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In accordance with the Procedural Rules of the Underhusen, section 12, Govindia has been called to speak his thoughts on this proposed amendment to the Fundamental Laws.

This proposal is horribly implemented.

1. It's not even showing clearly in highlights (as is a legislative standard across NS legislatures) what the changes are.

2. The sections contradict themselves.  Are the cases going to the Monarch or to the Storting? 

3. It would be much better to set up an independent judiciary and an Attorney General.

4. Branches of government are supposed to be checks on each other.  It would be a clear conflict of interest if members of the executive or legislative heard civil or criminal cases involving matters they were involved in.  Under the concept of judicial review, all three branches of government should be a check on each other, with the Judicial Branch being the more scrutinising of the three, checking both the executive and legislative branch.

5. We have more active members now, so there's no excuse to not be able to find people to select as justices.  We even have one that's a former lawyer here in the region.

6. The way I see it is this, the AG is the chief attorney and prosecutor for the government, who charges people with violations of the criminal code etc., or any issues on the forum as seen fit, and represents the government in cases involving the Riksrad or Monarch.

7. Justices are selected by election, and would serve for life until they resign or they are impeached.  Once elected, the Chief Justice is selected by the three.

8. All civil / criminal cases are heard from the court, in a three judge panel for criminal cases, and a special panel for civil cases.  Final appeal goes to the Monarch.

9. People can be picked to serve as an attorney for the plaintiff/defendants in cases if need be, and a special trial room area will be made for them, and if need be a private area for attorneys and clients.  Cases are open to the public for viewing, not for comments.

I'm more than willing to elaborate further if needed. 

1. It's not even showing clearly in highlights (as is a legislative standard across NS legislatures) what the changes are.

And other RL nations use other standards. Obviously it's not much of a standard anyway if it's not done here.

2. The sections contradict themselves.  Are the cases going to the Monarch or to the Storting? 

Storting for Civil/Criminal Cases, Monarch otherwise

3. It would be much better to set up an independent judiciary and an Attorney General.

Wintermoot would never allow that. It's clear we are not going to have an independent Judiciary anytime soon.

4. Branches of government are supposed to be checks on each other.  It would be a clear conflict of interest if members of the executive or legislative heard civil or criminal cases involving matters they were involved in.  Under the concept of judicial review, all three branches of government should be a check on each other, with the Judicial Branch being the more scrutinizing of the three, checking both the executive and legislative branch.

This isn't Real life Gov. Furthermore The monarch really has no checks, thus this is somewhat false due to the fact that we aren't a republic, nor democracy, and we aren't much of a Constitutional Monarchy.


Also again the rest of the posts are on the assumption both the Winter Nomad, and The Monarch(Held by Wintermoot at this time), are going to allow this. We created the Judiciary to be an at-need setup not as an inactive, permanent branch. I doubt Wintermoot would allow that as IIRC he created the Judiciary in the FL and he was the main person whom didn't want a permanent judiciary.  The closest we will probably ever get is the Amendment Wintermoot proposed two sessions ago, which failed both that session and the session prior to this.

Furthermore, it seems that you are the only one that cares about the Judiciary enough, thus unless there is a large drive, they probably won't ever take hold. My amendment is designed to be a middle ground between our current Judiciary, and the one Wintermoot proposed, the Storting hears the cases in which it passed Statutory Laws for, but the Citizens preside over cases of Citizenship and Constitutional Laws, this also helps resolve the legal grey area that is made when a person attempts to Appeal to the Storting their loss of citizenship, when the Storting revoked it. Essentially preventing a case where there is a clear Conflict of Interest.

Storting for Civil/Criminal Cases, Monarch otherwise

There are only civil or criminal cases.  There's no third type of case as far as I'm aware.

Wintermoot would never allow that. It's clear we are not going to have an independent Judiciary anytime soon.

You don't know that, and you don't speak for him.

This isn't Real life Gov. Furthermore The monarch really has no checks, thus this is somewhat false due to the fact that we aren't a republic, nor democracy, and we aren't much of a Constitutional Monarchy.

Note how I said the executive and not the Monarch only.  I'm referring to a branch of government that enforces vs. enacts laws.

Also again the rest of the posts are on the assumption both the Winter Nomad, and The Monarch(Held by Wintermoot at this time), are going to allow this. We created the Judiciary to be an at-need setup not as an inactive, permanent branch. I doubt Wintermoot would allow that as IIRC he created the Judiciary in the FL and he was the main person whom didn't want a permanent judiciary.  The closest we will probably ever get is the Amendment Wintermoot proposed two sessions ago, which failed both that session and the session prior to this.

Furthermore, it seems that you are the only one that cares about the Judiciary enough, thus unless there is a large drive, they probably won't ever take hold. My amendment is designed to be a middle ground between our current Judiciary, and the one Wintermoot proposed, the Storting hears the cases in which it passed Statutory Laws for, but the Citizens preside over cases of Citizenship and Constitutional Laws, this also helps resolve the legal grey area that is made when a person attempts to Appeal to the Storting their loss of citizenship, when the Storting revoked it. Essentially preventing a case where there is a clear Conflict of Interest.

Back then we didn't have an active membership as we do now, and Wintreath has grown.  We have the numbers to sustain an active Judiciary.  We should at least give it a try before giving up on the idea.

Citizenship issues would fall under either a civil case, or a criminal case depending on the law violated.  There is no halfway.  Cases in the judicial system always fall under civil or criminal.  If it's not in a criminal trial, then it's always civil.

This is still a conflict of interest.  Members of the legislature should never ever serve on a judiciary.  It is a clear conflict of interest, especially if it involves laws they helped draft or policies they supported. 

Since my name has been mentioned, I'll post some thoughts about the topic in question.

It's not so much that I would be against an independent judiciary as much as I would be against a standing judiciary, where the same group of people are allowed to make arbitrary decisions with impunity. The reason that the Fundamental Laws are the way they are goes back to several incidents back in Spiritus when The Salaxalans was the Chief Justice of their Supreme Court. In one particular incident, he forbid the military from taking part in any missions after Cormac filed a politically motivated case regarding public access to military logs. It's a decision that could have harmed the region, its interests, and its allies...what if the SDF had been fighting a coup or was involved in a major operation at the time?

We tend to think of standing judiciaries as insulated from the politics of the other branches, but especially in NS it's the other way around...it's a branch insulated from the reaction to its own potential political decisions. Not only that, but standing judiciaries in NS are usually extremely inactive because there's usually few cases brought up. This was what we were thinking when we split from Spiritus and began drafting the Fundamental Laws.

The reason the the Storting was selected to hear cases is that membership wasn't just because there were fewer members back then, but because it was a branch of government that was answerable to someone...the Overhusen, to the Monarch and the Underhusen, to the Citizenry. Additionally, I wanted the law to be interpreted by people who were familiar with the region and with its laws...and who better than the people that make the laws? On paper, it meant that cases would be tried by people who were familiar with our laws, who would be accountable, and who would not just sit around with their thumbs up their asses until there was a case.

In practice, the implementation has proved to be...flawed, due to some oversights on my part. That's the reason I drafted the Administration of Justice Amendment Act, the legislation Chanku alludes to. It would have created a pool of jurors, the Lagmand Rådet, which would've been open to current and former members of the Storting pending their approval by both the Storting and the Monarch. I felt that it was still important that cases be heard by people familiar with the laws and the region, but this would have opened up the group just a bit.

It also fixed what I consider to be the biggest oversight in the current system, the fact that the Storting can choose to ignore a filed case and not consider it either way. When we drafted the Fundamental Laws, it was assumed that the Storting would at least consider all cases that were filed, even if it chose after discussion not to accept some of them, but thus far all cases have been ignored without comment. My proposed amendment required all cases to be considered by selecting the justices as soon as the case was filed and then having them consider if the case was to be accepted.

But as Chanku said, the proposed amendment first failed in the Overhusen, then was tabled in the Underhusen without vote. And here we are now...

This has been a fine episode of The History of the Wintreath judicial system.

Since my name has been mentioned, I'll post some thoughts about the topic in question.

It's not so much that I would be against an independent judiciary as much as I would be against a standing judiciary, where the same group of people are allowed to make arbitrary decisions with impunity. The reason that the Fundamental Laws are the way they are goes back to several incidents back in Spiritus when The Salaxalans was the Chief Justice of their Supreme Court. In one particular incident, he forbid the military from taking part in any missions after Cormac filed a politically motivated case regarding public access to military logs. It's a decision that could have harmed the region, its interests, and its allies...what if the SDF had been fighting a coup or was involved in a major operation at the time?

We tend to think of standing judiciaries as insulated from the politics of the other branches, but especially in NS it's the other way around...it's a branch insulated from the reaction to its own potential political decisions. Not only that, but standing judiciaries in NS are usually extremely inactive because there's usually few cases brought up. This was what we were thinking when we split from Spiritus and began drafting the Fundamental Laws.

The reason the the Storting was selected to hear cases is that membership wasn't just because there were fewer members back then, but because it was a branch of government that was answerable to someone...the Overhusen, to the Monarch and the Underhusen, to the Citizenry. Additionally, I wanted the law to be interpreted by people who were familiar with the region and with its laws...and who better than the people that make the laws? On paper, it meant that cases would be tried by people who were familiar with our laws, who would be accountable, and who would not just sit around with their thumbs up their asses until there was a case.

In practice, the implementation has proved to be...flawed, due to some oversights on my part. That's the reason I drafted the Administration of Justice Amendment Act, the legislation Chanku alludes to. It would have created a pool of jurors, the Lagmand Rådet, which would've been open to current and former members of the Storting pending their approval by both the Storting and the Monarch. I felt that it was still important that cases be heard by people familiar with the laws and the region, but this would have opened up the group just a bit.

It also fixed what I consider to be the biggest oversight in the current system, the fact that the Storting can choose to ignore a filed case and not consider it either way. When we drafted the Fundamental Laws, it was assumed that the Storting would at least consider all cases that were filed, even if it chose after discussion not to accept some of them, but thus far all cases have been ignored without comment. My proposed amendment required all cases to be considered by selecting the justices as soon as the case was filed and then having them consider if the case was to be accepted.

But as Chanku said, the proposed amendment first failed in the Overhusen, then was tabled in the Underhusen without vote. And here we are now...

This has been a fine episode of The History of the Wintreath judicial system.

Yes, well things are changing and with an active populace, this idea of an independent judiciary may work.

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I don't see how that changes anything I said.

It's not so much that I would be against an independent judiciary as much as I would be against a standing judiciary, where the same group of people are allowed to make arbitrary decisions with impunity. The reason that the Fundamental Laws are the way they are goes back to several incidents back in Spiritus when The Salaxalans was the Chief Justice of their Supreme Court. In one particular incident, he forbid the military from taking part in any missions after Cormac filed a politically motivated case regarding public access to military logs. It's a decision that could have harmed the region, its interests, and its allies...what if the SDF had been fighting a coup or was involved in a major operation at the time?

I think we do need to begin to consider the fact that this isn't Spiritus, this is Wintreath. Salaxalans is not here.

I think we do need to begin to consider the fact that this isn't Spiritus, this is Wintreath. Salaxalans is not here.

And of course there's nobody like him anywhere, especially on a political simulation game.[/sarcasm]

It's policies like this that have kept Wintreath from becoming like Spiritus.

So long as the Monarch is appointing the judge, no one like that will get power in an independent judicial system.

Yet I appointed Salaxalans to that position when I was President of Spiritus, with the approval of their Regional Assembly. While I have always tried to do my best, even my judgement can be wrong sometimes, you know. That's why it's important that we have a robust judicial system that avoids the flaws of a standing "Supreme Court" system.

I think the most important aspect of a Wintrean legal system is that it consist of a potential pool of jurors that may be called upon to hear cases instead of any particular people hearing all cases. That will prevent one person or a small group of people from enforcing their own agenda on the region through rulings. Second to that, provisions to remove potential jurors for inactivity, non-involvement in cases, or due to recall by both of the other branches of government.

Also, I think just fixing the flaw that allows cases to be completely ignored after being filed would go a long way. I'm not even sure there are major issues in our current judicial system. It may be that the Storting's tendency to ignore cases has given the perception that they aren't listened to or considered.

I think we do need to begin to consider the fact that this isn't Spiritus, this is Wintreath. Salaxalans is not here.

And of course there's nobody like him anywhere, especially on a political simulation game.[/sarcasm]

It's policies like this that have kept Wintreath from becoming like Spiritus.

Is that a real objective we need to institute in our legislation?
I mean, why don't we just focus on Wintreath'y things...?

So long as the Monarch is appointing the judge, no one like that will get power in an independent judicial system.

Agreed.  An independent judicial system is the best thing for Wintreath. 

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Is that a real objective we need to institute in our legislation?
I mean, why don't we just focus on Wintreath'y things...?

I hardly said it was 'a real objective'. I was explaining the circumstances that led to the creation of the current system and the framing of my opinion of a good NS judicial system. To ignore relevant past experience because it happened in another region would be silly, especially when those past experiences in part led to the creation of Wintreath to start with.

Is that a real objective we need to institute in our legislation?
I mean, why don't we just focus on Wintreath'y things...?

I hardly said it was 'a real objective'. I was explaining the circumstances that led to the creation of the current system and the framing of my opinion of a good NS judicial system. To ignore relevant past experience because it happened in another region would be silly, especially when those past experiences in part led to the creation of Wintreath to start with.

I understand that, I just don't think it should be harbored on. What works here will work here, what didn't work elsewhere won't necessarily NOT work here. :/