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Title
1. This shall be titled the Judicial Offices Amendment Act

Amendments
2. Section 3.3 of the Judicial Offices Act shall be amended to read as follows:

3.3 A Court can return a NOT GUILTY, a GUILTY or a RECOMMENDATION verdict.

• NOT GUILTY - The Court finds the defendant innocent of his/her charge or specific charges, if more than one is brought.
• GUILTY - The Court finds the defendant guilty of his/her charge or specific charges, if more than one is brought. The punishments for a GUILTY verdict are to be drawn from the Code of Criminal Laws.
  
  • RECOMMENDATION - The Court finds the defendant either innocent or guilty but recommends special provisions be made that fall outside of the remit of the Code of Criminal Law. It is up to the Monarch to decide whether to implement these recommendations. A case can therefore have an INNOCENT - RECOMMENDATION verdict and a GUILTY - RECOMMENDATION verdict.

3. Section 4.1 of the Judicial Offices Act shall be amended to read as follows

4.1 When a Court is formed and a case brought before it, the case is to be named as follows:

• [CASE NUMBER][PLAINTIFF NAME]v[DEFENDANT NAME]-[CHIEF JUSTICE][DATE]

The public record kept by the court must then outline the name and charge of the defendant, the name of the Chief Justice, the name of the Plaintiff and the names of the Associate Judges. This record shall be updated to list witnesses called and by whom.

4. Section 4.2 of the Judicial Offices Act shall be amended to read as follows:

4.2 Only the Court Officials (Chief Justice and the Associate Judges), the defendant and any witness called may speak within the court and be kept on the record. Uninvolved citizens may observe the proceedings but cannot comment within the court.

5. Section 4.3 of the Judicial Offices Act shall be amended to read as follows:

4.3 During the proceedings, a Court Official who calls a witness must pose their questions at the time they summon that witness. A witness then has twenty-four hours to provide their responses to the questions put to them. At any time, a Court Official may pose a question(s) for the defendant so long as no other questions for the defendant are unanswered and so long as no witness has questions left to answer.

5. Section 4.4 of the Judicial Offices Act shall be amended to read as follows:

4.4 Once the Court feels it has enough evidence to reach a verdict, the Chief Justice must publicly announce that the Officials are withdrawing to debate their verdict. From this point on, no-one is allowed to comment within the court until the Chief Justice announces a verdict.

6. Section 4.5 of the Judicial Offices Act shall be amended to read as follows:

4.5 If the Chief Justice and his Associate Judges feel more than 3 witnesses are required per day, they may vote to raise the limit for the duration of a specific court case.

7. Section 5.1 of the Judicial Offices Act shall be amended to read as follows:

5.1 The Monarch has the Right of Recall. If after a one week period has passed since a verdict was publicly announced the Monarch wishes for a retrial, he/she may summon a new Court to hear the case again. 

8. Section 5.2 of the Judicial Offices Act shall be amended to read as follows:

5.2 A defendant, if found guilty, may Appeal his/her case after 2 weeks have passed since a verdict was announced. To do so, a defendant must file a request to Monarch allow an appeal.

This basically fixes a few things that caused the JoA to be illegal, and changes the wording on a few things. I initially introduced this into the citizen's platform[/list]

Edit 1: Changed "One Moment" to "twenty-four hours."

Edit 2: Removed a numbering error that shouldn't be in there.

1.  Using the word "moment" in Section 4.3 is confusing.  Does that mean a reply is expected immediately?  "Post" is used elsewhere in your updated language, why can't it be used here?

2.  According to Section 4.4, the court could listen to all the prosecution's evidence, but when the defendant calls a witness, they could say "CASE OVER GOODNIGHT" and the defendant wouldn't have any recourse for TWO WEEKS (5.2).  Please explain this if I'm not getting it, but that sounds pretty much unacceptable.

1.  Using the word "moment" in Section 4.3 is confusing.  Does that mean a reply is expected immediately?  "Post" is used elsewhere in your updated language, why can't it be used here?

I changed moment to twenty-four hours. Also post shouldn't be used anywhere in the revised document, as a post would mandate a forum action which is illegal due to the fundamental laws :/

2.  According to Section 4.4, the court could listen to all the prosecution's evidence, but when the defendant calls a witness, they could say "CASE OVER GOODNIGHT" and the defendant wouldn't have any recourse for TWO WEEKS (5.2).  Please explain this if I'm not getting it, but that sounds pretty much unacceptable.

It's that way in the current version as well. Further in that case they would have to get the monarch to issue a re-trial which, knowing Wintermoot, he would.

Edit: I couldn't find any instances of Post in the revision.

But why even allow it to happen in the first place?  It's a violation of due process.

I mean it's better than anything else I can think of. This allows for trials to change dynamically in length so some trials can occur shorter when needed and others longer.

Why would a trial need to be short?

There's a reason things get to the point of trial, and once there, we need to be thorough, and follow the proper procedures.

A NS trial doesn't ruin people's lives like a real one does, but it's still important.

Keep in mind this isn't really meant to change procedure all that much (besides the actual naming of the thread), it's mainly designed to fix a few issues I have found in the current version. Any changes should probably be discussed seperately.

Point taken, but since we're on this particular subject, why not fix errors and improve procedure?

Because I feel that should be handled by a different bill, and considering that none of the sessions that have convened since the debate began on how to change and fix our system have actually come to a final decision, personally I feel like it should be left out of this bill.

(I also wish to note for the record that I am not arguing for, or against, the change. Personally I think we should focus on fixing the possible legal issues and then move on)

Technically, the period was up yesterday, but apparently I'm becoming forgetful lately.

Would anyone like to make a motion to vote/extend debate/table?

Unless anyone has anything they wanna discuss, I motion to vote.

Do we have a second?

No, I motion to extend debate.

I don't want to see this tabled, but I feel it needs to fix a few things first.

Alright, so we have a motion to vote and a motion to extend debate.  Do we have a second for either motion?

Now all we need is someone to motion to table.