The Court

[Pedrunn]

Each Judge serves a three month term of office.

Shouldnt we be talking in term istead of time?

Still we need to dicuss how fast the game will go.

[Locutus]

Well, I copied the other DGs for the time being, to keep things simple. Tthings like that can always be changed of course. Nothing's final yet...

[mapfi]

Ok, you're making sense, Loc... (and I don't have time to argue)

[RunsWithDwarf]

Hey! I got aquestion, or two.

First, Why does the President "HAVE" to do what the Ministers tell him to? Aren't they there in essence to advise him on what to do, and then based on their reports make his final decisions? After all as Locutus stated earlier citing some of the examples of reasons courts were needed, I believe one of the cases involved a conflict of orders among ministers as to what to build, These are exactly the types of decisions that make or break leaders and is usually the biggest reason they run for the position to begin with to lead thier nation into a brighter future, They would all like to be immortalized in history for something positive I'm sure, and these are the same kinds of decisions that make news, that affect their popularity rating in the polls and so forth I mean I could forsee a few possible scenarios where the President might have to override their orders and not neccessarily have time to apply to the courts for a decision albeit without stopping the game, if you keep the game running it gives you grounds for litigation and a reason for the courts perhaps some citizen or citizens felt he made a bad choice, and want to file a motion with the justice citing their grieviences, could be a short presidency if he's found to ultimately responsable, or a new law is passed that drastically reduces this ability.
Second, why can't you appeal? Isn't that what the Supreme Court justice is there for to repeal unfair decisions? or to turn over lower court decisions? or to cast a deciding decision in the case the lower courts are deadlocked? or to agree with the lower courts reccomendation if the judge feels its fair or warrented? I mean this way it keeps the lower courts busy as well so your supreme court justice would not tow the majority of the proverbial line, I don't know, this is a tough one to chew on as well.

[Pedrunn]

What about an section about the Court possible punishments.
Something like (It works just like soccer):

5. Punishments
(a) The first time a citzen makes problem (s)he gets a yellow card and at the second problem (s)he causes in less than two weeks after receiveing a yellow card (s)he receives a red card. If he has done somthing really bad it gets a red card automacly. The size of the problem is decide by the Court.
(b) Yellow Card - The citizen receives a warning.
(c) Red Card - The citzen can no longer post in the CTP2DG thread for one week and cant run for a government position in the next term. If it is a officer in a government position (s)he is impeached.
(d) The Court will keep a criminal record for those who have a yellow card until the time of two weeks end. And will keep the record on those with red card until the end of the game.

What you guys think? Is this just xtra stuff and we should give the Court the power of deciding the punishment?

[J Bytheway]

We can get a yellow car? Cool! What make?

[Pedrunn]

Why does the President "HAVE" to do what the Ministers tell him to?

The DG games works differently from the real-life western democracy. The minister do actually have an executive powe bigger than the president. Since the idea is to divide the tasks among these minister so that the interaction between governors and citzens is more evidenced. And among a dicussion between them not all tasks have to stop since if only one encharge he would have the attetion too much divided. Thats what i think though.
We could change the name "minister of" by "commander of" or "leader of". Exacly what is being discussed here How shall we call our government
Note: Has been days since nobody post hexacly beacuse the nam "Minister of" is already being used by all. So the discussion seemed to be restricted to the President name.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW CAHAHAR

[Frozzy]

I think we should have a jury of all non-affected ministers to call the punishments.

[Frozzy]

Actually, I think all non-serious cases go through the non-Supreme judges, with the Presiding Judge calling the punishments. All serious cases (i.e. President breaking the constitution) go via the Supreme Judge, and the jury being elected as above.

[J Bytheway]

So the judges make the verdict and the jury chooses the punishment? Is it just me,or is this a strange reversal of roles...

Punishments are likely to be a tough subject to get right, IMO.

[Frozzy]

But the ministers have worked closely with the accused (saying it is a minister) and know if he is worthy of a harsh punishment,or a light one.

The judge makes the verdict as he can make view all possible evidence for and against

[RunsWithDwarf]

J, you can get those cars right here in America, and not only can you get them, but Americans will pay you to drive them.
We call them taxi's

[Frozzy]

I think we need to establish something basic. i.e. stop the President becoming Judge, Jury and Excecutioner.

[RunsWithDwarf]

I agree! We should separate those three powers.
which one do you propose he should keep?

[H Tower]

a solution to your Head Judge problem is a rotating chair. each member of the court chairs the court for one month.

Ooh! people who don't have the game can still be judges guess i'll have to sign up now

seriously though, i've come across a couple of cases in the civ2 game where we need a court, like right now, we've had several election "discrepencies" that i've been trying to smooth out because i'm sucha great guy (and that i have quasi mod power there too )

[J Bytheway]

The "executioner" would have to be a mod, so presumably we can't worry too much about that.

[Pedrunn]

I dont want to be an ass but as i see this Executioner position just seems more sthetics than actually functional.
Something to say: "Yes, we have the powers correcly divided".
I like the idea of the court having the power to execute what has been judged by them.
It is faster and simpler.
Not all punishments will need a mod for sure! Still if a mod will be needed to punish a citizen the court will just ask one for doing it. It doesnt have to be the same mod ever (the one in the executioner position). Although locutus will be praticly the only one that will use the mod power in this forum.

And about the Jury,
isnt exacly the same of the Court in the democracy game is for?
A couple of people chosen to judge an event.
The other suff is extra: they can dictate the condemnation and, as i propose above, execute the sentence. Would make more sense if you guys were looking for a judge for this extras.

[H Tower]

yes, the judges should be the jury as well, after the case is presented to them, they should hand down a decision, otherwise the court does NOTHING!

[Gilgamensch]

Also ,as mentioned by Pedrunn in another thread, we can always have a poll afterwards, if we are not satisfied (but with 50%+).

So that only the Majority really decides, in other words DEMOCRACY.

If there is not this 50% barrier reached, the court's decision stays. This way the court would have something to do and if WE can't agree they should do it for us

[H Tower]

i think adding an extra poll is too much, maybe if the citizens find the punishment or verdict too strict they could petition the president for a reduction in sentance or even overturn the ruling, but i don't think the people should have final say on what the courts do, well, except for expressing their opinion with their votes in the election

[Gilgamensch]

H Tower,

This would be like this in real world, but we have the chance of making it better...........

And again, it would only be the case, if enough people would vote accordingly. Switzerland, for example, is a country where 'all' decision can be overruled by the 'subjects'. When I remember right it is done like:

something like 10.000 people need to write down their signature on a sheet, which will be send to the government. Now they will have to have a poll about this issue being raised and the government has to follow this decision.

That is democracy.............. Why shouldn't we doing the same?

[H Tower]

i happen to like they way things work in the real world, and i'm just expressing my opinion, you know, like in a democracy

[Locutus]

I think having the Court function as Judge, Jury and Executioner works just fine. This system has been in use in the Netherlands for a long time and AFAIK there were never problems with it. As Gilgamensch points out, if the people think the Court ruled too harsh or too lightly, they can always appeal to make the Court reconsider.

Not all punishments will need a mod for sure! Still if a mod will be needed to punish a citizen the court will just ask one for doing it. It doesnt have to be the same mod ever (the one in the executioner position). Although locutus will be praticly the only one that will use the mod power in this forum.

Democracy Games have dedicated (quasi-)mods to reduce the workload of Ming, MarkG and DanQ (other mods don't have modding powers here). Normally *all* moderation requests should go to me. If necessary, *I* will be the one who contacts other mods. The only exception that I can think of might be when I'm the one requiring moderation

[H Tower]

how many judges do we want to have? and how many need to participate in each case? (not exactly the same thing)

[Frozzy]

Since the cases will be (hopefully ) few and far between, I think two shall be sufficient. A rotating head judge (i.e. you do this, I'll do the next) will suffice for senior judge, with the other judge acting as jury. Mod should be exceutioner (Unless Locutus wins a free trip to Mingapulco, which will never happen )

[Gilgamensch]

We would need at least three judges, just to avoid a tie.

Take the case we would have only two judges, if they can't agree, what shall we do? Let the senior on decide? Why should we bother in the first time about a second judge anyway?

The executioner job will, as pointed out by Locutus, be done by the mod's, if they agree

And H Tower, since when are we allowed to have our own opinion in a democracy .... ups........

I think I will start a threat anyway, checking who wants to participate for what....... Then we'll see......

[Pedrunn]

We can get a yellow car? Cool! What make?

Just now i saw my mistake. I really am slow
You guys making fun of me and i did not get it

I fixed now

[Locutus]

Mapfi and I already agreed early on in the thread that 3 Judges would be a good number: an odd number to avoid a tie and 3 rather than the 5 of other DGs to keep the government as small as possible (and 1 Judge would give that Judge too much power). Of course, this number is not necessarily final but it makes sense to me.

It's not been discussed before but I'd say that it goes without saying that in all cases 2 Judges would have to agree to the same outcome (in favour/against) in order for a ruling to be valid. So normally all 3 Judges need to participate. But if one of the Judges is out of town or whatever and the other 2 agree on a case, IMHO there's no need to wait for #3 to return before making the ruling final.

I suggested earlier to have the Senior Justice elected on a monthly basis, but I got no feedback on that. To repeat the suggestion: assume we have 3 Judges, who serve terms of 3 months (this is not final of course, but for the sake of argument). Every month 2 polls on Judges are started: one to re-elect one of the Judges and another one to elect one of the other two as Senior Justice (so a n00b Judge can't be Senior Justice in the first month of his/her term, but that's probably a good thing). Comments?

Seeing how the Senior Justice is the one who decides which cases are treated and which ones are not, it would be best not too chance this position for every case: people would have a hard time keeping track of who is 'in charge' of their case. So IMHO it would be best to change this once a month at most.

As far as the Executioner goes, as far as I'm concerned it will be up to the Court to determine a punishment that fits the crime. If this punishment means that threads need to be closed or people banned, it goes without saying that I'll need to be responsible for this. If it's decided that an impeachment procedure should be started or someone should be disallowed access from a specific or even any government office during the next election(s), it's up the Court to not acknowledge the offender as an official candidate for these elections. If you want to make me (as mod) responsible for making sure the punishments of the Court are executed properly (e.g. kick the Court in the butt if they forget someone's not allowed to run for an office), that's fine with me, but do realize that you can't (easily) impeach a mod if he doesn't do his job well

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Locutus
I suggested earlier to have the Senior Justice elected on a monthly basis, but I got no feedback on that. To repeat the suggestion: assume we have 3 Judges, who serve terms of 3 months (this is not final of course, but for the sake of argument). Every month 2 polls on Judges are started: one to re-elect one of the Judges and another one to elect one of the other two as Senior Justice (so a n00b Judge can't be Senior Justice in the first month of his/her term, but that's probably a good thing). Comments?

That's fine by me, or else we could just always give the senior position to the judge who is in the third month of their term.

We'll also have to start electing judges a little while before the start of the game.