Interesting that this was the only issue raised, and deeply discussed, [i:3zfmb4xz]after[/i:3zfmb4xz] the bill was passed; although Dianne raised the point that "we are making too many changes in such a short time", this was clearly stated as a personal opinion on what the pace of change should be.
In any case, I expect that the SC will discuss this issue of "apolitical" or "non-partisan" members of the Judiciary later today. In my mind it seems to be the issue that raised the most emotional discussions at this point.
There is always a tradition to fall back  a very simple mechanism that states that someone on the SC or the voting Guild members cannot run for the RA, and this mostly means that they can't be on the party's list that runs for office on the RA. Also, it means that if someone from the RA wants to move to the SC, or to a voting position in the Guild, they have to resign from the RA first.
This mechanism was never contested, although it has been slightly expanded to limit, for instance, SC members' participation in active politics (although not strictly required). My own example is a good one; I'm a member of the CSDF, although I was never listed for running for the RA, and never introduced a bill. Still, that didn't mean that I never voiced my opinion, either at the RA or at the many CSDF meetings. A counter-example is Diderot's; he was even more rigorous, as a SC member, never to affiliate with any party, and instead of debating his ideas publicly, he suggested "a new party, if someone would pick it up", as a thought experiment.
In either case, it's clear that SC members do have a political opinion, and are at least sympathisers of some factions or political interest groups. It's next to impossible to demand that they are holy angels, of immaculate spirit, and refrain to participate in any political discussion in Neufreistadt. Verily, this would even make things slightly dangerous  an SC member out of touch with the political life of Neufreistadt will hardly understand the requests and demands of the citizens. There is no "ivory tower" for the SC; they are active participants of the political life in Neufreistadt; still, that doesn't mean they're allowed to get elected for the RA while they hold an office in the SC!
Is this also a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Well, if it is, it was never mentioned in our 2 years of history in Second Life. A simple statement in the Constitution tried to separate the scope of powers. Ashcroft rightfully mentioned that people are not limited to either join parties, run for elections, or be a member of the SC; they can't simply do both things at the same time. But it is a [i:3zfmb4xz]personal choice[/i:3zfmb4xz] they have to do: either to stay in one branch or the other. There are no limitations of personal freedoms here. That would be claiming that the covenants stating an upper limit on how much land you can own inside and outside city walls is a limitation on the unalienable right of owning property. It is no limitation, as most would agree  the covenants are also "social contracts" in the sense that your right to property is checked by other citizen's rights to property, and since we have limited resources (land is not infinite), a boundary to ownership has to be established. But no "rights" are violated here.
There are naturally lots of other examples, some more forced, some so natural that we forget them on everyday usage.
Thus, in my mind, requiring that members of the Judiciary do not participate actively in other branches is [i:3zfmb4xz]not[/i:3zfmb4xz] a violation of any personal rights, but it also does not immediately follow that power is going to be abused. As so many have already posted, if we [i:3zfmb4xz]strictly forbid[/i:3zfmb4xz] people of "having opinions", all we do is pushing those opinions underground  on personal emails, on private IMs, thus, in secret, where nobody will know about them. Because simply "forbidding people to have opinions" will only force those opinions to vanish from public scrutiny  not from people's minds and hearts.
Naturally enough, the public has the right to demand a [i:3zfmb4xz]fair[/i:3zfmb4xz] Judiciary, one that is as unbiased as humanly possible. For that to happen, all it needs is a systems of checks and balances, where people file their complaints about a Judge that is blatantly (or not-so-blatantly) following his [i:3zfmb4xz]personal[/i:3zfmb4xz] (political) opinions in judging cases, instead of applying the law neutrally, fairly, and equally. But that's why there is a Panel after all  and why Judges can be removed from offices if one can prove their "favouring" some citizens at the expense of others, just because they're politically aligned towards them.
As said, in my mind, this discussion is rather superfluous. A simple statement saying "19. There shall be a Public Judicial Scrutiny Panel consisting of between three and five members (not being members of, or affiliated with, any political faction in the Confederation of Democratic Simulators), who shall be appointed by popular election" shows the reasoning behind the whole system. The Panel has no powers over the Legislative Branch  only over the Judiciary, and over the SC, as overseers and a central point for accepting complaints, and acting on those complaints. It is a popularly elected body, but not through the party system. There is a separation of powers which is clearly defined through the Judiciary Act.
Thus, the focus is much more on [i:3zfmb4xz]an elected Panel[/i:3zfmb4xz] and much less about [i:3zfmb4xz]political independence[/i:3zfmb4xz] (in the sense of personal opinions).
Also, Dianne expressed the fear that the SC was having "its power removed". In a sense, I would argue that the reverse is actually true! What happened with this act is that finally there is a clear separation of the SC as "ultimate court of appeal", the SC as Constitutional Court, and the SC as the Court of Common Jurisdiction. It was too dangerous to have all the three on the shoulders of the same people. If this Act had not been passed, the SC would have to set up its own procedures instead  creating, so to speak, "internal procedures" for setting up its own courts (since it has the constitutionally granted power to "set its own internal procedures"), but without the need of any RA Acts, which seems to me rather undemocratic, and thus my reluctance to pursue it further. It would be a judiciary totally dependent on a hermetic body, without any checks and balances from the outside.
The current model is absolutely the reverse. It emanates from the RA and is an Act, with some amendments on the Constitution. It adds so many new checks and balances that it seems to be absolutely foolproof  perhaps to the extent that, in the limit, the whole system could grind to a halt if there is too much abuse and power manipulation. It has so many small issues to address that even a "small" Judiciary will be very hard to manipulate [i:3zfmb4xz]totally[/i:3zfmb4xz] by a group of malevolent citizens trying to "game" the Judiciary by appointing corrupt judges and protect them at the RA level; nay, there are many more opportunities for the public to protest and remove a Judge from office, and it will be next to impossible to keep a travesty of justice in place. But it also re-establishes the SC as an overseeing body, with proper procedures for its primary functions on the legal system: impeachment and court of last appeal. These procedures are now much clearer, and do not interfere with the SC's other primary function: acting as a Constitutional Court. In fact, reading the Act again, it even allows Judges to sit as SC members, unless there is a conflict of interest, and it's clearly stated when this is the case. But the RA does not "lose power" to the Judiciary Branch; in fact, it can even replace the Panel in some cases, and of course it gets a new power of impeachment over any Judge or the Chair of the Judiciary Commission.
So, let's go back to the issue here. Let's imagine that Judge Dredd, our infamous and corrupt member of the Judiciary, is able to convince his party to put him in power. By bribing some members of the Panel, he is validated as a judge, then appointed by the Judiciary Comission to hold his Court. Now someone from the public gets evidence that Judge Dredd is indeed a party member (although not openly so, since all meetings of that specific party are done in secret on the Preview Grid, and communication between party members is mostly conducted on encrypted emails). The public appeals to the Panel to get this Judge removed from office; but, of course, bribery will make the Panel to shrug this off, and eventually, Judge Dredd will move a process against the citizen who raised these "charges", and bribes the Chief Judge to get a "friendly" judge to be appointed to that specific case. At this point, the citizen is scared. But he has so many options left!
[list:3zfmb4xz][*:3zfmb4xz]he can appeal to the RA, and hopefully get them to approve on a majority vote to start impeachment procedures against Judge Dredd;[/*
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[*:3zfmb4xz]if Judge Dredd has been appointed by the majority party, this will fail, so the citizen goes to the SC next, which also has the power to commence impeachment powers[/*3zfmb4xz]
[*:3zfmb4xz]if that fails because the SC is too biased (imagine: Judge Dredd could be a member of the SC, and "persuade" his fellow Chairs of the SC that this appeal is "ridiculous"), the citizen still has a choice left: he can start a popular movement to get elected to the Panel (or get a group of people to get elected to the Panel), by publicly stating how corrupt this Panel is and asking the citizens, by public vote, to get a new Panel elected, one not affiliated with Judge Dredd's party, and very likely prone to initiate investigations against Judge Dredd[/*3zfmb4xz][/list:u:3zfmb4xz]
So the worst case scenario is having to wait 6 months (one term) until the next Panel is elected!
