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Title
1. This shall be titled the Judicial Procedures Act.

Procedure
2. Judicial Procedure shall be divided up into 4 phases: Selection of Justices, Pre-Trial, Trial, and Verdict.
3. All Procedure shall begin upon the Justices being selected.
4. All cases shall be Named to the following Procedure: [Plaintiff] v. [Defendant] - ([Justices]).
5. All cases regarding the legality of laws or actions taken by the government shall name Wintreath as the Defendant, and the Monarch, or his/her designee, shall represent Wintreath.

Selection of Justices
6. Justices shall be selected according to the procedure defined within the Fundamental Laws. Should there be no procedure, then the Monarch shall select at random a Peer of the Overhusen and two Skrifa of the Underhusen to serve as Justices in a judicial panel, provided the selected person is not the Plaintiff or Defendant. The Peer shall serve as Chief Justice, and the Skrifa shall serve as Associate Justices. The Monarch is ineligible to serve on judicial panels.

7. Upon all Justices being selected, each Justice shall state that they have been informed and are able to serve within three (3) days. Should said person not respond, a new Justice must be selected. Should a Justice have a conflict of interest, they must declare such. A Justice may recuse himself/herself if said Justice is unable or unwilling to serve impartially. Upon recusal, a new Justice shall be selected from the pool of remaining people. Should there be no one to fill the space, the Justice is still to serve on the case, but they are not allowed to vote in the final decision except to break a tie.

8. This phase shall end upon all Justices being selected and the completion of the procedure above.

Pre-Trial Phase
9. Upon the start of this phase, the Plaintiff and the Defendant shall be informed of the start of the trial. The Chief Justice must create an area for the Plaintiff and the Defendant to make any pre-trial motions and to declare any changes in legal counsel.

10. During this time, either party to the Case may petition the Court for the following motions, which shall have the effects prescribed:
   (a). Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice: Dismisses the Case and bars the Plaintiff to refile the case.
   (b). Motion to Dismiss without Prejudice: Dismisses the Case, but allows the Plaintiff to refile at a later date.
   (c). Motion to Amend Complaint: The Plaintiff, upon filing, must include the changes to be applied to the Complaint. Upon acceptance, the Complaint is officially amended to include the changes.
   (d). Motion to Dismiss Defendant: If there are multiple defendants named, then either the Plaintiff or Defense may file this motion to remove one or more Defendants from the Case. There must be at least one Defendant left upon the acceptance of this motion, otherwise a Motion to Dismiss must be filed.
   (e). Motion to Dismiss Justice: Dismisses a Justice, and a new one shall be selected, if possible, following the procedure within the Selection Phase. This shall only be accepted if the Justice is revealed to have a conflict of interest that they failed to disclose.
   (f). Motion to Dismiss Evidence: Renders certain evidence inadmissible. Shall be granted if the evidence is illegally obtained, not related to the case at hand, or too personal to be classified.
   (g). Motion to Classify Evidence: Renders certain evidence classified so that it shall be only given to the Justices and the parties to the Case. This shall only be granted if said information contains Extremely Private or Personal information such as IP addresses, images of a person that are not public, personal chat logs, actual names, and anything else the justices feel should be classified. Said evidence shall be considered classified and kept from the general public and may not be declassified except through an act of the Storting with the assent of the Monarch and the involved parties.
   (h). Motion to Extend: Extends the time of this period by twelve (12) hours.

11. Acceptance of motions shall follow the voting procedure necessary for the Verdict Phase.

12. This phase shall last for at least forty-eight (48) hours from the opening of the area, provided no extensions are granted, or until both the Plaintiff and the Defendant both state they are ready, whichever comes first.

Trial Phase
13. Upon the end of the Pre-Trial phase, the Trial Phase shall begin. This phase shall occur within the same open area as the Pre-Trial phase occurred in.

14. For cases involving Criminal Acts, as defined in the Criminal Code of Laws or any other law with an act explicitly deemed criminal, the Trial Phase shall have the following order:
   (a). Plaintiff's Opening Arguments
   (b). Defense's Opening Arguments
   (c). Plaintiff's Witnesses
   (d). Cross-Examination
   (e). Defense's Witnesses
   (f). Cross-Examination
   (g). Plaintiff's Closing Arguments
   (h). Defense's Closing Arguments

15. For all other cases, the Trial Phase shall have the following order:
   (a). Plaintiff's Opening Arguments
   (b). Defense's Opening Arguments
   (c). Response by Plaintiff
   (d). Response by Defense
   (f). Plaintiff's Closing Arguments
   (g). Defense's Closing Arguments

16. Each section of the phase must last at least twelve (12) hours and no more than forty-eight (48) hours.

17. Opening Arguments shall be used for that side to present evidence and to make their arguments.

18. Witnesses shall be called en-mass and may be questioned first by the side calling and then by the other side during cross-examination. Witnesses are to be considered on the stand until the calling of the opposing witnesses.

19. Closing Arguments shall be made to close a side's case.

20. Responses shall be used in order to rebut any arguments previously made by the opposing side.

21. The following motions are to be allowed at any time in this phase:
   (a). Motion to Strike Testimony from the Record: Said testimony or answer shall not be considered during the Verdict Phase.
   (b). Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice: See Section 12(a).
   (c). Motion to Change Counsel: Allows either side to change to a new legal counsel or to remove their legal counsel and represent themselves.
   (d). Motion to Extend: Extends the time of this period by twelve (12) hours unless the time limit would be exceeded.

22. Upon the conclusion of this phase, the Justices shall go into their chambers and deliberate.

Verdict Phase
23. Upon the start of this phase, the Justices shall consider in a private area the facts of the case, any evidence or testimony given, and any Amicus Briefs filed.

24. After forty-eight (48) hours since the start of this phase or upon the agreement of the Justices, a vote between the three Justices shall begin.

25. Criminal Cases shall have the following votes:
   (a). Guilty: The Defense is guilty of the charge or is guilty of a lesser charge. If there is a lesser charge, then the vote must be: Guilty of [lesser charge].
   (b). Not Guilty: The Defense is not guilty of the charge.
   (c). Abstain: The Justice either can not decide or has previously recused themselves.

26. Non-Criminal Cases shall have the following votes:
   (a). Side with Plaintiff: The Justice sides with the Plaintiff. This may be elaborated upon by the Justice.
   (b). Side with Defense: The Justice sides with the Defense. This may be elaborated upon by the Justice.
   (c). Abstain: The Judge either can not decide or has previously recused themselves.

27. For Motions, the following votes shall be done:
   (a). Accept Motion: If in the Majority, the motion shall be accepted.
   (b). Deny Motion: If in the Majority, the motion shall be denied.
   (c). Abstain: The Justice has previously recused themselves.

28. Upon the votes being counted, if two-thirds of the Justices voted the same way, then that shall be considered the verdict. Should a criminal case be the matter at hand, the Justices shall then debate and arrive at a sentence which shall be delivered by the Chief Justice if they are in the Majority or by one of the Associate Justices if the Chief Justice is in the Minority. Guilty votes and Guilty of a Lesser Charge votes shall be counted separately. The decision of a Motion shall be delivered by the Chief Justice.

29. After forty-eight (48) hours of voting, if all Justices have cast their vote and no majority is reached, the Chief Justice must declare a mistrial, and the trial shall begin anew with new Justices. No Justice that previously served on the case will be allowed to sit on the new judicial panel.

30. The discussions of the Justices during this phase shall be classified for one (1) year after the conclusion of this phase. This may be declassified upon the assent of all Justices and the assent of the Monarch.

Legal Counsel
31. Should either the Plaintiff or Defendant have legal counsel representing them, then for the purposes of procedure, the terms "Plaintiff" and "Defendant" shall refer to the counsel of that side.

Amicus Briefs
32. Filing of Amicus Briefs by interested parties shall be done in a separate area and shall be titled: Amicus Brief - [Case Name] - [Writer(s)].

Repeal
33. The Judicial Offices Act shall be considered repealed upon the passing of this legislation.

Amendments
34. Section 4.1.2 of the Code of Criminal Laws shall be amended to read as follows:

4.1.2 Disrupting or attempting to disrupt legal proceedings as outlined in the Judicial Procedures Act.

35. Section 2.2 of the Code of Criminal Laws shall be amended to read as follows:

2.2 Trials will be carried out under the methodology outlined in any act that sets the procedure for trials within Wintreath

36. Section 7.3 shall be rendered null and void

Currently this is a draft of sorts, and it's rather rough around the edges. I was also thinking of potentially going with a Non-adversarial system like Lazarus has...

This is also what I accidentally posted. (also I noticed that procedure does not exist for the overturning of a revocation verdict...)

Edit: Added two new sections.

Edit 2: In any case if anyone wants to bring this to the UH they can...I'm still not entirely pleased with it, but it's decent enough for me now...

Edit 3: minor issue fixes (Complainant -> Plaintiff, Made Section 6 use Justices instead of Judges)

Edit 4: Fixed up some grammatical issues and clarified some stuff

Edit 5: Introduced the changes that Gerrick Proposed

Edit 6: Added a few amendments specific to the Code of Criminal Laws

There's still a lot of typos in the Act body itself but I'm liking what I see here.

Busywork, considering how infrequently the courts get used.

I fail to see the point. Do the courts not function now?

I fail to see the point. Do the courts not function now?

Its functionality is like a trap without bait or a smartphone with a badly cracked screen.

Random comparisons that make no sense. Nice.

As I said on IRC, who even knows if we'll have a Storting in a few months?

I'm on the fence about this.  While I do agree that there's really no purpose for this given the possible change to the Storting that may happen as well as the fact that we rarely use the courts anyways...I don't see an issue putting this out there and fixing the system up until the time comes that the Storting does change.  Considering we've been talking about changing the system and possibly doing away with the Storting for quite some time and things are still the same as of now...for all we know the Storting could be gone tomorrow, next month, a few months from now, or even a year or two from now (since no agreement has been reached yet).  But until things have gotten more concrete that people can agree on, we shouldn't discard storting-related improvements just yet.

Yes...if people reach that agreement and an open-assembly or another massive change is implemented in the Storting, then this essentially will become a useless act (as will many others).  But until the times comes when that "possible" change becomes a reality, we shouldn't be dismissive of acts like these that would improve upon storting-related matters just yet.  Who knows?  If the system gets fixed up, people might decide they want to keep the current system for a bit longer.

Even if the Storting is kept, no one is going to use the courts. Except Chanku.

Brutal.

I'm in Pengu's camp, though. I don't see the harm. Granted, it needs to be cleaned up first.

Chanku, read section 6. Now read section 9. Now read section 6 again. See the problem?

Thanks. I will fix the errors later as I deciedd to take an impromptu day off to relax. Sorry about that but I just realized that I kinda need it.

I guess I'm more with Laurentus...we've already done judicial reform once, and we haven't even had a case to test it out. It seems like there's better things we could be doing than debating another judicial bill...but I've gotten tired of the repetitive NS elements in general.

@Wintermoot, the issue is, the reform DIDN'T change our procedures. Our procedures have, for the most part, remained the same. Please keep in mind that just because changes were enacted doesn't mean that everything changed...in reality very little changed.

So I'm just going to come right out and call you on your bullshit. That part about the monarch not being able to serve on judicial panels is, in my mind, just another "fuck you" in your long-standing agenda against Wintermoot, in my opinion.

Not to mention how it completely breaks the Act, since unless the Chief Justice is the monarch (which he can't be with this act), he cannot do his job as laid out in section 9.

Things like those don't even belong in a procedure act. Only the actual procedure itself should come anywhere near this, not your ideology.