What is an impeachable offense?

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Publius Crabgrass
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What is an impeachable offense?

Post by Publius Crabgrass »

Or offence?

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Ashcroft Burnham
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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

All that you have to do to find out is read the constitution.

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Post by Publius Crabgrass »

Alas, not quite so straighforward.

Article VII states that judges may be impeached for "(i) gross dereliction of duty, whether culpable or not, but, if not culpable, sustained for at least 28 days; or (ii) bias, corruption, insanity, serious breach of the Code for Judicial Ethics, or any other conduct tending to bring the judiciary of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators into serious disrepute"

"Other conduct tending to bring the judiciary... into serious disrepute" is a fairly broad standard. Does shouting obscentities in the Platz qualify? How about engaging in forum postings that draw [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 0:1fst0sxj]warnings[/url:1fst0sxj] from the moderators?

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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

Only the Court of Scientific Council having heard full arguments from both parties and having fully deliberated on the facts of the individual case can answer that question definitively.

Is there a particular reason that you pose the question?

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Post by Publius Crabgrass »

The question is derived from the discussion in the [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 5:18s4mwmq]now-closed thread[/url:18s4mwmq]announcing the Simplicity party meeting, where the question was posed " is attempted election tampering still an impeachable offense?" following the hijacking of the announcement by our battle of quotations and attendant discussion of Roman history.

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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

As stated before, the constitution is the only source of law on the point. What do you think that the relevance of the discussion of Roman history is, since nobody who holds public office was engaged in any such discussion?

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Post by Beathan »

Ash --

The discussion of Roman history clearly had no purpose -- and was nontopical. The S.C. Moderator who reviewed the thread came to this conclusion. He was right.

However, my references to impeachable offenses preceded the discussion of Roman history, which only got underway when Michel took up my reference, which I made in response to the reckless tossing about of Latin phrases. My reference, in fact, directly applied to your flaming the Simplicity Party and hijacking our attempt to organize an inworld meeting in preparation for the election.

I observed then, and I again observe, that your behavior, and the follow-on pile-on behavior of your fellows in the Judiciary Faction, amounts to intentional interference with a democratic election. This is not fair debate. In the U.S., even with our extremely permissive rules on freedom of speech in the political context, the wilful hijacking of an opposing party's attempt to communicate with its members and with the general public is illegal. I again recommend that if this behavior is not yet prohibited in the C.D.S., the RA take it up and prohibit it.

Further, as has been observed on numerous occasions --- both at times when you have been warned by the moderators and when you have unsuccessfully tried to get the moderators to intervene to suppress proper and appropriate criticism of your behavior and legislation -- you have tended to cast the judiciary into disrepute. This has been observed on these forums. This has been pointed out during ingame debates about the judiciary -- and by people who are not, as you call me and my colleagues, "anti-judiciary extremists." It is widely recognized, and lamented by those people who do not oppose the Judiciary Act itself, that you have brought the entire judicial project into question by your behavior as its proposer, most single-minded defender, and only judge.

Further, I have pointed out that your strident opposition to the Rules of Justice, in which opposition you have clearly indicated that you believe that it would be impossible and foolish to attempt to apply the rules (clearly implying that you will not engage in any such attempt), amounts to a dereliction of your judicial duties. As you are not yet involved in a case, this dereliction is perhaps an anticipatory breach of these duties. However, it remains a dereliction; I think it is a culpable dereliction; and, in any case, it is fast approaching the twenty-eight day mark.

Further, I and others have pointed out multiple instances of bias -- starting with your litmus test examination for judicial office, extending through the bowing and fawning in your proposed Code of Procedure, extending to your defense of the Judiciary Act (despite its plain language) and continuing undermining of the S.C. (again, despite the continuing jurisdiction of the S.C. under the plain language of the Judiciary Act).

Finally, I think that your sanity, and that of your project, is also suspect. You indicated that you thought I had a "stone-age deity" delusion in a post that clearly revealed your own messianic fantasies. I think it is not unfair to characterize your defense of the Act as a claim that you came to SL to restore order and law, saving SL from itself and its moral corruption, starting with Neufreistadt as a private Jerusalem. If I were to hazard a truly reckless diagnosis of such delusions of grandeur and monomaniacal megalomania, I might consider the behavior as symptomatic of narcissistic personality disorder.

I see no evidence of corruption. As a possible further dereliction of duty, we have no Judicial Code of Ethics to assess other behavior against. Given the challenges to your behavior, I would consider any attempt by you to draft any such Code to be a clear instance of further bias. However, I think that any such Code, which is intended to regulate the [i:3slc818d] nonpartisan [/i:3slc818d] office of judge, would have to prohibit electioneering and election tampering -- which were the specific behaviors that prompted my speculation about impeachment in the most recent instance.

I think it is time to begin an investigation to see if impeachment is proper under these circumstances, and to begin such proceedings if the investigation reveals, as is widely suspected, that you and your behavior has brought the judiciary into disrepute as it has just begun to develop its reputation. I hope that this post will meet your standard for substantive and detailed analysis of behavior in light of the specific Constitutional language concerning impeachment.

Beathan

Last edited by Beathan on Tue Dec 26, 2006 1:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

Beathan, what was the purpose of posting this here?

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Post by Oni Jiutai »

Beathan, I'm afraid I can only suggest that you've lost all sense of proportion.

Vehemently disagreeing with somebody is not necessarily a sign of either megalomania or insanity. Or we'd all be in trouble.

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Post by Beathan »

Oni --

I agree. I also note that it is a flippant and reckless "diagnosis" by a psych.D. grad student on leave of absence, not by a properly licensed professional psychologist, and therefore not really a diagnosis at all.

However, I agree that we would all be in trouble (me most of all) if vehement disagreement were the diagnostic criterion. Fortunately, it isn't. You can read the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV -- or in the Wikipedia entry on the disorder.

That said, a person's single-minded and unswerving belief that the person's projects or pet theories are proper and sound, coupled with taking objections to those projects or theories personally, further coupled with dismissing criticism and asserting that critics are intellectually inferior, coupled with elitistic "ingrouping" and "outgrouping" behavior and a claim that only special people can understand or appropriately judge the projects or theories, coupled with claims of entitlement, especially when based on the completion of a self-imposed project, and expressions of pique when that entitlement is challenged, all make a stronger case. Further, when a person vehemently disagrees with [i:399gnpcr]everyone[/i:399gnpcr] who disagrees with him, warning bells do go off.

Beathan

Last edited by Beathan on Tue Dec 26, 2006 2:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Oni Jiutai »

Just to be clear, I hadn't intended to restrict my suggestion that you might have lost proportion to your - doubtless well intentioned - suggestion that a fellow citizen might be suffering from a mental illness.

I'm afraid, I think, we just see things very differently.

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Post by Beathan »

Oni --

I do not consider my challenge to be a well-intentioned expression of concern about a fellow citizen that is made for his benefit and from a feeling of empathy with, or sympathy toward, him. Rather, my post was intended to be a rough approximation of what articles of impeachment against Ash, as a judge, might look like. I was motivated by concern for the CDS as a community, not by any concern for Ash. Further, I consider the article concerning insanity to be, by far, the weakest and most speculative of the articles. I included it only for completeness and because insanity is a specific Constitutional basis for impeachment.

To answer Ash's question as to why I posted, I think Ash opened the door by badgering Publius to provide a context and a purpose for this thread. My post was intended to do so explicitly -- even though I think most readers already understood the context and purpose without them being made explicit.

With regard to my sense of proportion, or whether I have lost it, I am not filing this as articles of impeachment. Rather, I am answering Ash's request for a context to this thread and a substantive statement of the Constitutional issues. Nothing I have said here is new -- except for my flippant diagnosis of Ash, which is almost a "throw-away" issue.

Beathan

Last edited by Beathan on Tue Dec 26, 2006 8:18 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

[quote="Beathan":2iva8a40]Further, when a person vehemently disagrees with [i:2iva8a40]everyone[/i:2iva8a40] who disagrees with him, warning bells do go off.[/quote:2iva8a40]

If X disagrees with Y, that entails that Y disagrees with X. If you think that the logically necessary is a sign of insanity, you might want to reconsider your own mental wellbeing.

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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

[quote="Beathan":jvchswu4]With regard to my sense of proportion, or whether I have lost it, I am not filing this as articles of impeachment. Rather, I am answering Ash's request for a context to this thread and a substantive statement of the Constitutional issues. Nothing I have said here is new -- except for my flippant diagnosis of Ash, which is almost a "throw-away" issue. [/quote:jvchswu4]

Except, I didn't ask you: I asked Publius. If I ask Publius for his reason, your guess as to Publius's reason is not an answer.

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Post by Patroklus Murakami »

[quote="Beathan":28zaoc9z]I observed then, and I again observe, that your behavior, and the follow-on pile-on behavior of your fellows in the Judiciary Faction, amounts to intentional interference with a democratic election. This is not fair debate. In the U.S., even with our extremely permissive rules on freedom of speech in the political context, the wilful hijacking of an opposing party's attempt to communicate with its members and with the general public is illegal. I again recommend that if this behavior is not yet prohibited in the C.D.S., the RA take it up and prohibit it.[/quote:28zaoc9z]I agree that trying to derail another faction's thread in order to frustrate attempts to communicate and organise in advance of an election would be unfair and contrary to our way of doing things. But I don't know that this was Ash's intention in posting in the SP forums. Surely the way to deal with this would be through a Private Message to the person concerned and then a post discouraging such poor behaviour? (Rather than continuing the debate over the glory days of Rome :))

[quote:28zaoc9z]Finally, I think that your sanity, and that of your project, is also suspect. You indicated that you thought I had a "stone-age deity" delusion in a post that clearly revealed your own messianic fantasies. I think it is not unfair to characterize your defense of the Act as a claim that you came to SL to restore order and law, saving SL from itself and its moral corruption, starting with Neufreistadt as a private Jerusalem. If I were to hazard a truly reckless diagnosis of such delusions of grandeur and monomaniacal megalomania, I might consider the behavior as symptomatic of narcissistic personality disorder.[/quote:28zaoc9z]You're sailing very close to the wind here in terms of personal attacks. Could you please restrict your comments to other posters' opinions and proposals rather than attempting to analyse their motives and mental condition? Otherwise this thread is really going to go nowhere fast.

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