The Court

[Locutus]

One important thing we haven't discussed yet is the judicial branch: the Supreme Court (or whatever we want to call it). I've been reading the constitutions of other Democracy Games and studying cases that have come before their Courts and I'm beginning to realize how important this institute is (or at least can be). The Court is basically a neutral entity that can interfere in case of conflict. This neutrality is vital when it comes to organizing elections, determining the validity of polls, impeaching government members, interpreting the law, solving conflicts of law or conflicts between individuals, etc.

The bad thing about having a Court is that the government size will in our case probably about double in size (assuming 3-5 Ministers and 3-5 Judges). The good thing is that the function of Judges requires little to no knowledge of CtP2, so anyone (including our resident ACers) can hold such a position. So, do we want a Court? How large should it be (most other DGs have 5 Judges, in our case 3 might be better to keep the government small)? What rules should apply to it and what responsibilities should it have? Discuss! (I would be particularly interested in hearing the viewpoints of experienced DGers)

[Method]

if you're worried about not having enough people, let judges also have government posts. that's what we did, and it's working fine. i'm not sure if you'll need a court though. i'm not even sure why we have one

[J Bytheway]

I would say that it'sadvisable, but certainly allow them to be ministers too, and give them long terms of office so that we don't have to keep being distracted by their election.

[Method]

we have 2 month terms, and IIRC, C3 has 3 months.

[Locutus]

Sounds like a good idea, allowing judges to be ministers as well... Of course, in some cases the two jobs might clash but it doesn't necessarily require the entire court to make decisions...

I think 3 months would be a good term for a judge.

[Pedrunn]

Why judges at all!?!

organizing elections.

This can be by one person only. I thought it was in the president hands.

interpreting the law,

We just need to make simple, few and direct laws. Mostly for vality of polls, ellections, minister power (controlled by the citzens wishs) and citzens behavor.

Determining the validity of polls.

This can be solved by the laws.
The only valid citzen polls are the ones with a certain minimal votes and enough number of posts comfirming the votes (eg. about 1/3 of the votes).
Let the people have freedom of speech to start stupid threads . This is what makes Lemuria great!

Polls started by non-citzens gets deleted!

Of course all poll started by the ministers are valid.

impeaching government members.

This can be a started with a shy poll. And if it gets bigger and valid (as explained above) the president/minister is out.

solving conflicts of law or conflicts between individuals,

Come on... Do you really think this is needed!!!

So we just nee one judge that can be the president itself. To confirm the vality of a poll and make the elections.

[centrifuge]

A judge would help to keep the "President" from becoming a dictator. So IMHO they shouldn't be the same person.

[Locutus]

Exactly. Too much power to one person. Examples:

(Holding Elections) If the president liked being the president, he could simply decide not to hold new elections. And as he's the only one who can write out new elections, no elections would be held. Of course, eventually this would lead to his impeachment, but impeachment procedures take a long time. In the meantime, he is free to do with the game whatever he wants.

(Interpreting the law) What if someone else would simply decide to just start new elections and ignore the old president? This would basically be a coup d'estate. A new president would be chosen and ready to take office, but according to the constitution, this new president would not be a valid one. But the old president also didn't act legally. Conflict! An independent entity needs to intervene and obviously the president nor the general assembly qualify as such, since both are making a claim to the presidency and both have violated rules.

(Determining the validity of polls) It's not just who starts a poll, or for what reason, but also (mainly) outcome that can cause controversy. What about if there is suspicion that non-citizens have voted? (IIRC This actually happened in other DGs) Or if it is suspected that a mod tampered with the outcome (you never know how sneaky I might turn out to be ), or it's found out that people have been using DLs to influence their outcome? What if a poll was closed prematurely because the thread had turned into a flamewar or had been used for excessive spamming? There are many, mnay things that can go wrong and you can't possibly conceive all of them in advance. And if you can't conceive them in advance, you can't make proper rules about them.

(Impeaching government members) If a simple poll is sufficient for impeachment, ministers could be impeached in a whim, without good reason. A neutral court could analyse if someone actually misbehaved and if that malconduct is grave enough to be grounds for impeachment. That would make for a much more stable and reliable functioning of the entire government.

(Solving conflicts) Laws can conflict quite easily. In this case, laws are not just the laws of the Democracy Game, but also laws made by the general assembly that have to be executed by ministers. Hypothetical example: The Romans are massing on our borders and at the same time the Greeks threaten to finish the Appian Way before us. The general assembly tells the Minister of Infrastructure to start saving PW to build Fortresses ASAP while at the same time telling the Domestic Minister to maximize production to finish the Wonder in time. These laws conflict: The latter implies that the PW percentage should be decreased but that would conflict with the former. Assuming no other laws/guidelines/motions/etc are available, there is a conflict. Which law should take precedence? The one that was enforced first? The one that was intended for the Domestic Minister (as he's higher in the hierarchy)? Should the President decide? Should both laws be declared void? Is a new poll needed to decide on this issue? Although perhaps not strictly necessary, it would be helpful to have a Court have a look at this - in such cases the action that should be taken might depend on the situation and the interpretation of the law.

As far as conflichts between individuals go, you never know... People might start political parties (I hope so!) and start fighting with each other on ideological grounds, something which might get out of hands... Or what if Rasbelin starts a newspaper and posts an article in which he calls Immortal Wombat's financial policy irresponsible. IW might be having a bad day and consider this slander. Then what? Is it freedom of speech or should Rasbelin edit his article and apologize? Both these guys can be quite stubborn, you know One last example from the C3DG: there a President didn't follow express orders from a minister. In the C3DG case, the President immediately admitted his mistake and the case was dismissed, but what if the President felt otherwise and gives a reason for his action. Here President nor ministers are neutral to decide who is in violation of the rules. If the general assembly is to decide, odds are it will turn into a popularity contest (especially if political parties are involved) and some facts or rules might be ignored. A Court would thoroughly analyse the case and publish this analysis and a ruling based upon it, which should normally be more objective.



I don't expect to be needing the Court very often, but it would be good to have around when we do need it... And it would be good if this didn't give one person more power than is healthy...

[Turambar]

Courts are a good idea as long as it doesn't get too complicated.

Or what if Rasbelin starts a newspaper and posts an article in which he calls Immortal Wombat's financial policy irresponsible

It is irresponsible and I demand his resignation!

[Immortal Wombat]

Or what if Rasbelin starts a newspaper and posts an article in which he calls Immortal Wombat's financial policy irresponsible. IW might be having a bad day and consider this slander. Then what? Is it freedom of speech or should Rasbelin edit his article and apologize? Both these guys can be quite stubborn, you know

He's probably right. I'd get my own back when he's a minister

[Locutus]

Agreed! Simplicity above all (well, almost all)...

[Devil of Truth]

Originally posted by centrifuge
A judge would help to keep the "President" from becoming a dictator. So IMHO they shouldn't be the same person.

More than that – nobody in office should be a judge. A clear separation between the state and the judiciary. It would make the government bigger, but less corrupt (in theory anyway).

[mapfi]

Judges shouldn't be ministers - that'd make all decisions biased. Anyway - judges won't have to do much work anyway, especially if we don't make the procedure tedious with statement after statement, rebuttal after rebuttal.
I think after a case has been filed to the court via PM to the Senior Justice - he would then open a thread if he accepts the case where everyone could post, have it closed after a certain to be determined time and then just have the court rule.
In essence, any citizen could file a case via PM - a public hearing will take place - then the court rules with an iron fist. Keep it simple and require the court to meet (PM or chat) only once, for the ruling.

[Locutus]

Ideally I agree that judges and ministers should be seperate. Perhaps we should first try to do this and only resort to allowing people to carry both titles when we can't find enough....

Sounds good to me, mapfi. Keeping things simple can't be a bad thing...

[Turambar]

I agree that Ministers and Judges shouldn't be the same therefore the term lengths of both should be the same so people can change roles.

Perhaps we should worry about judges more when we have a constitution up and Ministers elected?

[mapfi]

Ok, so this is a possible draft and referrs also to Pedrunn's poll descriptions (and yes, I stole part of it from the ACDG):

1. Purpose:

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

2. Construct of the Court:

The Court is composed of 2 regular Justices and a Senior Justice.
Each Justice has to be elected by the people in a seperate election poll.
There is no limit to the number of terms a Justice may serve.
A Justice may not serve in other governmental posts.

3. Cases:

The court can only rule on cases filed. A case may be filed by any citizen (excluding judges) by writing a PM to the Senior Justice who then either accepts or denies the case. This decision cannot be appealed.
Upon acceptance the Senior Justice is to open a thread with the description of the case. A public hearing will be held in that thread lasting three days.
The thread will then be closed and the Senior Justice will organize the Court's ruling. All three Justices must vote on any ruling that is made.
All rulings are immediately official and final.
The only possibilty of an appeal is a lawsuit poll put up by the citizen that filed the case or by a minister. In that case, the current verdict is placed on hold until after the appeal is voted upon. The decision of the court is of no effect if 2/3 of the votes disapprove of it.

Now maybe we want to include impeachment to be handled by the court and/or the starting of elections.

[Locutus]

Good stuff, mapfi But I propose the following changes (changes in bold - some may seem like nitpicking sometimes but in a constitution such details do matter):


1. Purpose:

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

2. Construct of the Court:

(a) The Court is composed of 3 Judges who will elect a Senior Justice amonst themselves.
(b) Each Judge has to be elected by the people in a seperate election poll.
(c) Each Judge serves a three month term of office. There is no limit to the number of terms a Judge may serve.
(d) A Judge may not serve in other governmental posts.

3. Cases:

(a) The Court can only rule on cases filed. A case may be filed by any citizen who is not a Judge, by writing a Private Message to the Senior Justice. This case must involve a dispute that the Court is empowered to rule upon.
(b) The Senior Justice will either accept or deny the case. This decision cannot be appealed. If the case is denied, the Senior Justice will inform the filer of the case of this by Private Message, explaining the reason for the denial.
(c) Upon acceptance the Senior Justice is to open a thread with the description of the case. A public hearing will be held in that thread lasting three days.
(d) After three days, the thread will be closed and the Senior Justice will organize the Court's ruling. All three Justices must vote on any ruling that is made. All rulings are immediately official and final.
(e) The only possibilty of an appeal is a lawsuit poll put up by the citizen that filed the case or by a Minister or by the President. In that case, the current verdict is placed on hold until after the appeal is voted upon. The ruling of the Court is declared void if 2/3 of the votes disapproves of it.
(f) If a ruling is declared void by appeal, a new public hearing will be held in accordance with sections 3(c), 3(d) and 3(e).

4. Records:

The Court will keep a record of all disputes, issues, and hearings before the Court. The Court will also keep a public record of the Constitution in its most current form. The Court may appoint a Clerk of the Court to keep these records.



Eagerly awaiting feedback

I think the precedures of impeachment and elections should be discussed seperately, so let's leave that out for the time being.

Should the Court be allowed to file injunctions (i.e. halt the game for a certain amount of time) to allow decisions to be made?

[child of Thor]

Locutus,
If you are going to be first elected official of the state(Maybe that's a presumption?), then i think we could getaway without a court for the test run and see how it goes and what developes. I can't imagine too many serious problems from the guys here. Especially if we have a shortage of people. Once it gets going then more will likely want to join and that will solve the man-power problems. Simple is a good idea to start with.
It is just a game isn't it?

A few lines of Law that everyone agrees to abide to should do it e.g.

1. thou shalt not flame.
2. thou shalt not drink to excess and post bad things.
3. thou shalt not covert thy neighbours passwords.
4. thou shalt not be cruel to Lemurs

etc

Any infringement and a poll can be cast for the punishment? This way, set people won't have to be assigned as jury. If it's an obvious breach of the Law then that should be enough for all to see?

[Immortal Wombat]

I disagree with rule 2.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
I disagree with rule 2.

Alcoholic.

-Martin

[mapfi]

Good changes Locutus, after all it was a draft and quickly written:

The Court is composed of 3 Judges who will elect a Senior Justice amonst themselves.

That was actually my first idea but then I thought it might be difficult to have all three agree on one, and if only two agree on one than it'll be a rather diabled court... And after all, the Senior Justice is granted the power to rule on the acceptance of cases, that's why I thought he should be elected to that position. And I do want to keep this in, because it'll make the opening of a case a lot faster. I've seen cases awaiting their hearing for several days in the C3DG forum.

If the case is denied, the Senior Justice will inform the filer of the case of this by Private Message, explaining the reason for the denial.

Actually, later I thought the court should have its own topped thread where the Senior Justice would inform publically of accepted and denied cases and then link to the public hearing thread if the case was accepted. Otherwise there might be citizen file the same case over and over again...

By the way - I didn't list anything about injunctions or powers of the court. I'd say it has unlimited powers. If we start naming them we might forget something and we'd make it more complicated, and there's always the possibility of an appeal which checks this power.

If a ruling is declared void by appeal, a new public hearing will be held.

Well, the court doesn't really have the public's trust anymore in this case... But making them step down might prolong things even more, so this is the best I can think of too.

And: No to prohibition!!!!!

[Locutus]

CoT,
That would be very premature to assume at this point. I don't feel much like running for any office (except maybe Judge) at all, as I'm busy enough already (heck, I ought to be writing news items rather than a constitution right now!). If it's deemed necessary, I may decide to run for some office in the first month, but I wouldn't place any bets on that if I were you. I think we *should* have a Court and a Constitution to make clear to everyone what their role in the game is and to avoid the situation where some people can spoil other people's fun. Heck, I bet having a Court in itself will create joy for some people (judging from what I saw in other DGs, it sounds like fun to me, but maybe I'm just weird ).

Yes, the rules should be as simple as possible, but they should also be workable. I think this is pretty simple as it is. If the above text can be considered more or less final, I estimate that it represents about 1/5 of our Constitution and it can be summarized in 3-4 lines:

"The Court exists to solve legal disputes. It consists of 3 Judges who are elected every three months. Cases can be brought in front of the Court by PM, after which the Court may or may not hold a hearing on them for three days. After this time the Court votes on the ruling. If the decision of the Court is contested, one can call for a vote to nullify the ruling and have the Court reevaluate the case. All these activities will be recorded by the Court."

The extra text in the actual Constitution is just to avoid confusion and to make it more practical to use. If we want to have a Court (and *I* think we do), it can't get much simpler than that, can it?

[J Bytheway]

3 judges voting amongst themselves is quite likely to cause deadlock, I would think. At the least a reserve system in the case of a tied vote would be required.

[mapfi]

a tied vote? like two against two? I thought you were a math-nerd too? Oh, you thought of a 1-1-1 situation?... Read my post above - I think that's why the people should decide

[Locutus]

Crosspost.

Originally posted by mapfi
That was actually my first idea but then I thought it might be difficult to have all three agree on one, and if only two agree on one than it'll be a rather diabled court... And after all, the Senior Justice is granted the power to rule on the acceptance of cases, that's why I thought he should be elected to that position. And I do want to keep this in, because it'll make the opening of a case a lot faster. I've seen cases awaiting their hearing for several days in the C3DG forum.

Hmm, I guess that makes sense. In other DGs the Supreme Justice just does more work, in our case he has actual power. But how will that work with elections? Should Supreme Justice be seen as a completely different office? Or should we first elect 3 Judges and choose a Supreme Justice from them? The latter makes more sense to me but only makes elections more complicated... In the former case, how would that work? Can you run for Judge and Supreme Judge at the same time? Again, that would make more sense, but if so, what if you're elected for both? Hmmm, need to give this more thought. Ideas welcome...

Actually, later I thought the court should have its own topped thread where the Senior Justice would inform publically of accepted and denied cases and then link to the public hearing thread if the case was accepted. Otherwise there might be citizen file the same case over and over again...

Good point. In that case, wouldn't it be better to do it all in the open: both the filing of cases by citizens and the posting of the decision about acceptance by the Senior Justice? Otherwise, if 20 people spot an invalid poll, they will all flood the Senior Justice with cases before he can reply to them...

By the way - I didn't list anything about injunctions or powers of the court. I'd say it has unlimited powers. If we start naming them we might forget something and we'd make it more complicated, and there's always the possibility of an appeal which checks this power.

Makes sense. Unlimited power isn't good, but since cases can be appealed that works out okay. If the Court starts being unreasonable in their rulings, the appeal can force them to reconsider the case and force them to rule more reasonable in the second round. If this still doesn't work, Judges can always be impeached...

The only reason for injunctions would be in cases of emergency: if someone thinks the President is about to start his turn based on illegal orders or something like that but the President disagrees, the Court should perhaps be able to force the President to halt the game until it can review the case properly. The decision to file an injuction should be made in less than the regular 3+ days.

[Locutus]

Hmmm, the contributions to the actual text of the constitution in this thread mostly seem to come from (semi-)math nerds (as my favourite math teacher always says, "Computer Science is just Applied Mathematics"). Must have something to do with the required logic and unambiguity of expression

[mapfi]

In that case, wouldn't it be better to do it all in the open

I had two reasons for the PM solution. 1. I wouldn't want a citizen to just post his case because other people might start to reply already - big mess and 2. the Senior Justice might tell the citizen via PM: "Well you address an issue but you can't file it in this way, but in another..." or "Yes, this is an issue, but the constitution has no grounds to rule in favour of what you ask for but you might ask for this or that..." This would just be more flexible.
Just avoid messes, unneeded posts, give a citizen the possibilty to change his filing and have a clear court record thread.

As for the injunctions - I guess since the court would have to rule than temporarily before the case is finished we could include a sentence like this:

By unanimous vote the court may issue a temporary ruling which will immeadetly take effect.
Or something like that. I just wouldn't mention injunctions because the court might want to do sth different, like say this unit stays at that place or the president follows this order but the game goes on...

Senior Justice election - that is tricky you're right. Maybe we could do it like some elections for mayor work in Switzerland. There are 5 positions and one of them will be the mayor. To become mayor you also need to be elected as one of the five. ... Uh, hard to explain, ahem it would look like this:
There'd be polls for three judge positions. Additionaly there's a poll for Senior Justice. The one with the highest % will be elected unless he's not elected judge, than it'd be the next one in %. This would work quite fine. Am I explaining this clearly?...

[child of Thor]

Locutus,
ok fair enough - i guess i was being a bit hopefull that this might be a very simple thing to sort out( ). I'll have a look at the other Democracy threads on Apolyton and educate myself abit

[Locutus]

Originally posted by mapfi
1. I wouldn't want a citizen to just post his case because other people might start to reply already - big mess

Easy to combat. Just post in the first post of the judicial thread that it's not allowed to discuss matters, just to file cases (after which the senior justice will be the only one that's allowed to respond). Posts that violate this rule (which will no doubt apply to a bunch of other threads as well) are deleted. Repeat offenders will face punishment (people get banned for doing something they were told not to do all the time, Ming won't hesitate to use his banning rod there). I don't foresee any problems there.

2. the Senior Justice might tell the citizen via PM: "Well you address an issue but you can't file it in this way, but in another..." or "Yes, this is an issue, but the constitution has no grounds to rule in favour of what you ask for but you might ask for this or that..." This would just be more flexible.

I don't see why this can't happen in public.

Just avoid messes, unneeded posts, give a citizen the possibilty to change his filing and have a clear court record thread.

I can see your point but I disagree. We probably need to have 2 judicial threads anyway: one to file and respond to cases, one to keep a log of the cases and other important activities of the court (several cases and other activities can be filed at once so doing both in one thread would be messy). So you have a whole thread dedicated to dealing with this issue, might as well use it If the Court explains the rules for submitting cases in the thread, I don't expect that much will go wrong. It's not like people will be filing cases on a daily basis (I hope).

There's one easy way to fix this: add a section to the Constitution, before 3(a), which states: "The Court may make its own rules of procedure and enforce them upon citizens who are before it." This way, the Court can just tell people in the first post of the thread what format complaints should have (probably: name of defendant, rule that was violated, place/time of violation - or something like that; shouldn't be too complicated) to minimize procedural errors, avoid responses to posts and other messy situations. I can't speak for anyone else, but personally a messed up PM box bothers me more than a messed up forum thread that's there for it (yes, I get lots of PMs ).

As for the injunctions - I guess since the court would have to rule than temporarily before the case is finished we could include a sentence like this:

By unanimous vote the court may issue a temporary ruling which will immeadetly take effect.
Or something like that. I just wouldn't mention injunctions because the court might want to do sth different, like say this unit stays at that place or the president follows this order but the game goes on...

That sentence is a pretty accurate definition of an injunction if you ask me
Nah, IMHO the Court should not have any say over individual units or orders or whatever, that's outside its scope of responsibilities. It can declare certain orders invalid but only on technical grounds (which requires a full hearing). And if an order is invalid, it's up to the people or the President to decide what policy to follow instead (if anything), not up to the Court (unless of course existing laws explicitly state what to do). E.g. if the Court tells the President to play on but to ignore the people's request to increase the PW percentage, then that's the same as the Court giving the President the order to maintain the current PW level - and the Court has no right to do that. The Court should in case of invalid orders just ask the President to do whatever he sees fit, or to consult the people, or to ask one of his Ministers, or whatever... But this requires a full hearing to decide. So if certain orders are questionable, the game should be stopped altogether or it shouldn't be stopped at all. Let's not give the Court the power to block orders of the people which it doesn't like...

There'd be polls for three judge positions. Additionaly there's a poll for Senior Justice. The one with the highest % will be elected unless he's not elected judge, than it'd be the next one in %. This would work quite fine. Am I explaining this clearly?...

Come to think of it, Judge voting is tricky anyway, with 3 open positions to fill simultaneously: if persons A, B, C, D, E and F are running for Judge, how to make polls of this? Put person A up against B, C against D and E against F? But what if A happens to be very popular and C very inpopular. Then B has a much smaller chance of winning that D, not really fair. And what if there are only 4 candidates? Or 7? Alternative: throw them all into one pool and pick the 3 most popular ones? Possible, but then people can only cast a vote on one person for 3 positions, not very logical. Also, it greatly increases the chances of a need for a 2nd (and even 3rd) round, making those elections an awfully time-consuming affair. Also, you'd all of a sudden need to find a large number of people willing to run for Judge...

It would IMHO make more sense to, rather than electing 3 Judges every 3 months, elect 1 Judge every month. Then 2 polls could be held: one for the new Judge, one for who of the other two should become Senior Justice (better let the n00b get used to the job before giving him such power ). I could be overlooking something, but this seems to solve all aforementioned problems...



Another point to keep in mind: punishment. What to do with that? If someone is found guilty of breaking the law, how should he be punished (if at all)? Should the Court decide upon this or the people? And what kinds of punishment are allowed? Does any of this need to be set in stone in advance?

[Locutus]

CoT,
I'm all for simplicity. In fact, if an article of the constitution can't be summarized in less than 4-5 lines, it's almost certainly too complicated IMHO. And personally I don't think we'll need more than 5-6 of those articles (and if so, then at least some of those articles should be summarizable in less than 4 lines, such that the total length of the summary remains equal ). So the total constitution will in all likelyhood still be a hell of a lot shorter than the rule book for Monopoly

But a summary isn't workable: it may seem trivial but you can't play the game if it's not known how large a majority is needed to declare a ruling void, or how many terms a judge may serve (the same applies when it comes to rules for Presidents, Ministers and Citizens fo course). We'd have to figure out everything ad-hoc, which would be very frustrating, time-consuming and inconsistent... Making and enforcing a Constitution may seem boring and unnecessarily complicated at first glance, but in the long run it will actually ensure that the game will remain simple and fun.

(Don't worry, I'll shut up now )