OFFICIAL amendment poll: Impeachment Process

jdjdjd · August 8, 2002, 10:52

The amendment has been widely discussed please see this thread for further details:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=56458

Also, Unofficial Polls were set up for public opinion on aspects of the amendment, please see these threads for further details:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=56731

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=56737

Here is the amendment proposed :

Quote:

"This amendment will hereby set the rules of impeachment and removal from office for all officials of the government in an elected or appointed post, and limited to these positions, President, Vice President, Justice of The Court, and Minister, incuding any Minister position currently described in the Code of Laws and any Minister position created in the future. This amendment shall override any prior rules on Impeachment and the Removal of an Official from Office mentioned in the Code of Laws presently.

1. Impeachment:

a. Any citizen may bring the case of impeachment of an official to a member of The Court by PM. "Any citizen" is defined to include the President, Vice President, Ministers and Justices.

b. The Court will review the allegations made, allow an answer by the defendant, and by a vote of at least three Justices determine if there are proper and legal grounds to hold a Removal from Office hearing. If so, then the accusation shall be deemed "with merit", the official shall be impeached (indicted), and The Court shall proceed as directed in Section 2. If the accusations are found to be without legal merit, or if at least three Justices cannot find that there is merit to continue, the allegations shall be dismissed.

c. Should a member of The Court be the subject of impeachment then he shall not take part in the decision by The Court. The Vice President shall sit in his place for the sole determination of whether the impeachment has merit, and shall be considered a "Justice" for that vote only.

2. Removal from Office:

a. Once impeachment has been approved by The Court, the matter then goes to trial for Removal from Office of the official (which will be in a thread started by The Court). This thread will have an outline of the facts presented by the complainant and the response by the defendant.

b. The party who started the impeachment process will have a chance to elaborate on the summary and present the facts and evidence against the official including all specific allegations.

c. The defendant will have a chance to answer these allegations and elaborate on his defense. The defendant will have three days to respond once the allegations are posted by the complainant.

d. Both parties must post their arguments for the public to see, this will be in a thread on the matter started by The Court.

e. After the arguments are presented, the public then can debate the topic in the thread, and may request that The Court hold a public forum for arguments (a chat). The chat will be moderated by at least one member of The Court. There will be a three day time limit to this thread after the defendant files his answer and the chat must occur within that period of time.

f. The general populace will then review the case and vote for removal from office of the defendant in a poll. This requires a 2/3 vote. This poll will last for three days.

g. If for valid reason, the defendant did not file his answer timely, he will be able to make a case for filing late to The Court, which they can grant if the lateness is within reason as agreed upon by a simple majority of the Full Court. This is the only means by which a case can be reopened and re-presented to the public.

h. No appeals of the people's decision can be made, except as stated in "g", above.

3. Offenses:

a. An official can be impeached only if they have violated the Code of Laws in place at the time of the violation.

b. The Code of Laws can never be amended retroactively and be made to apply to an act committed prior to the amendment.

4. Other:

a.. While impeachment and removal from office proceedings are pending, the official will remain in power.

b. If the President is removed from office, the Vice President (VP) will immediately assume his duties, and appoint a replacement for his vacated post of VP. The replacement VP will serve the remainder of that term.

c. If a Vice President or Minister is removed from office, the President will appoint a replacement, who will serve the remainder of the removed official's term.

d. If a Justice is removed from office, then the President will appoint a replacement to serve out the remainder of the removed Justice's term. If the remaining term is for longer than one (1)month, a confirming poll will be placed to the people, as described in the Amendment creating The Court.

e. Other procedural and housekeeping matters will be created by The Court as need requires in order to carry out this amendment.

f. If the people feel The Court has shirked their duty by failing to impeach the official, the people can post their own poll for impeachment. If 2/3's of the people agree to bypass the court, and impeach the official, then trial will commence as stated above in Secction 2.

Simple vote: Shall this Amendment be ratified?
1: Yes
2: No

5 day voting period

Should end 8/13 /2002 at 15:52 GMT

kring · August 8, 2002, 12:45

The one problem I have with this is the replacement. It sounds like the replacement is appointed, without involvement of the people based on its current wording.

jdjdjd · August 8, 2002, 13:36

Quote:

Originally posted by kring
The one problem I have with this is the replacement. It sounds like the replacement is appointed, without involvement of the people based on its current wording.

That is correct, because the terms are so short, except for Justices, to go thru impeachment, and then have a new election, the old term is probably has a matter of only days left, so just wait until the monthly elections to have the people elect new, in the interim allow a temp replacement to finish term so game is not effected adversely.

kring · August 8, 2002, 20:21

That is a big assumption that only a matter of days will be left.

Impeachment could just as easily happen early on; like the first turnchat of that person's office. And the terms aren't that short, unless they were shortened and I missed it?

jdjdjd · August 8, 2002, 20:45

They are a month for the minister's, Pres and VP.

You may be right that it could happen early on. Maybe I should have changed it before posting the poll, but since no one brought it up after I posted the final proposal about a week ago, I left it in, and honestly never thought about it.

On the other hand, the chances of any removal from office are slim to start. Then, if there is, say two or three weeks left of a term after the process to removal is complete, I think the President or VP (someone we all entrusted with their office) can be trusted to select a temp replacement. There has been a lot of clamoring about too many polls too much beaurocracy...maybe thats why this was left as is.

Kramerman · August 9, 2002, 02:54

Quote:

On the other hand, the chances of any removal from office are slim to start. Then, if there is, say two or three weeks left of a term after the process to removal is complete, I think the President or VP (someone we all entrusted with their office) can be trusted to select a temp replacement. There has been a lot of clamoring about too many polls too much beaurocracy...maybe thats why this was left as is.

I figured we could always just impeach the new guy if need be

.

Kman

jdjdjd · August 9, 2002, 16:04

*bump

Kuciwalker · August 9, 2002, 16:53

IT LET ME VOTE! YIPEE!!!

Sorry about that. Anyway, I vote no (though it seems not to have done much) because I don't like tying impeachment to violating the CoL. I think that it should just be if the people don't like what the official is doing.

Kramerman · August 9, 2002, 17:05

Quote:

Originally posted by skywalker
IT LET ME VOTE! YIPEE!!!

Sorry about that. Anyway, I vote no (though it seems not to have done much) because I don't like tying impeachment to violating the CoL. I think that it should just be if the people don't like what the official is doing.

We had our reasons, many in fact, on why to at least incorporate the court, or any other party than just the citizenry. I am too lazy to post those reasons here but if you wish you should check out the thread were this amendment was debated for weeks (off and on

).
Here is that link:
impeachment discussion thread

Im sure after looking at this you would probably wish you had not voted no. We had very good reasons for pretty much everything in this amendment - which turned out to be a very favorable compromise of many peoples ideas and opinions.

Kman

Panag · August 10, 2002, 06:52

hi ,

, ...

sounds good , but it needs some work on it , ...

and there should have been more options , ....including in the poll , ...

have a nice day

Captain · August 10, 2002, 23:29

citizens, please vote. there are only 24 votes so far! surely you don't want this to pass (or fail) based on the opinions of only 24 people?

panag, please explain. what work? we spent close to a month hammering this out in a public thread where anyone could contribute ideas. most of the comments were incorporated to make the document you see. and what do you mean by more options, in the poll?

amendment polls are designed to be as simple as possible, yes or no (and maybe abstain). multiple choice polls are often confusing and uninformative. that is why our COL and traditions show that this is the *best* way to conduct polls concerning major changes to the game. consider what would happen if we had 10 options up there, and three of them tied or were really close in results. which should it be? and what if those three were contradictory? surely that would be more difficult to see what the public wanted? but perhaps I'm wasting my breath, I've never seen you explain any of your posts.

jdjdjd · August 11, 2002, 11:05

another bump----please vote

Panag · August 11, 2002, 15:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Captain
citizens, please vote. there are only 24 votes so far! surely you don't want this to pass (or fail) based on the opinions of only 24 people?

panag, please explain. what work? we spent close to a month hammering this out in a public thread where anyone could contribute ideas. most of the comments were incorporated to make the document you see. and what do you mean by more options, in the poll?

amendment polls are designed to be as simple as possible, yes or no (and maybe abstain). multiple choice polls are often confusing and uninformative. that is why our COL and traditions show that this is the *best* way to conduct polls concerning major changes to the game. consider what would happen if we had 10 options up there, and three of them tied or were really close in results. which should it be? and what if those three were contradictory? surely that would be more difficult to see what the public wanted? but perhaps I'm wasting my breath, I've never seen you explain any of your posts.

hi ,

there is not a lot of option in the poll , just a yes and no , ....
there could also have been the option , yes its good but this or that is not good
stuff like that , and many other options

maybe it would be wise to keep this poll open a bit longer also , ....

what about the ideas from the people , ....can this amendment be good for all of us , ......

and the no voters should at least explain the points that they dont agree with , so that we can all learn

have a nice day

jdjdjd · August 11, 2002, 19:55

Quote:

Originally posted by panag

hi ,

there is not a lot of option in the poll , just a yes and no , ....
there could also have been the option , yes its good but this or that is not good
stuff like that , and many other options

maybe it would be wise to keep this poll open a bit longer also , ....

what about the ideas from the people , ....can this amendment be good for all of us , ......

and the no voters should at least explain the points that they dont agree with , so that we can all learn

have a nice day

Read the first post again, and then you can go to the two links where we already had polls determine what people preferred in the amendment. This amendment is based largely in those polls. This is its final form, this is not to re-re-re-hash ideas, we've done that ad nauseum. Please read the other posts in the thread and go to the links, if you still don't understand what we're talking about. But, please don't say it again that their should have been more options.

Have a Nice Day

Aggie · August 11, 2002, 22:44

This is a good amendment and I am glad i returned in time to support it.
Aggie

Donal Graeme · August 11, 2002, 23:00

I will not vote in this poll, because I feel that Impeachment should be fairly open, as any, pretty much any reason should suffice. INCOMPETENCE should be included in the list of offenses. If we get stuck with an idiot for SMC or Prez, we could be in for a real @#&% load of trouble.

Otherwise it is pretty good.

Ninot · August 11, 2002, 23:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Donal Graeme
If we get stuck with an idiot for SMC or Prez, we could be in for a real @#&% load of trouble.

Otherwise it is pretty good.

Well, you survived this past term, didnt you?

Kramerman · August 11, 2002, 23:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Donal Graeme
I will not vote in this poll, because I feel that Impeachment should be fairly open, as any, pretty much any reason should suffice. INCOMPETENCE should be included in the list of offenses. If we get stuck with an idiot for SMC or Prez, we could be in for a real @#&% load of trouble.

Otherwise it is pretty good.

Incompetence was not included for good reasons. First of all, its hard to vote an incompetant person into office. Second, how would you define incompetence? If a minister did what he truely thought was best for the empire, and nobody said anything, and his decision turns out to be disastrous, then can that person be charged with incompetence? Could someone be charged with incompetence for making a little mistake, or maybe they never did anything really wrong but political oponents were able to shed negative light onto a decision for political reasons. Incompetence just had to many questions.

Kman

Donal Graeme · August 12, 2002, 00:03

Good point, didn't think of that. Also, pressure from mistakes would force a Minister or Executive figure out of office after enough problems.

jdjdjd · August 12, 2002, 08:52

Just for clarification, if you are against the amendment for certain reasons, and you have viewed the links listed in the top post, then vote against the amendment.

If you have not viewed the links, then you should and you could see how in depth the discussion got, and the results of polls placed in front of the people. You could see all that before you vote no.

And for those who choose not to vote at all. There is no reason for it. If you disagree with the amendment in anyway, vote against it. If you agree with it, vote for it.

I'd rather have 10 no votes, then one person not voting at all because they disagree with one aspect of the amendment.

GodKing · August 12, 2002, 10:21

Sounds good jdjdjd. Thanks for taking this up again.

jdjdjd · August 12, 2002, 16:26

bump again.,....one day to go

jdjdjd · August 13, 2002, 08:40

last bump, poll closes in two hours

jdjdjd · August 13, 2002, 10:56

Ok, this poll should be closed....how do I close it? Anyone know how?

jdjdjd · August 13, 2002, 10:57

Oh, it did close, 82.93% in favor. This amendment should be added to the CoL.

Kramerman · August 13, 2002, 17:37

WOOHOOO!!!!

There were only 41 voters, though...

Panag · August 14, 2002, 05:37

Quote:

Originally posted by jdjdjd

Read the first post again, and then you can go to the two links where we already had polls determine what people preferred in the amendment. This amendment is based largely in those polls. This is its final form, this is not to re-re-re-hash ideas, we've done that ad nauseum. Please read the other posts in the thread and go to the links, if you still don't understand what we're talking about. But, please don't say it again that their should have been more options.

Have a Nice Day

hi ,

just for your info , your "orders" where done , loooooooong time before you posted , .....

and there should have been more options to the people , .....

so that one can choose , instead of only having a couple options , ....

and there should have been more talking and feedback from the people , ...

have a nice day

Kloreep · August 14, 2002, 14:10

Quote:

Originally posted by panag
and there should have been more talking and feedback from the people , ...

I think the amendment takes the prize for this. Detailed unofficial polls, a long prepoll discussion, a week of waiting through inactivity in the discussion thread just to make sure no one else had anything they wished to say. I bet there would have been a lot of complaints if it had taken any longer or gone through more discussion than it did.

Quote:

have a nice day

You too.

jdjdjd · August 14, 2002, 15:55

Quote:

Originally posted by panag

hi ,

just for your info , your "orders" where done , loooooooong time before you posted , .....

and there should have been more options to the people , .....

so that one can choose , instead of only having a couple options , ....

and there should have been more talking and feedback from the people , ...

have a nice day

Panag · August 15, 2002, 15:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Kloreep

I think the amendment takes the prize for this. Detailed unofficial polls, a long prepoll discussion, a week of waiting through inactivity in the discussion thread just to make sure no one else had anything they wished to say. I bet there would have been a lot of complaints if it had taken any longer or gone through more discussion than it did.

You too.

hi ,

, one can only wonder how long it shall take before people want to change this again , ......

but then again , its a way to keep working on maybe the perfect constitution , ......

only the future can tell us , .....

actually most people are on holiday or out , or trying to get in a univ , so those people are left a bit out , .....

that is one reason why this poll should have stayed open longer

have a nice day