Proposed Constitutional Amendment: Judiciary Commisson

[Moon Adamant]

Related to the on-going discussion about Judicial System...

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[i:1i0q89j8]
A. Definition and Scope[/i:1i0q89j8]

This Judiciary Commission is an non-governmental organisation, not dependent on any branch of the CDS government.

The Judiciary Commission sets professional and ethical standards for judges and defines a code of ethics.

The Judiciary Commission will publish an up to date list of persons qualified and available to be CDS judges.

[i:1i0q89j8]
B. Professional Acknowledgement[/i:1i0q89j8]

The Judiciary Commission shall define a list of requirements for judges, and administer examinations to all applicants to insure that they meet these requirements.

The Judiciary Commission is required to hold at least one examination session in each legislature and test all candidates.

[i:1i0q89j8]C. Internal Organisation and Procedures[/i:1i0q89j8]

The Judiciary Commission has the ability to establish its own internal procedures and organisation, but is compelled to make those procedures public.

The Judiciary Commission must establish ethical standards for its members and must provide a means to insure that those standards are upheld.

After a disciplinary process the Judiciary Commission can disqualify any judge for any serious breech of ethics.

[Claude Desmoulins]

I very much like the transparency here as well as the examinations idea. It's very civil service like.

My concern is with the alleged NGO status of the Judiciary commission. Can anything created by statute truly be non-governmental? Furthermore, what if we pass this and two judiciary commissions are formed and present themselves as legitimate? The government is then faced with a conundrum of whose standards it will "bless".

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Although the idea of a medieval Iceland-like system of free-market judiciaries does amuse.

[Jon Seattle]

To some degree this proposal mirrors the US Federal Reserve system. In that case the president of the United States appoints the chair, but the organization is really independent from the government in every other way. It is required to donate any profits (which it regularly makes) back to the treasury.

As with the Fed, this arrangement allows some degree of independence while not being completely cut loose from the operation of the state.

[Moon Adamant]

[quote="Claude Desmoulins":2bztwc2f]I very much like the transparency here as well as the examinations idea. It's very civil service like.

My concern is with the alleged NGO status of the Judiciary commission. Can anything created by statute truly be non-governmental? Furthermore, what if we pass this and two judiciary commissions are formed and present themselves as legitimate? The government is then faced with a conundrum of whose standards it will "bless".[/quote:2bztwc2f]

Well, i think the issue here is that our Constitution is mute as regards corporativism (though it sets a precedent for it in what regards the Artisan Collective). In a RL society, the genesis of corporations is generally organic. In a way they are [b:2bztwc2f]there[/b:2bztwc2f] before the legislation ackowledges them, and so the legislation only says that, say, Guild of Engineers is THE organization that defines the professional and ethical standards for engineers.

This is not our case, so we need to state it somewhere. I think that to have it in Constitution is the best way, surely better than a legislative bill to the effect.

About your second issue:

IF there is a race to the JCs (lol, i do doubt there is...), then maybe you can have the JC being the federation of those that will keep an united front. That happens here with teachers' unions (one zillion of them), that are confederated - and that confed of unions is the true social partner.
I think that this is a very remote possibility, and in any case you can't limit the right to free association of professionals, obviously - but you can incentivate the discussion inside a larger org, and that benefits everyone - the org, the associations, and in a later analysis, the state and society themselves.

[Claude Desmoulins]

I certainly support free association of citizens. My question was more along the lines of, what does it mean to give an association this kind of imprimatur? Jon's Fed example helps, actually.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Moon Adamant":7g1yivqy]Related to the on-going discussion about Judicial System...

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[i:7g1yivqy]
A. Definition and Scope[/i:7g1yivqy]

This Judiciary Commission is an non-governmental organisation, not dependent on any branch of the CDS government.

The Judiciary Commission sets professional and ethical standards for judges and defines a code of ethics.

The Judiciary Commission will publish an up to date list of persons qualified and available to be CDS judges.

[i:7g1yivqy]
B. Professional Acknowledgement[/i:7g1yivqy]

The Judiciary Commission shall define a list of requirements for judges, and administer examinations to all applicants to insure that they meet these requirements.

The Judiciary Commission is required to hold at least one examination session in each legislature and test all candidates.

[i:7g1yivqy]C. Internal Organisation and Procedures[/i:7g1yivqy]

The Judiciary Commission has the ability to establish its own internal procedures and organisation, but is compelled to make those procedures public.

The Judiciary Commission must establish ethical standards for its members and must provide a means to insure that those standards are upheld.

After a disciplinary process the Judiciary Commission can disqualify any judge for any serious breech of ethics.[/quote:7g1yivqy]

I am very unclear as to what exactly is meant by much of this. First of all, it is posted as an amendment: where, exactly, in the Judiciary Bill do you propose to insert this? Some of this overlaps with existing provisions about the Judiciary Commission - what is the purpose of that? The style and structure are radically different to what I had proposed; I had written the Judiciary Bill in the style that I had, and adopted the structure that I had, for a reason. Thirdly, the last part is a substantial departure from anything that anybody has ever discussed so far, and contradicts the existing provisions on impeachment, which provide that only the Court of Scientific Council shall have the power to impeach, and that impeachment is removal or disqualification of a person from holding public office. Why do you propose a system whereby judges can be impeached [i:7g1yivqy]or[/i:7g1yivqy] removed by the JC, wheras all other public office holders can only be impeached? Fourthly, why must there be examination sessions every term if there is no need to recruit judges during that term? Fifthly, why does the system require maintaining lists of people who might in the future become judges? What would that acheive as above a system whereby applications are invited for judicial office as and when vacancies arise?

I really wish that you had discussed your intentions with me in advance so that a form of wording and detailed structure that was workable, that preserved the overall intention of what you propose here, but worked in harmony with the structure of my existing bill could have been agreed. The way that this amendment is drafted is so dissonant with the way in which the existing bill is drafted that it has the potential to cause serious ambiguities and conflicts and make the whole thing unworkable. Please contact me urgently so that I can draft, as a friendly amendment, a form of words that we both agree acheives what you want to acheive overall but in a structure that fits in with my existing bill.

[i:7g1yivqy]Edit[/i:7g1yivqy]: I would draft right now some better wording that I hope would reflect your intentions if it were not for the fact that what is written above leaves me extremely unclear as to what, exactly, your intentions [i:7g1yivqy]are[/i:7g1yivqy].

[i:7g1yivqy]Edit 2[/i:7g1yivqy]: I think that I can see where some of the confusion arises here: you are conflating the Judiciary Commission (the organisation that administers the judiciary) with a [i:7g1yivqy]board[/i:7g1yivqy] or [i:7g1yivqy]panel[/i:7g1yivqy] of the Judiciary Commission, which would, collectively, have the powers as set out above. What we need to do, in that case, is define the "Judicial Appointments and Ethics Board" as a part of the Judiciary Commission, and then determine who shall be on the board (as your amendment stands, there is no basis upon which any conflict between members of the JC about how to exercise the powers in question should be resolved). From my recollection at the meeting, you wanted what you were then calling the "Order of Judges" to comprise Judges of Common Jurisdiction. I will draft a form of words that integrates your proposals into my existing bill in a way that works and submit it as (I hope that you will agree) a friendly amendment. Incidentally, the statement, [i:7g1yivqy]"This Judiciary Commission is an non-governmental organisation, not dependent on any branch of the CDS government[/i:7g1yivqy]" is redundant, since the Judiciary Commission is already autonomous and not dependant on the government (executive/legislature). It is not, in any event, clear what that would mean in practice. I will submit a revised version of the Bill with these changes forthwith.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

I have now posted [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 1:2gk4sjeq]here[/url:2gk4sjeq] a version of this amendment, fully integrated into my existing Bill, which I hope will achieve both what Moon had hoped to achieve in this amendment, [i:2gk4sjeq]and[/i:2gk4sjeq] a clear and coherent constitutional framework, as well as one or two other benefits, too. Full discussion on the thread linked above.