Trip's initial content.

I could agree to your proposal on injunction.

Captain,

our posts may have crossed too.

5,7,9, I agree so long as its odd number. I choose 5 based on the unofficial poll and because I think the more the slower the court moves.

I put in "may" choose a Senior Justice, not necessary, but sometimes a leader can get all the ducks in a row and organized.

As for tie breaker, it looks like we agree.

On injunction, I think we are in accordance with what Trip wrote, that it can issue an injunction so long as the people ask for such an action. Trip required 2/3's vote by people. Though of course, do we hold the game until the poll of the people for the injunction is closed?

Injunction I think needs some fine tning.

Kman,

I too did not like the stagger idea, but its seems to have some considerable support, and since it only occurs upon initial set up of the First Court, and never again, I can live with it. I tried to take what Togas and MH wrote and pare it down to a five justice system.

And we agree on the impeachment being a separate amendment.

[GodKing]

One thing I would like to point out -
The court will be making laws, just not constitutional laws. Whenever someone takes a complaint to the court system, and the court makes a ruling, that ruling is in essance law. The courts will look back at that ruling the next time someone comes up with that question and use it as a basis of their future decisions. If the court makes an error, then the people would have to ammend the constitution creating an official "law". The people still have the ultimate authority. I felt that this was an important enough point that so far has been glossed over....

I still favor a court system, as I don't think there are any other better ways we could have resolutions to problems, at least none that I have heard.