Convention on the Establishment of a Commonwealth Court. (draft 2)
1.Any State who has signed and ratified the General Membership Treaty and been accepted into the Commonwealth, may sign and ratify, in accordance with its own constitutional procedure, the present Convention on the Commonwealth Court
2.The Parties to this Convention hereby establish the Commonwealth Court (“CC”, “the Court”) as an independent and free court of justice and law.
3.The Court shall have jurisdiction over matters pertaining to international dispute between signatory nations.
4.The Court shall have the power to interpret the Treaties and Conventions of the Commonwealth, subject to the Treaties and Conventions themselves.
5.The Court shall consist of a panel of three jurists independent of the government of the participatory States, elected by the Assembly of State Parties. The election shall be overseen by the Primate of the Commonwealth.
6.This Convention may be amended by a qualified majority of the State Parties exceeding three fourths of the votes cast.
I am in favor and I do not see any reasons for the Batavian Lagerhuis to be against.
Treaty of Internal Acceptance of the Small Commonwealth Court.
1. Any nation who has signed the Convention on the Establishment of a Commonwealth Court may sign this treaty.
2. Subject to the laws of a participatory State, the Court shall have jurisdiction over that participatory State in matters of criminal, civil and/or constitutional law.
3. This Convention may be amended by a qualified majority of the State Parties exceeding four fifths of the votes cast.
4. Any signatory nation may leave this treaty at any time, though they will not be considered free of the obligations of this treaty until all cases before the court involving the signatory nation, at the time of their declaration of intention to leave, have concluded or 7 days have elapsed, whichever shall occur first.
I am in favor of the idea and the Batavian Lagerhuis and government will be in favor of the idea, because Batavia has a problem concerning the court. We do have civil rights and stuff and we do have an established court, but we do not have enough judges who can fairly punish anyone without someone yelling that the judge said this or that because he can take (political) advantage out of it.
The problem is, as you might have noticed, that Batavia is a Dutch speaking nation. This obviously means that all laws are written in Dutch. Our law system is not that small, so we are not going to translate everything. If Batavia signs this treaty, we would have a big problem. The Republic of the Netherlands is a Dutch speaking nation also, but that doesn't cover the aim of the treaty, since a lot of citizens of the Republic are citizen of Batavia as well.
The only one I know that speaks Dutch and is not involved with Dutch nations is Harald of Stormark. He could do some judging for us, but that's only if he feels like doing so. Even if he feels like doing so, Batavia relies on one judge, which is not the most comfortable position imagineable.
There are three options:
I. All judges learn Dutch.
II. We would make a law of some system that uses the treaty. Every useful piece of law and all things said in the court are translated by someone capable of translating the whole lot. Since there are not many times the court is used, this could work out. As a member of the Lagerhuis I would vote against such an option, because this means a lot of work. As far as I know there are not many people who translate texts and I think non of these people would like to spend their precious time translating real texts for micronational money at the moment they could have worked or have learned for their exams or so.
III. We would make English the language of our courts. Only the useful law texts are translated. I would vote against such an option as member of the Lagerhuis, because the official language in Batavia is Dutch. That being a fact on its own isn't the biggest problem, but the result of this fact is that not every citizen speaks English well enough to make his point clear in court.
Concluding I can't see Batavia joining the second treaty because of language problems.