Judicial Reform

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I...really don't like micronational courts.

I just got sued a couple of times the other week, and I didn't enjoy it at all. And Antica has degenerated into a bunch of suing and counter-suing on generally shaky grounds.

There are two uses for a micronational court system. One is to handle serious offenses. For example, when Delphi was suspected of hacking Antica in the Tgaoth incident, we tried him in the Judex. If he'd been found guilty, he probably would've been kicked out or something. The other is kind of mock trial rec-court stuff by people who really like court cases.

Neither of these are bad, but they are bad if only the plaintiff likes court cases and the defendant hates them but has to defend themselves or hire a lawyer or get convicted. They're also bad if a simple issue that could have been handled by friendly discussion or by both sides making faces at each other and walking away ends up having to be handled by a painful and drawn-out trial.

Finally, our judicial procedures seem to be basically copying TV court dramas, which is totally unsuited for the micronational environment and mostly just gives Judexes the potential to abuse their power and boss everyone else around.

I suggest anyone who wants to do rec-trials figure out some way to do those on their own. For real trials, I suggest the following:

- No rules against speaking in the court out of turn. Thus far, pretty much all our trials have degenerated into "You spoke out of turn!" "No, YOU spoke out of turn!" "Yeah, well, you telling me I spoke out of turn was speaking out of turn!". There's really no reason for this, and there's no disadvantage to having whoever wants speaking in a trial thread. It'd defuse some of the culture of seriousness and annoyingness that's seeped into trials here.

- Common sense definition of evidence. Calling witnesses to the stand for formal testimony is time consuming. Threads from the forum should be admissible evidence. Witnesses should only be called if they can provide some evidence nothing except their personal testimony can.

- Less structure. Instead of saying "Bob, you have twenty four hours to present your case, and then Sam, after Bob you will have twenty four hours to present your case, and then Bob will have twenty four hours to respond to Sam..." just say "Bob and Sam, please present your cases. If you have any objection to the other person's cases, you can present that too."

- Opportunity to file a writ of "This is stupid". If the Judex agrees that it is stupid, he can immediately drop the case.

- Judex can levy a fine for bringing up frivolous suits.

Any other ideas?

[Erik Mortis]

Leave it to the Judex to run the Judex. The Landsraad doesn't need to interfere.

And for some of that, I've always support an Arbiter that arbitrates case for those ones that could be worked out easily without actual charges needing to be issued.

[Aurangzeb Khan]

For comparison, this is how justice is handled in Ashkenatza:

6.0 Justice
6.1 There shall be a Beth Din or "house of judgment" which shall be presided over by an observant Jew, of tolerable knowledgeable and conversant with the halakha as well as the precepts of natural justice;
6.2 This person shall be appointed by the Knesset and shall be known as the dayan;
6.3 All religious & civil law in instances where cases concern Ashkenatzim shall be heard by the Beth Din;
6.4 Minority groups may form their own law courts to cover the similar religious and civil law remit;
6.5 Instances of criminal law and crimes against the state, as determined under law shall be addressed by the Knesset;
6.6 There shall be an Overseer, appointed by the Knesset, who will in the first instance be responsible for identifying and indicting suspected criminals both within and without the Republic who pose a threat to the well-being of the Ashkenatizm and who challenge the lawfully constituted public order:
6.6.1 The Overseer shall indict the accused, drafting the charge sheet and giving notice of the same to the accused party. Next the Overseer will present a copy of the charge sheet to the Knesset to deliberate over. If the Knesset decides to proceed to trial a Bill of Attainder against the defendant shall be drafted and the same shall be notified by writ of the Overseer that he is bound to answer to the Knesset for the accusations that have been placed against him.
6.6.2 From the tabling of the bill of attainder both the Overseer and the Defendant shall have one week to present their respective cases to the Knesset. These presentations shall take the form of an essay, which to be admissible must be no less than five hundred (500) words in length, that provides an accurate summation of the stance taken by both parties in the trial. The Overseer will present an "Essay on the Guilt of [insert name] in relation to the charge of [insert crime] that was brought against him on the date of [insert date of indictment]" The Defendant shall produce an Essay refuting the charge of [insert crime] made against [insert name] on [insert date of indictment]" that shall self evidently address the same. The essays will be submitted to the Knesset via non-public mechanisms and the members of the Knesset shall then sit In Camera to review the narratives of the parties contesting the charges and to agree a verdict and a sentence - this shall take the remaining week. From the tabling of the bill of attainder to the passing of an Act of Attainder (if appropriate) shall take no more than a fortnight. This shall constitute fast and efficient justice.
6.6.3 The Bill of Attainder shall in itself consist of:
1. Noting the receipt of the charge sheet from the Overseer
2. Agreement that the charge merits a trial
3. A statement endorsing the Essay of Guilt (Derklerung fun Shuld) against the accused
4. A Tariff (punishment) commensurate with the Crime
6.6.4 It should be further noted that non-cooperation at any stage on the part of the defendant including the submission of an Essay of Refutation (Derklerung fun Opfregn) that does not meet the minimum standard set forth would constitute Contempt of the Knesset and result in the automatic levying of the maximum tariff available for the crime which the accused has been charged.

Which is essentially to say the accuser and the accused each provide a prepared statement, the Knesset deliberates and then justice is done subsequently.

[Erik Mortis]

Bah.. rules.

[Jonas]

Batavia has a judicary system and it's boring and irritating. Btw, it solves no problems. It makes it only worse (and the one who lost the case will complain about the judge, demands a new trial, etc.). I prefer the admin-tells-you-who-is-the-victim-rule.

[Erik Mortis]

If you have skilled judges a lot of problems clean up.

[Aurangzeb Khan]

Babkha had a professional real life judge and justice was still interminably slow.

[Erik Mortis]

Now I miss being Arbiter.. Damn you people!

[Aurangzeb Khan]

End your rebellion and seek consolation in the law?

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I kind of like Ashkenatza's system. I'd trust the Landsraad to tell annoying people to GTFO and not persecute people who were doing interesting or fun things just because it broke a law or two.

[Jonas]

If you have skilled judges a lot of problems clean up.

I'm a judge... I hope that tells enough?

We're so bureaucratic that if you say to someone to shut up, he will respond with "you aren't neutral, give me someone else". It's BORING, bureaucratic and stupid. Trust me, you don't want to live in the Dutch sector (the NEVO-states approved human rights, for Mors sake! ).

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Speaking of the Dutch sector, how's that QUARREL war of yours going? Can you link me to the forum with it?

[Jonas]

Speaking of the Dutch sector, how's that QUARREL war of yours going? Can you link me to the forum with it?

We just started with it. I added some minor changes (more units to divide). I will tell you about it when we're done.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I just registered as Scott Alexander; can you let me into that forum?

[Arviður]

Stormark, which uses an adaptation from Babkhan law as well as unwritten traditions, has had all its legal issues well handled. The only issue ever to have been brought up was when Lady Vesteralen (CJ) overstepped her bounds in ordering the Crandish legislature not to legislate. That was quite funny.

[Harvey Steffke]

I can't remember a time when a micronational court case didn't leave one or more parties bitter for years. I'll spare dredging up the history but I know people have their own personal memories of how bad things went. And further, I can barely remember a time when a court case was actually concluded. The vast majority of them seem to end with a declaration of a "mistrial" or "the situation has changed" or some of that nonsense.

When I wrote my copyright law, here's roughly how I envisioned a copyright suit going:

* Someone says that they want to accuse a party of violating the law.
* The court says okay and opens up a topic.
* Both the accuser and the defender can say essentially whatever they want, hopefully provide evidence, go back and forth and rebut claims, with no real rules. No "out of order," no swearing in, no nothin'.
* After a certain amount of time, or whenever they calm down, the judge reviews the evidence and either makes a decision based on which side has the stronger case or throws the case out due to a lack of evidence.

So basically what Scott was saying all along.

At this point I'm basically going to just refuse to participate in any more heavily constrained court cases. I'm just not interested. Law and Order does an amazing job of presenting the TV drama - I do not feel the need to compete.

[Erik Mortis]

I like Harvey's way of doing things. I'd like to think I ran things that way as Arbiter. But I'm not sure such a way can be codified, as Scott seems to want.

[Harvey Steffke]

There may not be a way to codify it directly. The best you could do is 1) remove any official rules that get in the way of making the case less formal and 2) not hire arbiters that are going to be all legalistically stuffy about things.

[Erik Mortis]

Do we have such rules to remove?

[Harvey Steffke]

Dunno. I honestly haven't looked too hard. I suppose that's the next logical step, eh?

[Allot]

The Arbiter has complete control as to how he runs trials. I wrote the procedures that are stickied in the Judex now because at that time I think we were looking for something a little more structured. If the Arbiter wants to decide all cases by flipping a coin that's totally legitimate.

[Harvey Steffke]

Yeah, well, maybe it shouldn't be like that? I know we technically shouldn't be interfering with the courts, but hell - historically every time the courts have gotten really active, someone has left a micronation and stayed angry for years. That's bad enough for me to be interested in taking a long look at the whole process and breaking a few rules about separations of powers if need be.

[Andreas the Wise]

In Novatainia we've had court cases finished without people leaving the nation - but they've all been rec-trials - technically for OOC 'crimes' (mainly things like using leet speak or destroying someone's house) but everyone's understood that the trial is for fun, and, whatever the result, the penalty won't be bad.

But if you look at even a single dispute thread in any international recwar, you can quickly see how people can get bitter over disputing things, even when there is a judge who quickly intervenes.

So I'd be tempted to say "go with Harvey's method" but my gut feeling is that this might well still make people very angry with eachother. Ashkenatza's essay approach seems a good way to avoid all that angry yelling at people. It also stops stupid arguments - forces people to actually write something coherent or be guaranteed to lose.

[Arviður]

OK, I've given this some thought.

We put the Judex in two divisions, the first of which will be the "Imperial Judex of the Republic of Shireroth". It will only rule on matters of legality of laws, appointments, etc. Sort of like a constitutional court. The second division would be "Judex of Shirekeep and the Imperial Counties", which would handle criminal and civil law in Shirekeep (the boards minus the duchies).

The duchies would rule themselves and dispense justice as they see fit. Appeals therefrom do not go the Shirekeep Judex, but to the Kaiser who, suspecting the constitutionality of something to be in question, refer the matter to the IJRS for an advisory opinion.

[Malliki Tosha]

Why would appeals not go to the Judex? Seems like the natural step.

[Arviður]

Well, we can have it that way too :P

[Malliki Tosha]

Yes, and an appeal can always be made to the Kaiser from the Judex.

[Aurangzeb Khan]

It always seems to me that court cases in micronationalism go badly awry because the parties are able to communicate with each other in proceedings, which invariably leads to unutterably stupid and intractable arguments whereby the whole system is brought into disrepute without actually resolving matters.

What I would propose therefore is

1.0. Petitioning the Imperial Judex
1.1. In the Imperial Judex there shall be admitted the use of such instrument known as the "Petition for Indictment" which may be submitted by the Plaintiff or Prosecutor to the Arbiter containing the following information:

(a) the applicant´s full name and residence;
(b) the accused´s full name and residence
(c) any background information which the applicant thinks relevant to the trial;
(d) an indication of which Shirerithian law(s) has been broken;
(e) a copy of any evidence or affidavits that are relevant to the accusation and to the law indicated in (d);
(f) a list of all relevant links to the evidence (if any) provided in (e) in chronological order;
(g) any other material that is necessary for the hearing of the application.
Source: Procedures of the Imperial Judex

2.0. The Evaluation of Petitions
2.1. The Arbiter has two days in which to review the petition, during which time he may dismiss the petition on the grounds of:
2.1.1. There being insufficient evidence of any actual wrongdoing;
2.1.2. Or there being evident grounds to believe that an indictment would not be in the public interest, being either boring, stupid or too trivial to contemplate;
2.2. Or else the petition shall be approved and the indictment drawn up.
3.0. Bill of Attainder
3.1. The Arbiter shall indict the accused, drafting the charge sheet and giving notice of the same to the accused party. Next the Arbiter will present a copy of the charge sheet to the Praetor to submit to the Landsraad. If the Landsraad decides to proceed to trial a Bill of Attainder against the defendant shall be drafted and the same shall be notified by writ of the Arbiter that he is bound to answer to the Landsraad for the accusations that have been placed against him.
3.2. From the tabling of the bill of attainder both the Arbiter and the Defendant shall have one week to present their respective cases to the Praetor.
3.2.1. These presentations shall take the form of an essay, which to be admissible must be no less than five hundred (500) words in length, that provides an accurate summation of the stance taken by both parties in the trial. The Arbiter will present an "Essay on the Guilt of [insert name] in relation to the charge of [insert crime] that was brought against him on the date of [insert date of indictment]" The Defendant shall produce an Essay refuting the charge of [insert crime] made against [insert name] on [insert date of indictment]" that shall self evidently address the same. The essays will be submitted to the Landsraad via the Praetor.
3.2.2. The members of the Landsraad shall then review the narratives of the parties contesting the charges and to agree a verdict and a sentence - this shall take the remaining week.
3.3. From the tabling of the bill of attainder to the passing of an Act of Attainder (if appropriate) shall take no more than a fortnight. This shall constitute fast and efficient justice.
3.4. The Bill of Attainder shall in itself consist of:
3.4.1. Noting the receipt of the charge sheet from the Arbiter;
3.4.2. Agreement that the charge merits a trial;
3.4.3. A statement endorsing the Essay of Guilt against the accused;
3.4.4. A Tariff (punishment) commensurate with the Crime;
3.4.5. It should be further noted that non-cooperation at any stage on the part of the defendant including the submission of an Essay of Refutation that does not meet the minimum standard set forth would constitute Contempt of the Landsraad and result in the automatic levying of the maximum tariff available for the crime which the accused has been charged.
4.0. The Right of Appeal:
4.1. The decision of the Arbiter regarding the Petition for Indictment may be appealed by the Plaintiff directly to the Kaiser who may reject the appeal, instruct the Arbiter to proceed with the Petition for Indictment, or declare himself indifferent to the matter.
4.2. The decision of the Landsraad regarding the passage of the Act of Attainder may be appealed by the Defendant directly to the Kaiser who may, within five days, endorse or quash the Act of Attainder or else declare himself indifferent to the matter.
4.3. If the Kaiser declares himself indifferent to the matter it shall be left as it stands.

The Charter and the Decree Book provide sufficient scope for this, but Chapter VII of the Lawbook who probably have to be substantially altered.

[Allot]

I like the first part, but why is the Arbiter doing the job of the prosecution? Wouldn't it be better if the legislature stayed out of the judiciary?

Why not let everything that the Landsraad is supposed to do in that ammendment be given to the Arbiter?

[Aurangzeb Khan]

It's slightly in the French tradition of having prosecuting judges. I personally feel that micronational judgements are usually so feeble that the only chance you are ever likely to have of making the charges stick is if the community of the realm is involved. Besides we take pride in our distinctiveness vis-a-vis normal constitutional governments. A separation of legislative and judicial powers is not strictly necessary.