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1. This shall be titled the Case Acceptance Act by Grand Jury

Grand Jury
2. Grand Juries shall be composed of a minimum of three (3) and a maximum of ten (10) members. The majority of members of the Grand Jury, herein referred to as Jurors, must be impartial or have the ability to be impartial to the case, or cases, at hand.
3. Jurors shall be citizens, except in the case that there is not enough citizens to serve as them, in which case a citizen of a region with Wintreath formally have treaties with may sit as a Juror. This shall only be able to be done for the minority of Jurors
4. Should the Juror be unable to be impartial the Juror shall be immediately dismissed and a new one shall be selected.
5. The Grand Jury shall conduct it's meetings in private, only to be overseen by the monarch. The meetings shall be declassified and released after a period no shorter than two (2) weeks and a period not to exceed two (2) months.

Grand Jury Selection, duties, and abilities
6. The Grand Jury shall be selected by the Monarch or someone designated to select the Grand Jury. The members shall be selected at random, as long as they are not a member of the Storting or apart any of the cases presented the jury. If the Monarch, or the designated person, is unable to select enough members to meet the minimum amount then they shall select the largest amount that they are able to from Wintreath and then pool from the available regions.

7. The Grand Jury shall have the duty of hearing and either accepting or rejecting a case. The voting shall be done in private with only the final outcome being public until the deliberations are declassified according to Wintrean Law. The vote shall be done along the lines of a simple majority with the votes being Aye, Nay, or Abstain.
  7.1 Aye shall be for the acceptance of the case. The Majority being aye votes shall return a bill of acceptance and the case shall proceed to court as per the regional laws.
  7.2 Nay shall be for the rejection of the case. The Majority being nay votes shall return a bill of ignoramus and the case shall not proceed to court as per the regional laws.
  7.3 Abstain shall be neither for the acceptance and rejection of the case, but shall be the recording of the vote. If the Majority is in abstain then a Bill of Indecision shall be returned and the next formed Grand Jury shall hear the petition.

8. Grand Juries shall have the authority to compel evidence, regardless of it's state of being classified. The evidence released shall not be released until is it declassified otherwise. When it is declassified it shall be noted that it was used for the Grand Jury, and for which case it was used for. The Grand Jury shall not discuss the evidence outside of the meeting if it is classified.

Procedure for the Acceptance of Cases
9. Upon a citizen filing a petition for a court case it shall be noted by the Monarch or their designated person. The Monarch, or their designee, must form a Grand Jury within One (1) month of a petition and shall hear all sitting petitions filed prior to their formation. The Monarch or their designee may form a Grand Jury sooner if they wish, as long as no other Grand Jury is in session.
  9.1 Any Case that was voted in majority abstain shall have a one month period, from a period of one week after the bill was deferred or the end of the Grand Jury (whichever comes first), before a Grand Jury must be formed. However if a Grand Jury is formed before that they shall hear the petition.

10. After the formation of a Grand Jury the Monarch, or his designee, shall act as a moderator for the proceedings, excluding the voting. The moderator shall announce the current petition they are hearing along with the defendant and claimant. The Grand Jury may request evidence related to the case, as per section 9 and 9.1. They may also request to have the defendant and/or claimant testify before them. The defendant/defense and claimant/plaintiff may also request to put someone to testify before them, and present non-classified evidence. A period of two (2) days shall be reserved for this, however if neither the Grand Jury, defendant/defense and/or claimant/plaintiff have any testimony and/or evidence to present then the Grand Jury may proceed to vote on it.  After the voting the Grand Jury shall return either a Bill of Acceptant, a Bill of Ignoramus, or a Bill of Indecision, which shall decide if the case is accepted, rejected, or deferred.

11. A Grand Jury shall last for a maximum of three (3) weeks, or until there are no more petitions to be considered that were filed prior to their formation, whichever comes first. If there are remaining petitions after the three (3) weeks the next Grand Jury shall consider them first.

So here is a system I thought up. Basically it's a form of the US Grand Jury system incorporated into NS/Wintreath. I thought it might be interesting to look at/try. Please note that this bill is a rough draft and should be treated as such. It shall not be considered final in any form, whatsoever. I am looking for feedback/comments on this bill.

Is all this really necessary?

I don't think this is very necessary at this time.

Yeah, unnecessary.

Grand Juries are designed to review evidence to see if it is worth bringing an indictment and to to trial.

To accept a case in this form is not with how one is designed for, and is not necessary.  There are better and simpler ways to accept cases.

Useless bureaucracy at its finest...
Entirely unnecessary and defeats some of the advantages we have in NS as well as being filled with typos and loopholes while still simultaneously over covering its own ass at times...
This is exactly the kind of thing that disgusts me in the Underhusen...

Useless bureaucracy at its finest...
Entirely unnecessary and defeats some of the advantages we have in NS as well as being filled with typos and loopholes while still simultaneously over covering its own ass at times...
This is exactly the kind of thing that disgusts me in the Underhusen...

Aside from the fact that I mentioned that it is an incomplete law and that it does have errors, and thus is posted here for review and for fixing.

However it should be noted that it is only based in the Grand Jury system, in the end I ended up changing it's role to make it more flexible for NS. Further it's purpose is to allow the removal of the possibility of a case being ignored by the Storting after it is filed, as it mandates that the Grand Jury be formed within a period of time.

So then let's keep it simple and pass something that requires the Storting to respond to a case within a set timeframe.  No need for a whole new step in the process.

Whole new very long step that requires multiple people and could be exploited.

Or just create an independent judicial system that does not have members part of the other two branches of government.

A Grand JUry by definition is gathered to review a Prosecution's case to see if its enough to indict someone to trial, this is unnecessary what Chanku proposes and is bureaucratic.

Keep things simple.

So then let's keep it simple and pass something that requires the Storting to respond to a case within a set timeframe.  No need for a whole new step in the process.

True, however what if there is a LOT of cases filed (for some reason) that would not be a good idea because the Storting would have to deal with it. Plus it leads to the creation of multiple laws just to accept cases, which just adds a lot of laws that really doesn't need to be added or created.

Whole new very long step that requires multiple people and could be exploited.

The step isn't really 'long' each step is generally supposed to take only a few days at most, The only thing I fail to see is how could it be exploited.

I dont think that any Judicial Reform is really necessary at this time.

Yeah, incremental changes to the judicial system are about the only things that ever work.

Fix the system we already have, don't create a new one with just as many flaws.

With passage of the Judicial Reform Amendment Act, judicial panels are set up as soon as a case if filed, and presumably they have the authority to reject a case out of hand. There really is no need for an alternative process to accept a case.

Hm...I personally disagree with that. It leaves a lot up in the air now :| (Also this isn't necessary judicial change, as it is procedural change...the Courts still exist, this is merely for case acceptance.)

Hm...I personally disagree with that. It leaves a lot up in the air now :| (Also this isn't necessary judicial change, as it is procedural change...the Courts still exist, this is merely for case acceptance.)

As far as I can tell, the current court system hasn't even been given a fair chance yet. Lets give the current system a fair shot before we start thinking up replacements.