Do we want a Court ?

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by DeathByTheSword
the verdict is the end of the discussion. (but that in my english sorry for the misunderstanding) i believe within 2 days there can be a verdict and a court hasnt been needed because WE HAVENT STARTED YET and i hope it will never be needed but it could always be handy and no parties in a court ofcource

Well you can't just say 'no parties in the court' because as long as there are citizens, they will always be either more on one side or the other.

And correct, we dont need a court right now. And we probably wont need one....ever. If we do we can simply form it later but at the present moment there is no need for one. There aren't any disputes, and we aren't of sufficent size to merit the creation of one.

[DeathByTheSword]

yes ofcourse the people are more on one side then on the other but that life i believe that good chosen persons can be objective enough. and I would hate to have to First make an amdment for a court that has to deal with a problem that COULD arise later. that will be time cunsuming. voting for amendment then for judges and then waiting for the verdict. better put it in now as a last resort or something then leave it out tottally

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by DeathByTheSword
yes ofcourse the people are more on one side then on the other but that life i believe that good chosen persons can be objective enough. and I would hate to have to First make an amdment for a court that has to deal with a problem that COULD arise later. that will be time cunsuming. voting for amendment then for judges and then waiting for the verdict. better put it in now as a last resort or something then leave it out tottally

But why? Why go through the trouble of implementing rules for a court and nominating and electing judges.....which we may never use? I say lets do this when we need it, or at least later....Right now its the beginning of the demo game and more things to do will simply complicate and delay everything even more.

[DeathByTheSword]

have you even read what i said. IT COULD HAPPEN AND I WANT TO BE READY FOR IT AND WE COULD PUT IN THE CONSTITUTION THAT WE WILL ENACT THE COURT WHEN NEED BE SOMEWHAT OF A DORMENT COURT OK

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by DeathByTheSword
have you even read what i said. IT COULD HAPPEN AND I WANT TO BE READY FOR IT AND WE COULD PUT IN THE CONSTITUTION THAT WE WILL ENACT THE COURT WHEN NEED BE SOMEWHAT OF A DORMENT COURT OK

We should prepare for a possible situation but not while were in our infancy. Maybe put this off for a later time when the demo game is finally up and running instead of cluttering everything into the beginning.

[DeathByTheSword]

ok i want would like to see no cluttering
but i will reply for real tomorrow

[Zakharov VII]

I say 'yes' to a court, thinking it should work something like this...

Directors 1 and 2 both want to control something. As soon as they realize its #1 vs #2, each posts their view on a topic. 3 judges (could we get 5?) who come every day read it, respond, once all three have responded with their views they respond again with the final votes and reasons (with any citizen that happens to be there commenting if he/she wants, before or after the voting). Once the voting is done, whomever authority is given to (director #1 or #2) gets his/her way, and gameplay continues. It shouldn't take more than 24 hours or so, if the Court stays vigilant once it sees there's something for them to do.

Then, the people as a whole discuss whether the verdict should be entered into the Constitution to prevent another brief freeze in the game. If the people decide the Court made a wrong decision, oh well, it won't happen again on the matter, since it'll be in the Constitution then as the People want it. Most likely, however, the People will agree with the Court and it will be entered into the Constitution, with the case as precedent (a citizen can bring a motion to change the Constitution, but must give reasons and cite the Court's decision on why it shouldn't be held even after the People agree).

Make sense, I hope?

Z

[Pandemoniak]

It happened many times : several citizens discuss something and several post a poll about it : which one must be considered the correct poll ? Do we need to make a new poll to know what poll is correct ?
As well, each time we were playing like that, it took time before a citizen post a poll, the court will do it on the instant. A Court wouldnt make bureaucracy : it will simplify the constitutional progress, and it is a tool that we need especially in the first years of our constitution, when we dont know if its gonna work perfectly or not.

[Darkness' Edge]

I basically support Zakharov's suggestion. HOWEVER. I think, if we have a court, we should follow the Civ3 example. It works so well - one of the few admirable features of that game.

[Haon]

I had thought we could put Rol ePlaying into courts, depending on the Commisioner courts could be different, ex. Under Crisler the ocurts would be Christian, just a thought, of course there should also be a real court as well.

[Darkness' Edge]

nay
that's a recipe for disaster
let's only use the courts to make decisions

[DeathByTheSword]

agreeing with DE here to complex to do that and no fun

[DeathByTheSword]

how does the DGcivIII court work and i looks like it is going to happen i want to be A JUGDE. my punishement will be swifts and just i mean.........er.......that was my evil side.....but i would like to be a jugde I wrote the constitution in its current form and know it as it was a baby of mine

[- Groucho -]

I'll volunteer as a judge. I've been lurking on the SMAC dem game board for a while but haven't really found a role to my liking. I'm not a member of any political party and have no aspirations for high political office.

A couple of suggestions re the court's make-up and procedure -

Jurisdiction: Solving constitutional interpretation disputes (includes determining whether an impeachment should be put to a poll) and setting its own procedures.

Judiciary: A five member judiciary, with one chief justice and one associate chief justice.

Panels: Three member panels decide all cases except impeachment, with justices assigned to cases by the chief justice (if three justices don't show up on time, then the decision is made by whatever justice(s) happen to be online). Impeachment decisions must be made by the full panel.

Decisions: Must be rendered within 24 hours of receipt of arguments.

Procedure: Person with a beef starts a thread with subject "Petition to Court:{subject}" with their argument at least 48 hours before next turn must be played, and pms the chief justice and the other party to the dispute. Once the other party responds with their counter-argument, the court has 24 hours to produce a decision. If no counter-argument is posted, then the petitioner wins by default when there are only 24 hours left to play the next turn. (times need to be tweaked for impeachment decisions, but should work for "is an armored former/crawler a military unit?" type decisions.)

Appeals: If (i) less than three justices make a decision or (ii) a decision is made by default, then the decision stands, the game goes on, but the losing party can appeal to the court for a three member panel decision. If that decision overturns the original ruling, the panel can make whatever ruling they see fit to fix the problem (units in question gets reassigned at end of turn or whatever). Same procedures as above.

Final Appeal: A majority of the Directorate can direct the court to reconsider a decision with a full five member panel. Same procedures as above.

Standing: The Directors affected by a case have standing to make arguments (they can appoint someone if they don't have time to do it themselves, but no one can just "volunteer" to do it for them) I have no idea as to how arguments should work in an impeachment case.

How does that sound? (with edits)

[Method]

it sounds complicated.

BTW, an armoured former is NOT a military unit

[- Groucho -]

I don't think it is all that complicated (remember trying to learn how SMAC worked - now that was complicated). I just tried to deal with all the issues (appeals, defaults, etc.) now before the game started rolling and they became live issues that people actually cared about.

And maybe not armoured formers, but what about armoured crawlers? I use them as a defensive unit all the time ...

[Method]

is this just copied from civ3dg?

i know you got all the issues, but the parts about "PMing other justices 3 hours after the complaint but 48 hours before the turn is to be played" or whatever it was. i just think it could be written to be a bit more easily understood.

armoured crawlers are not military units either-they still have the -%50 defence penalty

[- Groucho -]

Nope, its not from the Civiii dg - I wrote it off the top of my head. It's a slow day at work today.

And yeah - that bit about timing has too much detail - I'll edit it down to the essentials after I post this.

As for armoured crawlers - even if they were made at the request of the Director of Peacekeepers and positioned at a chokepoint he wanted sat on? Whatever the answer is, it is a good example of why you need a court, even if impeachment is done without the involvement of the judiciary.

[- Groucho -]

One question that a prospective judge should not suggest an answer to is: who appoints the judges and how long are their terms?

Appointing can be done by a vote of the people, directly by the Commissioner (like in the US) or by the Directorate by majority vote. As for terms - they could be anything from "one month" to "for life with 66% vote of Directors to remove".

[DeathByTheSword]

for constitution questions its to complecated and takes to long. for person vs. person it will work better. but if we have a constitution despute between for example two directors we will need to do that much faster then this. without appeals. that what i think not the most democratic solution. but still it has to be done quickly (am i making any sense....just came back from training and i am beat so please excuse me if i just posted rubbisch)

[GodKing]

c3dg problem with the court is that you want good players to be on it, but that they are not allowed to do anything else for the gov't, thus you eliminate several good players from helping in other areas of the game. If you creat one I suggest you look at this issue closely.

GK (just passing though....)

[DeathByTheSword]

i think we will need CLEAR guideline for how a fast working constitutional court (that is what we are working towards arent we?) will work and we will have to poll that because if we do that we give 3-5 person A LOT of power in ,maybe never happing, constitutional cases.

I would like to ask Pande, as one of the biggest promotor, to CLEARLY and OBJECTIFLY post how he want the court to work.

if you have done allready sorry, but i dont think any of the here above posted could be put in the constitution )

[- Groucho -]

What do you mean by "constitutional" court?

(a) a court for settling disputes about the interpretation of the constitution or
(b) a court just for determining if an impeachment can go forward and nothing else, or
(c) both, or
(d) banana.

If it's a banana court, then I really want to be on it!

[DeathByTheSword]

i choose C both.

and what did i win?

I mean to say that they wont handle any person vs. person desputes but only problems with the constitution and with impeachment request ok`s........

QUESTON: DO I MAKE ANY BUT THEN REALLY ANY SENSE?

[- Groucho -]

I agree that C makes sense, but I have no idea what you mean by no "person vs. person" disputes. If the Director of Research and the Director of Peacekeeping are arguing about what some point of the constitution means then they would bring the dispute to the court, the court would decide and that would be the end of it.

But that isn't a person vs. person argument. If the court has to handle stuff like "He insulted me in the Recreation Commons" or "She won't let me use the Bioenhancement Center" then I want nothing to do with it.

[DeathByTheSword]

you are reading my mind