summary of the Judiciary debate (very short one)

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summary of the Judiciary debate (very short one)

Post by Sleazy_Writer »

If I wanted to summarise the, erm, whatshallwecallit? -- "judiciary adventure" ;-) How would [i:2p8er45n]this[/i:2p8er45n] summary be? I hope it is factually correct and pretty unbiased too. I look forward to reading better summaries, please keep them just as short as this one! Let's keep it friendly, not criticize (except this one), but just post our own summaries -- thank you.

[quote="TOP's summary":2p8er45n]In the second half of 2006 a radically new, RL inspired and complex system for an independent Judiciary was proposed and written by Ashcroft Burnham, motivated, among other things, by having a judiciary that would be more independent and professional (RL experience). An amended version of this 'omnibus bill' was passed that October. However, people continued expressing their concerns about it, regarding things like: complexity, relation to other governmental branches, selection of judges and financial issues. A special commission was appointed to seek more public input regarding the issues with this polarizing new justice system, but, even after long, in-depth discussions, they had no consensus to report to the Representative Assembly. Finally, in December and early January 2007 the decision was made to replace complex procedures with very basic ones, repeal a large constitutional amendment and, in order to [url=http://208.101.22.58/~aliasi4/nburgwiki ... 9:2p8er45n](quote:)[/url:2p8er45n] protect citizen's rights and the balance of power, to assign the judicial powers (back) to the Scientific Council again.[/quote:2p8er45n]
PS: I respect everyone who puts a lot of effort and time in work for this CDS Projekt, but I don't think the number of hours ought to be mentioned in a summary like this.

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That's a good summary...

Post by Pelanor Eldrich »

How about mention of the voting record:

-Final bills a result of bipartisan (DPU/CSDF) negotiation
-Passed 3 times unianimously without veto
-(Amended twice to conform with constitution per SC)
-Two judges fully qualified
-Codes of Procedure struck down and replaced
-Repealed 4-1 in a 2/3rds majority vote

This is not meant as trolling or flamebait. It is a recognition that we went "all the way there and then all the way back". :) -Pel

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Post by Beathan »

Pel --

I would qualify your qualifications of the description of our judicial misadventure by pointing out that:

1. the final bills that were passed were preliminary in nature -- setting forth a broad conceptual sketch, which is still generally acceptable;

2. the project failed on the detailed and administrative provisions, which were drafted by a single person (albeit one empowered and charged to do so) and presented as a fiat;

3. it is as matter of dispute whether two additional judges were "qualified" -- the qualification procedure had been challenged and repealed before their "qualification" -- which makes their "qualification" more akin to a failed palace coup than to any legitimate form of governmental action; and

4. that the three "qualified" judges all joined the CDS for the sole purpose of being judges, rather than for the more general purpose of being citizens and members of the community first, office holders second -- as demonstrated by their departure as soon as their personal ambitions were frustrated -- making the project as implemented more akin to foreign colonization of the CDS administered by native leaders (the British Imperial model) than to genuine democratic self-rule.

Beathan

Last edited by Beathan on Tue Jun 05, 2007 1:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Bromo Ivory »

[quote="Beathan":3vsyg7st]Pel --

I would qualify your qualifications of the description of our judicial misadventure by pointing out that:

1. the final bills that were passed were preliminary in nature -- setting forth a broad conceptual sketch -- which is still generally acceptable;

2. the project failed on the detailed and administrative provisions, which were drafted by a single person and presented as a fiat;

3. it is as matter of dispute whether two judges were fully qualified -- the qualification procedure had been challenged and repealed before their "qualification" -- which makes their qualification more akin to a failed palace coup than to any legitimate form of governmental action; and

4. that the three "qualified" judges all joined the CDS for the sole purpose of being judges, rather than for the more general purpose of being citizens and members of the community first, office holders second -- as demonstrated by their departure as soon as their personal ambitions were frustrated -- making the project as implemented more akin to foreign colonization of the CDS administered by native leaders (the British Imperial model) than to genuine democratic self-rule.

Beathan[/quote:3vsyg7st]

Whew! Sounds like this was a very bruising movement and a lot of hard feelings were felt all around!

(I am kinda glad it is past us when I joined. I joined because I liked the houses and community - the democracy was an intriguing bonus!)

==
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Post by Beathan »

Bromo --

You are right. The debate was a bruising whirlwind. I joined the CDS in the middle of it -- and was swept up in it fairly quickly.

As with most democracies (especially small one -- as seen by attendance at any town council meeting), the CDS is prone to hot and rancorous debate. However, I believe that here (as elsewhere), the result of the debate is far better than what could have come but for the debate. We all just have to be ready to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and enjoy the calm before the next storm.

Beathan

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Beathan is correct

Post by Pelanor Eldrich »

Yes Beathan, I agree with what you wrote. It was a very tough and fractious debate. I'm glad it's over and I didn't mean to open old scabs. Let's move on. I think whoever writes that chapter in a book called the History of the CDS will need to be very careful. -Pel

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Post by Brian Livingston »

Here's a possible start. I'll note that this is a super rough draft, considering that I still have yet to write the last two paragraphs or add appropriate citations. Any thoughts on what I have so far though?

The history of short-lived CDS Judiciary began in the summer of 2006, when Ashcroft Burnham proposed the creation of a formal entity that would be responsible for all judicial matters within the CDS, including amongst citizens and visitors alike. This entity would feature a professional judiciary and was to espouse the ideals of impartiality and justice, accomplished through codified procedures. After several months of extensive discussions on both in world and on the CDS forums, the Judiciary Act was formally proposed to the Representative Assembly. This omnibus bill was to amend the CDS constitution to: create the judiciary; transfer many of the Scientific Council's judicial powers to the new Judiciary; and outline the initial organization of the Judiciary.

(Insert paragraph about the structure of the Judiciary)

(Insert paragraph summarizing the SC challenges, final passage, repeal)

--BL

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Post by Sleazy_Writer »

No mistakes in my paragraph? Good.

[quote="Bromo Ivory":iq8ef98j]Whew! Sounds like this was a very bruising movement[/quote:iq8ef98j]I think this subject is still a bit explosive. Like Pel says we'll have to be very cautious in this little attempt of summarizing recent history.
(Beathan .. Personally I tend to agree with what you write, but let's stay away from quotation marks if you know what I mean, in [i:iq8ef98j]this[/i:iq8ef98j] thread anyway.)

Pel, thanks for this useful list. If I had to choose two things for my short paragraph I'd probably choose the qualified/accepted judges and the 'all the way and back'.

Beathan, thanks. I thought these were especially interesting:
- final passed bills were preliminary in nature
- qualification procedures were repealed before qualification of judges
For purpose of fact finding: [i:iq8ef98j]Can you provide us with references to this information?[/i:iq8ef98j]

Brian, sounds good and unbiased, please continue :)
One thing I would have written differently: "This entity ... was to espouse the ideals of impartiality and justice, accomplished through ..."
To me this sounds like the SC's hearings don't have these ideals and that strikes me as incorrect.

One aim of my summary was to keep it very very short. I decided to pick only 4 concerns from [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 0:iq8ef98j]the list of 9 that the Special Commision published[/url:iq8ef98j]. I did that to have list of 'cons', somewhat balanced with the list of pro's (I mention 2).

[i:iq8ef98j]I you had to pick 4 or 5 of the most often mentioned concerns from [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 0:iq8ef98j]that list[/url:iq8ef98j], which ones would it be? (Justice? Moon?) Also it would be nice to hear two more (very very short) reasons in favour of the judiciary. (Justice? Moon?)[/i:iq8ef98j]

Last edited by Sleazy_Writer on Wed Jun 06, 2007 9:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Beathan »

TOP --

By the bills being preliminary in nature -- I mean that, by their own terms, they did not provide for legal proceeding procedures, or judicial qualification procedures, or lawyer regulation procedures, or judicial/legal ethics. Rather, the Judiciary Act created a Judicial Branch -- and then charged that Branch with coming up with all the practical details without which a legal system cannot operate. This makes them preliminary in nature. It also caused the problem because the process broke down over the details -- and, because the working out of the details was out of the RA's hands, the only option was for the RA to take a new and hard look at the Act.

By the additional judges (Oni and Ben Noble) not being qualified, I may be wrong, but I recall that their applications were not considered and determined to be adequate until after the RA had stayed implementation of the Judiciary Act and instituted the Special Commission to study it. Because Judicial Qualification is an action under the Act, it should have been stayed. As I recall, the Act was stayed, and the Special Commission constituted, in the first week of December of last year. In the third week of December, Ash announced that he deemed two judicial condidates to be qualified. On January 1, Gwyn announced that the candidates were qualified by the SC and announced their names (for the first time). On January 6, the Commission's plurality recommendation was implemented and the Judiciary Act was repealed in substantial part.

Beathan

Last edited by Beathan on Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: That's a good summary...

Post by Aliasi Stonebender »

[quote="Pelanor Eldrich":2qbr4xcu]How about mention of the voting record:

-Final bills a result of bipartisan (DPU/CSDF) negotiation
-Passed 3 times unianimously without veto[/quote:2qbr4xcu]

For the record, it's the only bill passed so far I thought very hard about vetoing, but at the time, the Executive was a young position and I had no wish to endanger it's possible existence by vetoing an unanimous bill.

At this late date, perhaps that was a mistake.

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Re: That's a good summary...

Post by Jon Seattle »

[quote="Pelanor Eldrich":2e4efio6]
-Final bills a result of bipartisan (DPU/CSDF) negotiation
[/quote:2e4efio6]
What Pel does not mention is an unwritten "gotcha" built into the law that allowed judges to make policy without the consulting the legislature. Now, it is true that courts in the Anglo-American tradition do have such power, except they do so under serious political checks. The proposed system, with lifetime judicial appointments and no appeals, lacked any such checks. When we tried to fix these problems, the supporters of the Judaical Act immediately rejected any change.

Many of us who started by supporting the bill came to understand that without a judge who could practice judicial restraint, the new system could transform our community into one where public participation would be difficult and could lead to situations where ordinary citizens would have little or no say in issues that had a direct consequences for their lives and property.

[quote="Pelanor Eldrich":2e4efio6]
-Passed 3 times unianimously without veto
[/quote:2e4efio6]
Only one bill was voted on (with various revisions), and it did not include procedures as those were to be filled in later. The RA rejected the proposed procedures when they were submitted, and the "chief judge" challenged the right of the legislature to do this. His argument consisted, in part, in attacking the legislature in this forum.

Representative government is imperfect. Because in a republic there is no guarantee that representatives fit a specific model of what constitutes professional qualifications, a republic can never impose those qualifications on legislators. I take attacking a democratically elected legislature for being "unprofessional" (in effect for not being legal experts) as a direct attack on the right of people to elect their own representatives and participate in the legislative process and review of executive and judicial actions.

I and several others in the RA were accused by supporters of the Judicial Act of political corruption, lying, and plagiarism. Because the supporters of the Judicial Act included full-time lawyers with enormous amounts of free time, serving on the RA literally took 20 or more hours of work each week (week after week) just to deal with Judicial Act business. I labored on because I felt I had a responsibility to represent the people who had elected me to office even though the experience was a nightmare. For Judicial Act supporters it was politics by defamation and intimidation.

[quote="Pelanor Eldrich":2e4efio6]
-Two judges fully qualified
[/quote:2e4efio6]
Only one judge approved by the RA, who then unilaterally declared himself chief judge.

[quote="Pelanor Eldrich":2e4efio6]
-Codes of Procedure struck down and replaced
-Repealed 4-1 in a 2/3rds majority vote
[/quote:2e4efio6]

Pel was the only member of the RA who opposed the repeal. Note that the CSDF and the DPU both started as supporters of the idea of a judiciary. The implementation was so deaf to any appeals for consensus-building that by the end there was little support in the RA.

When the Judicial Act was repealed Pel had several commercial cases pending in court and a direct financial interest in seeing it move forward. I think he always saw it as a tool for commercial development and furthering his own business interests. There probably is a good argument to be made for a Second Life commercial court, but I doubt the system as it was implemented would have any chance of success.

[quote="Pelanor Eldrich":2e4efio6]This is not meant as trolling or flamebait. It is a recognition that we went "all the way there and then all the way back". :) -Pel[/quote:2e4efio6]
I don't beleive this for a minute.

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Wow...

Post by Pelanor Eldrich »

That was something.

For the record I was the only member of the RA who supported the JA from beginning to end. I felt strongly enough about the issue to break ranks with my DPU colleagues on the vote to repeal.

My two commercial cases were not vs. citizens and therefore I could not expect to have them enforced outside of a ban of the 2 avatars in question. It would have been nice to be awarded some of the hundreds of dollars lost but that was never my intent, nor was it a remote possibility using any system of law. The intent was to test the system before it was scuttled. BTW those cases were submitted to the SC 6 months ago and nothing has happened. My 3rd case was a simple constitutional test to see (at the time) whether the Treasurer could per the existing constitution be under the Executive as a civil servant. The AC no longer exists and so that point is moot.

Benjamin Noble also passed the test for judge. I did not realize he was not approved by the RA.

Let us all agree that at the time we felt the final drafts were good legislation (we did pass it several times) but repealed it because the implementation was severely lacking on several fronts (a few I can remember):

-Ashcroft's argumentative personality
-Ashcroft's failure to compromise, take input and criticism/feedback
-The slowness of the process
-The overall complexity of the system
-The complexity and Anglo nature of the codes of procedure
-The investiture of unchecked power as implemented by the Chief Justice

Jon: I'm sorry you feel that way. I am not a lawyer and to the best of my knowledge neither defamed nor intimidated anyone. There are two sides to every story and I'm the only pro-JA citizen left to tell this particular side.

There's really no point in revisiting this subject. A history minded person has ample existing material in the forums. Instead if anything we should be planning future successes. :)

-Pel

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Post by Sleazy_Writer »

:? This thread was for [i:n8phk332]very short summaries[/i:n8phk332]. -- Thanks Jon, thanks everybody, but it seems only Brian got my point. I did [i:n8phk332]not[/i:n8phk332] really want to hear one particular side of the story, but a summary with balanced (lists of) pro's and cons whether you like that formula or not.

[quote="Pelanor Eldritch":n8phk332]There's really no point in revisiting this subject.[/quote:n8phk332]There is a point:[list:n8phk332]* I was trying to write a very short summary at a 3rd party website.
* How can interested newcomers ever makes sense of that debate without a summary?[/list:u:n8phk332]As I wrote earlier, in regard to this subject Ashcroft produced about 33% of a novel in words, and I'm sure that if you add Beathan's and other people's posts to that, you'll have an [i:n8phk332]entire novel filled with technicalities and flamebait![/i:n8phk332] How can anyone wrestle himself/herself through [i:n8phk332]that?[/i:n8phk332]

[color=blue:n8phk332]So, please, from now on: Only summaries! List your own important conclusions or grievances (preferably with hyperlinked references), as long as you balance them with a list of counter arguments, (preferably those that were mentioned often).[/color:n8phk332]

Dankeschön :)

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Ok, so my asbestos underwear are on...

Post by Pelanor Eldrich »

Sorry for offending so many and misunderstanding the others. TOP I think your initial summary is excellent. If you need to make it longer we can each try.

The "Judicial Adventure". I dunno, I think it was more like WWI trench warfare. Maybe the "First Judicial War". ;)

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Post by Benjamin Noble »

[quote="Beathan":31q4e370]Pel --

3. it is as matter of dispute whether two additional judges were "qualified" -- the qualification procedure had been challenged and repealed before their "qualification" -- which makes their "qualification" more akin to a failed palace coup than to any legitimate form of governmental action; and

4. that the three "qualified" judges all joined the CDS for the sole purpose of being judges, rather than for the more general purpose of being citizens and members of the community first, office holders second -- as demonstrated by their departure as soon as their personal ambitions were frustrated -- making the project as implemented more akin to foreign colonization of the CDS administered by native leaders (the British Imperial model) than to genuine democratic self-rule.

Beathan[/quote:31q4e370]

I rarely post, but just to keep the facts straight here, I do want to comment on this.

I was one of the people who applied to be a judge and was "qualified," albeit under a procedure that may have been repealed at the time. (I believe that's disputed? I don't know and I just can't bring myself to go back and read that thread.) Anyway, I do know I spent 5-10 hours on the application and took it extremely seriously. I thought that I [i:31q4e370]was[/i:31q4e370] approved by the RA -- I do remember getting a note from someone saying I was approved. Doesn't matter now, I suppose. But here's my story, for the record.

A couple of weeks before I applied to be a judge, Ashcroft found me (I believe this was the first time we talked) and he told me that the C.D.S. was creating a civil judiciary and needed judges. He suggested I should join and apply to be a judge based, presumably, on the fact that I had founded the Second Life Bar Association and had a pretty clear commitment to virtual law.

At the time, I was getting really fired up about virtual governance. The fact that the C.D.S. had a functioning government and might have a judiciary that needed judges is what attracted me to it initially, but I didn't join the C.D.S. [i:31q4e370]just[/i:31q4e370] to be a judge. And I certainly didn't join as part of any "palace coup." (At least not one that I meant to participate in!) I bought a big piece of land in Colonia Nova where I planned to put a nice home with a central courtyard, started talking to a C.D.S. citizen who did design work about building it for me, read all the background stuff, attended a couple of meetings, and intended to get fully involved in the community and call CN my home.

When the judiciary disappeared, it was much less attractive to me to keep an expensive plot of land in CN since I didn't see myself having a real role in the community. At the same time, I discovered that it had probably been a blessing in disguise, as the SLBA, Virtually Blind (my blog on virtual law at http://www.virtuallyblind.com) and my first-life career didn't really leave time to be a virtual arbitrator too.

That said, I seriously considered keeping it and staying in the C.D.S. anyway because I liked the build so much and liked the people I'd met during the confirmation process. In the end, I just couldn't justify the cost to myself. The only land I own now is the 512m plot the SLBA offices are on, though it looks like I may be able to turn that back into my home in the near future as we've been offered some land by a member.

Anyway, I'm not involved in any virtual governance projects in anything more than an advisory capacity now, and don't plan to be in the future. I just don't have time. I'd have made time for the C.D.S. if it had gone forward, but it didn't, and like I said, that probably worked out for the best for me, personally.

I have nothing but respect for the folks who put the C.D.S. together and who are running it now, and I wish the very best of luck to everybody involved with this project. I might even buy land again sometime if I find I need a "home" in a beautiful build enough to justify the cost!

Best regards,
Ben

[Added a few minutes after posting: I recall the approval situation more clearly now after reading another post in this thread. I was approved by the SC (it was Gwyn who sent me a note telling me that I'd been approved, I think) as my answers on the lengthy essay-test were deemed sufficient, but my appointment never went before the RA as the act it was based on was largely repealed.]

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