I know I'll be blamed from only chiming in at the most inappropriate times and remain silent for months afterwards 
Well, there is actually a good reason for that; but that's off-topic hehe
So hmm. Having the advantage of watching from a very detached position — I post little nowadays; I can hardly make it to the public RA or SC meetings; and I'm not running for any office in the CDS — I can see that this proposal fits quite nicely in what is the "CDS way of solving problems" Putting it bluntly (I'm learning with Pat and Beathan!), it looks like a personal peeve turned into legislation. Pat isn't happy with the way Soro was "sneaked in" by the SC (his words, not mine!) and so he proposes to abolish the SC. Simple! Problem solved
Now let me explain that I have nothing against Pat's assessment of the situation, and neither have I anything personal against Soro. I also think that there was some "stretching the point" in approving Soro to the SC: it was done legally to the letter of the law, but — from my detached viewpoint — not very much in the spirit of the law. And for the SC, the spirit is often more important than the letter (or so it should be) So of course I can also give my personal opinion: since back then it was clear that the RA couldn't meet for good reasons — as opposed to being lazy (after all, they have a minimum number of times they have to meet during a term!) — it would be more gentlemanly to wait for an opportunity for the RA to get a quorum (which, after all, happened shortly afterwards) instead of "pushing Soro through the door", so to speak. But Delia is also right, of course: it's not the SC's fault if the RA failed to meet in due time. In fact, making sure that the RA meets regularly is part of the SC's job.
This is how it looks from my end: a personal disagreement with a person's position is bringing an institutional disagreement, where all sorts of old arguments are thrown back and forth again in order to, well, abolish the SC. This is nothing new. In fact, in most of the cases where the discussion heated up, it tended to be all about personal disagreements. In the rare cases where personal issues were absent, most of the branches tend to get along well, change what's needed, and go ahead in peace.
First things first. There is a "joint RA/SC" committee to analyse the issue and make proposals. This is how it should be. On issues affecting the checks and balances of two bodies of Government, it makes all the sense to get together and discuss and propose something together. Dismissing the committee and do things one-sided at the RA level seems premature. In fact, it would give the SC all the power to actually veto the law which is precisely what the proposed changes are supposed to prevent (i.e. constrain the power of the SC even further).
Secondly, I very much dislike the idea of "abolish the SC first, discuss what it should look like afterwards". This is completely antagonistic to the way the check-and-balance system is supposed to work. Between the time the SC gets abolished and something new is invented, the RA has no checks and no balances (they can be vetoed by the Chancellor, yes, but they can also kick the Chancellor out for good measure for trying to intrude ): So this is a big no-no. In fact, I might point out how the Old Guild was subtly abandoned and replaced by the Executive: all things were in place when the Old Guild was disbanded, and for years the Constitution and the Code of Laws had wording like: "all the documents referring to powers held by the Guild are to be assumed by the Executive". In fact, the Executive got far more power than what the Old Guild had. But there was no moment in time where "suddenly" there was just a two-branch government while people waited to come up with an idea on what the new Executive should be doing.
I would like to see some argument for reducing the size of the SC. I suppose that the issue is having plenty of available members to run for office on the other two branches, but I'm just speculating. One way to diminish the SC's power is to "water it down" with several experienced Professors (yes, that's how members of the SC are called...) representing opposing views, so it really takes a lot to get them agreeing on very questionable issues. That was the whole point of having a relatively large SC — but not too large to be unmanageable (thus the idea that the number of Chairs — voting members — are limited to nine). In practice, the SC never grew that much, and for long periods of its existence it had less than five members. I don't completely oppose the idea of a 3-member-SC, even though I see that the temptation of having three people with the exact mindset — and one that will not change for years — is too great. The SC is already conservative by nature and design. Restricting the number of different opinions at the SC will make it even more conservative. Unless, of course, I'm missing the whole point.
The issue about how to get new members at the SC definitely requires some rewording, because it's all been very vague... and, for many reasons, deliberately so. Originally nobody could tinker with the way the SC admitted new members. This was more than deliberate, it was a necessity, to make sure that the SC stayed away from power struggles at the RA level and remain as detached and neutral as possible. Obviously the RA could always impeach SC members, and could do so for any reason — a power they never used. Then, because of some unfortunate choices (see, always "personal issues" popping up) it was agreed that at least the RA should have some form of preventing very unpopular members to join the SC — unpopular for the RA, of course. Thus the whole "affirmation" ritual. The whole idea was to strengthen the position of a newly appointed SC member: i.e. showing that the elected representatives are fully behind a new member. This was quickly subverted into "the right of the RA to reject new SC members". From there, we went to "the right of the RA to cross-examine SC members publicly and kick them out if they 'fail' to give appropriate answers". And now comes the proposal for electing them In the mean time, any group of 5 citizens can nominate a candidate for the SC... complicating the mess still further.
If the issue is mostly disallowing SC members to get "sneaked in", well, that's easy to fix — there can be a fixed schedule for allowing SC members to be nominated and/or appointed (even though I understand there might exist some emergencies... imagine a Dean leaving SL and the SC been asked to emit an opinion on an urgent matter while having no quorum and being unable to elect a new Dean in a hurry. It's complex).
Now the argumentation for the "self-selected meritocracy" is a very ancient one, and I'm afraid I have been lazy and not be able to find the original arguments on the old LL forums... but it's there, somewhere. I remember — and please don't quote me, I've got a very poor memory — that the argument was something like that: the RA establishes legislation and effectively manages the regions on behalf of the population who elect them. Administrative, daily issues are dealt with an Executive for practical purposes. The SC is... a consulting body. Admission to them is based on merit and knowledge — this mostly means being around for a few years, having passed through several "crisis", and having the required experience to avoid them. So their role is just to watch and observe; and, upon request (which can be automatic, e.g. flagging a bill for review), try to give an objective, neutral, and unbiased opinion. Since it's impossible to be absolutely neutral and unbiased, the solution is to have a consulting body with wildly different opinions and emit a final statement after a vote. It sounded nice in theory. Actually, in practice, it's not been that bad.
The alternative to "self-selection" is, of course, election. But that means that new SC members will be "selected" based on their ability to gather votes — based on their charisma, their appeal, their number of friends — and not based on their merit, knowledge, and ability to deal with tricky and complex legal issues. Note that the RA is never "required" to "know" how to write good laws. Bad laws can always be rewritten later, by a differently elected RA. This is the core of democracy: that the law-makers are not required to be law experts, but just require the will of the people to have them as representatives. And, at the worst case scenario, they can always rely on the SC to review if a law is so poorly written that it breaks the Constitution: we certainly have had tons of cases where, thanks to the SC flagging a law or two for review, catastrophes were averted. In practice, however, the vast majority of all laws simply sail through the SC without a glitch. That's how it should be: the SC should only pay attention to the extreme cases and pretty much ignore everything else.
But how can the SC fulfil that role if they aren't knowledgeable enough to do their job? This is the problem in having two elected bodies, where knowledge is not a requirement for participation — just the popular vote. Under such a model, it's a bit unrealistic to expect that the SC will "catch" any bad mistakes the RA makes, since they are in the position to make that very same mistake on their own. Even on 2-chamber legislatures there is usually always a Constitutional Court, which is usually not elected from the general population, but has some requirements to apply for membership.
Now I realise that this is mostly a cultural thing, and if it's discussed at the RA, it means that the most popular "cultural thing" will win. So the best I can suggest is some sort of compromise: first, let the SC get nominations for candidates. These can come from three sources:
Based on that list of candidates, the SC validates the curricula of each of them. So it's pretty much like getting an interview for a job at a university (keeping in mind the old idea that the SC would be modelled after a university's senate or similar ruling body for an academic institution). The validated candidates are then voted upon, by universal suffrage (i.e. basically a yes/no vote).
Why this suggestion? Well, the SC naturally fears an over-powerful RA that selects the SC members and constantly interferes with its composition, and anyone worried about branches getting too much power should worry about a RA being able to select and appoint the people in the branch that is supposed to place checks upon that very same RA. On the other hand, the RA's constant nagging that the SC only picks their own members without supervision means that there has to be a check somewhere, so that SC members are not "sneaked in" at embarrassing moments. The citizens, in general, due to cultural bias, prefer that all branches are subject to election, so this gives them the opportunity to vote. But it keeps the SC's prerogative to decide who is qualified enough to be part of itself. It adds another level of complexity — "oh no, not another change to the voting booths!" (poor Jon!) — but perhaps it's for the best.
This model also disallows further RA/SC bickering on the SC's composition — it's the people that decide who gets in. But the candidates are screened before they're nominated, so, well, it means that the SC doesn't get any "unwanted" names. And the RA is always able to push "political" candidates to be voted upon as new members, making them happy. In fact, to be perfect, this model just has to deal with the nagging details: e.g. how often are candidates allowed to be put up to the vote, how many candidates are allowed to join per election, what happens if the SC is under quorum and desperately needs new candidates but the citizens refuse to vote upon any of the names brought forward, and so forth. In my mind, a model that is sufficiently flexible to allow 1-2 new candidates to join the SC every term from a pool of 4-5 potential names should be more than adequate. How to implement it — I leave the details for further discussion (Of course, we can make it easy: have it as part of the general elections, and in cases of emergencies, apply the rules for by-elections that we already have for the RA and the Chancellor).
Then we come to arbitration. I don't buy Pat's theory that "there is no need for arbitration". Just because there haven't been many cases requiring arbitration — and I'm aware that during Soro's term as Dean there were lots and lots of requests for arbitration that were (deliberately?) ignored — that's quite different than saying "there is no need". The Executive, of course, can decide upon issues related to Covenants — which is within their power to do so. But conflicts of interest between different citizens is another story. I'm very much against having the Executive act as the arbitration body as well, except, well, for "police duty" which doesn't require much more than checking if the Covenants are in violation. But it's a completely different story from being accused for doing X and getting a "fair trial" — by the Executive, which is a political body with its own agenda! That's completely off the limits for me. Whoever does arbitration has to be as detached and removed from the political struggles as possible. So far, only the SC fits that role. The now-forever-abolished Judiciary Branch was an alternative solution, but we've dug that can of worms very deeply and nobody wants to reopen it.
So I totally disagree with you on that, Pat. Citizens have left (sometimes returning later...) because there were no arbitration facilities in the CDS (meaning mostly that their requests for arbitration by the SC were ignored). Even bad, unprofessional arbitrators are better than none at all — and even though you claim that the SC has a "number of skills" but not conciliation skills... well... perhaps that should be part of the future list of requirements for nominees to the SC I, for one, having been often ignored in my pleas for arbitration, and knowing of a few citizens who suffered far more (and left as a result), I'm completely against having "no arbitration" facilities in the CDS.
I will (mis)quote Calli on this: the SC members pronounce their decisions not because they're nice, charming people whom we all love and adore, and expect them to do nice things on our behalf when we please them. They pronounce decisions, harsh or mild, because it's their job; which they do to the best of their abilities. Constructing an argument based on the "lack of social skills" (or whatever is implied by the sentence "The SC members have a number of skills but I don't see them as skilled conciliators"). It's also a fallacy that people can get those arbitration services "elsewhere" — we're supposed to have our own jurisdiction, right? Why should the SC or the RA or the Executive agree with an arbitration decision taken place "elsewhere", outside our jurisdiction? Of course we could outsource arbitration services from third parties, and I, for one, am not against that (I believe I even had a few concrete examples which I gave in 2007). That's another story.
Saying that, of course I have no problem with the SC moderating the forums, and I totally agree that the RA has to keep the right to impeach SC members (the Constitution even gives the RA the right not to give any reason whatsoever; all they need to do is to put the SC member(s) on an impeachment trial and prove their allegations; while the SC can only impeach RA members on constitutional grounds and none other).
I think that the right to not be subject to libel and defamation in public, and requiring another to retract their words and offer an apology, is well within the goals of having some form of arbitration. But ok, I also see your point to a degree... it can become even more mesy if done wrongly. But is it better not to have any chance to get some fair arbitration, even if badly done?
You know, I actually agree with you