[quote="Aliasi Stonebender":1m86tba1]I mean what I said. We DO have a (very simple) structure as is; you may recall we've had a hearing with it.[/quote:1m86tba1]
What I was questioning is what extra reliance you think would be placed on a legal system now.
[quote:1m86tba1]While I will concur the lack of guidelines makes it inadequate for our needs, I question the principle that the best way to fix it is to shove a system that might well do an actual nation proud, as opposed to virtual project of 30-some people that will certainly grow, but I don't see even matching the size of an [i:1m86tba1]actual[/i:1m86tba1] city anytime soon.[/quote:1m86tba1]
I deal with this below.
[quote:1m86tba1]I laugh, because I remember when we had a single person active on the SC. The SC can be as political as any other branch; the veto power guarantees it. To be fair, I think our current SC is close to a best-case scenario, being comprised of multiple people of differing beliefs on many points that can nonetheless come to an agreement when need be.
That's not me playing nice, but the honest truth. We've come a long way, and while I still don't care for the current structure, in practice I feel the current situation makes the SC bearable.[/quote:1m86tba1]
None of this is a reason to prefer appointment of the Cheif Judge of Common Jurisdiction and Chair of the Judiciary Commission to be made by the Representative Assembly.
[quote:1m86tba1]As for the balance of your post, while you do have a good line of reasoning, I believe it is flawed. In the US, even though many judges ARE political appointees, the actions of a judge when they no longer need to worry about political goals often surprise those who appointed them. Thus, I do not see the introduction of a populist element through the RA or a general vote [i:1m86tba1]in itself[/i:1m86tba1] as a threat to a judiciary that is as impartial as possible.[/quote:1m86tba1]
I phrased my arguments above very carefully to avoid that very flaw. The point is not that the fact of being a political appointment (assuming proper security of tenure, which is also important) would [i:1m86tba1]cause[/i:1m86tba1] appointees who would not otherwise be politically-motivated or pro-government to become politically motivated or pro-government, but that political office-holders would tend to exercise their powers of appointment in favour of people who are [i:1m86tba1]already[/i:1m86tba1] politically motivated in the same policy direction as the person making the appointment, or more generally pro-government.
The people appointed could be so motivated for any number of reasons: personal political ideology, personal loyalty to particular members of the current government, promise of reward or favour by the person making the appointment, naeivity, or an attitude of deference to governments in general. The point is that, faced with a choice of a number of candidates for judicial office, some of whom are more inclined to be pro-government than others, political office-holders when making the appointments would strongly tend to choose those who are most pro-government, and put that criterion above the more important criteria of legal skill and ability to be just. That, in turn, would motivate those who are pro-government to seek judicial office, and dissuade those who would not be deferential to government from so seeking. The overall effect would be that there would be a very high chance that, over time, the judiciary would become significantly biased towards government, with all of the disasterous consequences of that that I outlined above.
Balanced against that, neither you nor anybody else has provided any line of reasoning as to exactly why you claim that appointment of the first members of the judiciary by the Scientific Council, and subsequent members by those first senior members, would be any [i:1m86tba1]worse[/i:1m86tba1] than the system that you propose in terms of the only meaningful measure of how good that it is, viz. the quality of the judiciary created thereby.
[quote:1m86tba1]However, the real concern I have is your judicial structure seems lifted directly from real life with little real examination of the realities of [i:1m86tba1]our[/i:1m86tba1] situation. As fun as it is to call ourselves a virtual city, and later, with Colonia Nova, a virtual country, and as true as these are in a sense... in another sense, we are not. We are a nonprofit group organized to share the resources of what amounts to a webserver. We are in a situation where we have no sovereignty over our 'land', as it exists on the sufferance of Linden Lab. We are not a nation of millions, or even a city of thousands, but 30-something people. Even as we grow, we are unlikely to exceed the low hundreds soon, I feel. A group this size does not need a full-blown trial court system. If our aims to encourage business take off, it may grow beyond what the Scientific Council could reasonably handle, but here lies a flaw in [i:1m86tba1]both[/i:1m86tba1] our viewpoints.[/quote:1m86tba1]
Your logic here is flawed: you start by suggesting that my system is "lifted straight from real life" (it is not: it is far, far simpler than any real life legal system by more orders of magnitude than one could imagine: see my earlier post, "Defending my proposed legal system" for details), then point out how our virtual nation is different in type and smaller than any real life nation, and conclude by claiming that the system is not "needed". Not only does the fact that our community has far fewer people in it than a real country not by itself amount to a reason not to have a proper legal system, as I have designed, nor does the fact that the subject-matter is a computer simulation of streets and houses and furniture, rather than actual streets and houses and furniture, constitute by itself a reason why a legal system that shares some characteristics with the legal system of real nations is unnecessary, it does not in any event follow from the fact that something is not necessary that it is not desirable.
The point is that, for a legal system that is both effective and just, there is an irreducible minimum of complexity no matter how small the number of people involved and no matter how much less the possible subject matter of laws than a real-life nation. The system that I propose is very close to that minimum: what we have presently falls far, far below it and is wholly unworkable.
If we have a proper legislature, a proper executive (as you are hoping to become the head of) and a proper administration (as is being proposed in the Civil Service Bill), why should it not also have a proper judiciary? Why should whatever conditions suffice for having a properly constituted government with those three branches not also be sufficient conditions to have a properly constituted judiciary as well?
Furthermore, as I plan to explain in some detail shortly, a slightly revised franculates proposal, coupled with my legal system (and other tools, such as Confederation-wide ban lists) could, with a bit of luck and some real determination on our part, lead to a far faster expansion (by enfranculation) than you imagine. In order to enfranculate, however, people will need to trust us with their land, and they would have good reason not to do that if we had a half-baked judicial system to protect their rights against us (we bearly have dough as it is). Furthermore, as we grow bigger, the need for a legal system will increase exponentionally (the potential for conflict is, after all, proportionate to the number of [i:1m86tba1]relationships[/i:1m86tba1] between people, rather than the absolute number of people).
Finally, despite claiming (seemingly impliedly) that the system that I propose is somehow unsuitable, you fail to explain exactly what possible [i:1m86tba1]dis[/i:1m86tba1]advantage that there could realistically be with adopting this system over maintaining the status quo. Whilst, as I explain above, the system is most definitely necessary, even if it were not, that would not by itself make it undesirable. Given that the only realistic options that we have for the foreseeable future are the system that I propose or the status quo, how, exactly, do you contend that the latter would be superior to the former?
[quote:1m86tba1]The SC currently holds what passes for judicial power. Any establishment of a court system WOULD logically fall under their domain. [i:1m86tba1]The SC does not need to be told what to do by the RA[/i:1m86tba1], any more than the RA has any business telling the Guild how to conduct its internal affairs.
Thus, I am left with the question - while your bill does include constitutional amendments, if the selection of judges is to be left to the SC, why is this is bill as opposed to a suggestion of procedure to be adopted by the SC?[/quote:1m86tba1]
I think that I have already explained this: the bill that I propose does not leave the appointment of all judges to the Scientific Council: only the Chief Judge of Common Jurisdiction and the Chair of the Judiciary Commission are appointed by the Scientific Council, and all other judges are appointed by the Chief Judge. The principal purpose of the constitutional amendments were twofold: firstly, to create an autonomous Judiciary Commission, comprised of people with an understanding of law and a focus on administrering the day-to-day affairs of judiciary (as distinct from the Scientific Council's more general constitutional role) separate from the Scientific Council, and secondly to enshrine in the constitution important safeguards for proper judicial process, such as prohibition of punishment without law, the right to a trial in accordance with law when accused of wrongdoing, the requirement that the administration of justice be public, that banishment without trial can only be temporary, and many others.
As Gwyneth has already pointed out, without a strong and clear constitutional framework for a judicial system, any judicial system created by act of the Scientific Council alone is fragile and does not provide the necessary robustness nor constitutional safeguards, which my proposed system does.
My propsal does not involve telling the Scientific Council what to do: my proposal involves creating an entirely new and autonomous judicial branch of the government, called the Judiciary Commission, to take over some of the functions currently discharged by the Scientific Council, because such an independent, specialist, professional judiciary would administer justice more effectively than an organisation whose principle function is not the administration of justice, and whose members are not selected by experience or expertise in the practical applicaiton of law.
