Commonwealth Court Convention

[Arviður]

Why don't we have a court to interpret things in the Commonwealth, as well as of the countries of the Commonwealth that choose to do so?

The thing is, Hurmu really believes in civil rights. Among them are the right to a fair trial should one be necessary. We also have in our constitution the recourse to a constitutional court. But we have no people to sit in the courts. I am sure many nations (except from Shireroth, perhaps) share Hurmu's problems.

Accordingly, basing this off earlier attempts and simplifying it, I give you the Commonwealth Court Convention (CCC).

CONVENTION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH COURT

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.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.

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.

[Harvey Steffke]

Yeah, I realized that this sort of thing is necessary for something like the intentional copyright treaty, whos sole purpose is to defend the rights of people that believe their works are being ripped off. Without some sort of international court, there's no way to determine the validity of those claims.

Your treaty is a good start, but I would like to make sure that it's strongly clarified that the commonwealth court ONLY has jurisdiction in international disputes and would never interfere with a country's domestic happenings.

[Erik Mortis]

I like the idea, but Shireroth could not support 3. We have our own courts for internal matters. If you rewrote it to only apply to commonwealth matters, treaties and the like. I see no issue.

[Santelran Rottsaa]

Perhaps the court could be permitted to intervene with nation-level matters if requested? Again, Hurmu is without the citizenry to have a court of her own.

[Erik Mortis]

Would you really want an outside nation or person telling you what is and is not legal in your own nation?

[Harvey Steffke]

Maybe they would?

How about this: we create a version of the convention that establishes the court as international only. Then, any nation that wants to use the court to handle domestic issues passes a law in their own nation saying the court will handle it. The nations that have court systems, like Shireroth and Nelaga, would still use it for international disputes.

[Andreas the Wise]

That, or have a second treaty you can sign which establishes the Court's jurisdiction over your nation as well (come on, everyone wants more second-level treaties, don't they?)

Either way, this time we should actually get a signed court treaty of some form ...

[Harvey Steffke]

Well SCIPPA (Small Commonwealth Intellectual Property Protection Act) would be a second-level treaty, since it would be meaningless unless nations agreed to a system to resolve disputed claims.

[Malliki Tosha]

I would be extremely interested in serving on such a court. I think all Shirerithians here know my credentials and any other can ask.

[Erik Mortis]

I like Andreas idea. And we do need more Tier II treaties. the SCIPA (whatever), would make a good T2 treaty.

[Erik Mortis]

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.

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 think Shireroth would be willing the sign at least the first one. Though we have our own court making the 2nd unneeded for us.

[Maximilian]

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.

[Malliki Tosha]

The court could perhaps commission translation services of the required laws and also provide anyone appearing before the court with a translator, free of charge. I see possible ways around this problem, as long as people are willing to compromise.

[Erik Mortis]

Hey, you wanted a treaty to cover it. I got no solutions for language issues.

[Maximilian]

About the Convention:

Article 4 states that the court has the power to interpret the treaties and conventions. Does this mean that when a Batavian violates another Batavians copyrights when Batavia has signed the copyright treaty, that this matter comes to the Commonwealth Court?

[Erik Mortis]

I suppose so. But we could allow for such internal conflicts to be handled by an internal court.

[Maximilian]

Some members of the Batavian Lagerhuis think such an article needs to be added to the treaty. Batavia has a more or less working court system. Hence we would like to deal with internal affairs ourselves. Our constitution even says that the only court that can judge within Batavia itself is the Batavian court.

I would like to add the following article:

X. Disputes within a nation about a treaty or convention are dealt with by the concerning nations established court.

[Erik Mortis]

That should proly also be put in the treaties that use the court.

[Maximilian]

Why would we need to put this rule in the treaties themselves? If it is in the court convention it would be a general rule that applies to every treaty, wouldn't it?

[Harvey Steffke]

I agree with Maximilian. It is better to be put that clause in the court convention itself rather than individual treaties. What if a nation wants to sign a treaty but not the convention? They'd be forced to accept the court by signing a treaty that otherwise has no bearing on the court system. That gets legally messy in a hurry.

[Erik Mortis]

And if they don't sign the court treaty, that court doesn't apply to them. I see a problem.

[Erik Mortis]

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. Disputes within a nation about a treaty or convention are dealt with by the concerning nations established court.

7.This Convention may be amended by a qualified majority of the State Parties exceeding three fourths of the votes cast.

New draft. With what you wanted.

[Arviður]

Hurmu assents.

[Malliki Tosha]

Perhaps a ruling in 6. could be appealed to the CC? Individual nations could perhaps also put in provisions in their own laws allowing for the CC to act as an appelate court?

[Erik Mortis]

If it's internal, it should stay internal, lest people feel the SC is trampling their sovereignty.

[Malliki Tosha]

Perhaps, but since the law is laid down in a treaty, it would be weird to have different interpretations of it across the SC.

[Erik Mortis]

When between nations, the CC would have a unified interpretation. But I'm sure many nations would object to having their internal issues overshadowed by an international body. That was one of the things we were big on when we started this, Retention of National Sovereignty.

[Malliki Tosha]

Of course, but if it were to be included in the treaty (I'm not saying it should, it was merely a suggestion) the signatory nations would voluntarily agree to this. I'm not for forcing the SC members into anything, but if they willingly sign it, that is not forcing them.

[Erik Mortis]

Shireroth would never sign such a treaty, I'm sure. We wouldn't want someone to tell our Kaiser. "Sorry... There is a court higher then you for some internal matters. "

[Arviður]

Then a separate treaty for those States wishing to grant the CC (restricted?) powers over themselves.