Claude, you're right, and I do apologise for neglecting my duties. Unfortunately, nobody in the SC has enough time to do all what is supposed to be required of it. We have been struggling for almost a year to get the position of a SC Archivist approved, and we even have a willing candidate for that role (Ranma Tardis was the last one to apply for it). But we have not even managed to write a detailed job description for that role!
Aliasi, you're obviously right as well. Nobody would go on a witch hunt if a oh-so-secret transcript would be published anywhere. It would be a matter of principle, of binding people, upon their honour, not to publish them without consent — in the same way that LL does "enforce" their ToS — and people publishing unauthorised transcripts would be just violating their good reputation by refusing to accept that request. So I hardly expect these to be worth of a judicial action. Also, doing a recitation of a notecard on the "official" meetings will be boring and completely meaningless (I might get a script to do so), but if that's what is required by the new laws, that's what the SC will do. Also, I should add that while I [i:3vsksrwu]personally[/i:3vsksrwu] have no issue about transcripts (I'm used to having my friends email me saying "but you defended a contrary position in 1993, and I have an email to prove it!", to which I always counter with "I still have the right to change my mind after 13 years"), since this is something that was agreed upon by the SC sitting in an official meeting, I will not only abide by it, but defend the SC's decision, while still complying with the law, whatever it might be. I don't have to [i:3vsksrwu]like[/i:3vsksrwu] it, though.
Ashcroft, the "powers of the SC" are so much curbed, controlled, checked, limited, overseen, commented, disregarded, ignored, publicly contested, grumbled at, protested publicly and privately, that the SC, in effect, almost hasn't any margin to do anything whatsoever of what were its [i:3vsksrwu]intended[/i:3vsksrwu] purposes — to serve as a balance of powers.
The new roles roles that are now given to the SC are basically administrative ones, mere trivial things, like, say, setting up an election booth, anonymising applications, appointing people here and there, and basically fulfilling this or that irrelevant task that is needed in every Government, but that should neither be given to an "elected" (political) body or a "administrative" body (civil service). The SC, in effect, is useful for all these tasks where an "arbiter" of some sort is needed — one that is neither elected, nor appointed/employed by the State. Naturally, if that's the citizens' will of the new roles of the SC, the SC has no other choice but to comply with that will and accept it.
But that doesn't mean that the SC has to [i:3vsksrwu]like[/i:3vsksrwu] the new roles. Consider the following argument: the SC has, through the Judiciary Act, been appointed to a lot of new roles and tasks to serve as a Court. It has been given new procedures, new forms of interaction, new positions, new obligations, and new responsibilities.
But it has not effectively [i:3vsksrwu]gained[/i:3vsksrwu] new roles! These were all [i:3vsksrwu]existing[/i:3vsksrwu] powers the SC already had — as well as formerly having the role of overseeing the whole Judiciary. [i:3vsksrwu]And[/i:3vsksrwu] interpreting the laws in any case that they were unclear. And finally, to act as an Ethical Commission that regulated alleged abuse of powers and the establishment of new regulation and legislation, by drawing from the experience, know-how, and moral integrity of its members.
All this is now in the past — all these powers have been removed, diluted, redistributed, weakened, checked, and made insignificant. So don't talk to me about having "more rigorous control and restrictions" about the powers of the SC! There is hardly anything left to control and restrict the SC, while at the same time still claiming it has a valid, autonomous, independent, and functional role in Government.
Effectively, I fear that the SC will simply be abolished, like the AC, since it has been slowly emptied of any practical purpose over time.
I'm not saying that the is "good" or "bad", or even "unnecessary". It's not for me to discuss what the citizens' will [i:3vsksrwu]is[/i:3vsksrwu]. It has been made clear, over time, that the citizens prefer and are more comfortable with a limited SC with as little (or possible none) power as possible. The SC only has to adapt to the citizens' will in that.
However, if my last act as member of the SC is expressing my opinion — so far as I can still express it without being subjected to more "controls and restrictions" — the [i:3vsksrwu]whole setup of the SC was that it is [/i:3vsksrwu]not[i:3vsksrwu] subject to these processes[/i:3vsksrwu]. Yes, the whole notion of the SC is to be "abhorrent" in the eyes of many: whereas the RA is democratically elected, the SC is a meritocracy. Where the Judiciary requires professionals in their legal areas, and strict procedures to work, the SC is an ad-hoc group that draws from ethical and moral imperatives to work, and the requirements for its members are quite different. While the admission to the decision system is regulated, complex, and bureaucratic, the SC is the place where the citizens are supposed to go when they have nobody else to listen to, and find there a friendly environment to voice their complaints, free from either political struggles or judicial bureaucracy.
This was felt, by the founders of the CDS, when it was a much smaller and less complex system, to be a [i:3vsksrwu]necessary[/i:3vsksrwu] branch of Government: the one that defends the minorities (even the minority of one) because it doesn't need to follow a majority vote to make a decision; the one that can hear the complains about the ones who don't have time or patience to go through a complex system to make their voices heard, and has enough power to intervene; the "island of sanity" that can step forward in times of need (while staying in the background, vigilant and observant, when everything is running smoothly) when everything seems to be dragged downwards into a spiral of chaos and fragmentation.
Some nations have instead a figurehead like a President or a Monarch which fulfills that role — an independent body that has little to do with governance, legislation, or bureaucracy, but that can "oil" the gears of governance when the machine gets stuck into a dead end, and point it back into the correct direction. That's why the SC was organised as it stands in the Constitution. That's why it has so strange powers and functions, and requires a different mindset than the other branches — neither a politician's mind, and much less a jurist's mind, but mostly common sense and a knack to point people towards a grander vision when they seem to be stumbling upon details and not moving ahead.
It can be argued that this role is not necessary any more, and that the original founders worried too much about these things, while in essence things go rather well today if they're left to their own devices without interference. Thus, the SC might simply be artificially fulfilling a role that actually is not necessary any more (or, one might argue, never was). It's perfectly possible that these arguments are correct; some countries, for instance, never felt the "need" of having a similar branch in Government, and are today vibrant and successful democracies.
While the description of the role of the SC is "to interpret and enforce the Constitution", I always argue that the important bit about any body or group of people is exactly [i:3vsksrwu]what kind of people[/i:3vsksrwu] there are in the group. And what the SC has is a set of members, from which is "[...] required to draw upon their individual fields of expertise to solve complex social issues." Thus, the role of the SC as an "arbitrator" of "complex social issues" was fundamental in its genesis, and for that to be possible, it was given a rather different structure from any of the other branches in Government — or the State — and this was rather consistent with its intended goals. And one of the powers granted to the SC to be able to deal with "complex social issues" was a rather strong veto — the ability to apply a conservative and moderate approach to a society that wishes for too many changes in too short a time.
The original intent of the three-branched system was to have two branches with conflicting goals (and a third one to execute these). The RA is the harbinger of change — change that comes from having the power to transform society. New citizens demand new things. Growth implies a change of structures to deal with expansion. New things become possible just because there are people, resources, money, or, in the case of SL, new technical features — and the role of the RA is to tap these people, resources and money, and employ them successfully to adapt the system to work for the citizens demanding change. The SC works as a moderator in this process — pinpointing those changes that don't lead to a successful, reachable, attainable goal, except through too radical changes, which will mean that citizens have either to "adapt or die" (ie., leave). By working in tandem, a liberal, optimistic, energetic, and resourceful RA will promote change for a better CDS, while the SC will channel that optimism, energy, and resources in a way that nobody gets hurt in the process. You might find it not so surprising that the SC has been mostly "dormant" during the past year — in fact, the RA has been so successful in its self-moderated enthusiasm, as well as working always with compromises, that the SC could only cross its collective arms and watch and rejoice at the turn of the events, which was deemed to be positive, encouraging, and, above all, successful — as our growth can only attest.
It does not mean that the SC has abandoned its role during this period — it means that the amount of compromise between the two extremes was so positive, that the SC could simply give the RA, always reasonable, a [i:3vsksrwu]carte blanche[/i:3vsksrwu] to go ahead.
But this doesn't mean that it'll always be the case. Under a [i:3vsksrwu]good[/i:3vsksrwu] RA — and we have had excellent ones so far — the role of the SC is, and always will be, secondary, to the point of total non-interference. The role of the SC becomes only important if the whole society starts to derail from the Constitution's original intents.
By effectively abolishing the ability of the SC to "draw upon their
individual fields of expertise to solve complex social issues" (which was abolished by the Judiciary Act), the whole role and purpose of the SC has become negligible — since now it lacks one fundamental set of arguments for "interpreting and enforcing the Constitution". The only arguments left are clear violations of the letter of the Constitution, but these get weaker by the day. It seems now clear that the SC will not even be able to pronounce a law to be unconstitutional — effectively, from what I understood from the spirit of the Judiciary Act, the Judiciary is now in a position not only to apply the law (as intended), but to [i:3vsksrwu]interpret[/i:3vsksrwu] it (unchecked), applying it according to a Judge's own interpretation, and establishing a precedent that will effectively be used by further legal actions as what was [i:3vsksrwu]meant[/i:3vsksrwu] by the law. Since this is the practice of common law systems, it's not a terrible situation (half a billion people in the world are used to it every day). But it violates one aspect of the whole spirit of the Constitution — that the RA, and only the RA, are the ones that establish legislation and its intended application. Under the provisions of the old Constitution before the Judiciary Act, any attempt to undermine the RA's exclusive right of establishing legislation would be deemed unconstitutional and vetoed — under the current Constitution, however, the SC has no such power (the Constitution does not state that the legislative process is exclusive to the RA [i:3vsksrwu]explicitly[/i:3vsksrwu], and any interpretation of the contrary is always implicit, since it was not written down).
Again, this is [i:3vsksrwu]not[/i:3vsksrwu] 'terrible'. The only problem at this point is that the only people who might, indeed, contest an interpretation of the law is the PJSP — which has no requirements for its members to have the knowledge and the skill be even able to understand the issues (although many of the people volunteering for the PJSP do, indeed, excel in those areas of knowledge). Of course, there is still the RA left. If a law passed by the RA is so misinterpreted that it is consistently misapplied, and the precedent used to establish [i:3vsksrwu]de facto[/i:3vsksrwu] new legislation, the RA can repeal a law and pass a new one, hopefully differently worded, to avoid further misinterpretation. Still, I don't like [i:3vsksrwu]a posteriori[/i:3vsksrwu] tweakings of a specific law, as a matter of principle. It's not something bad by itself — it happens all the time in RL countries! — but that doesn't mean I have to [i:3vsksrwu]like[/i:3vsksrwu] it. I accuse myself of being biased by civil law systems — where the legislative branch creates the laws, the judiciary applies them, and the interpretation is left to a third branch. The CDS, so far, has been a common law system where [i:3vsksrwu]only[/i:3vsksrwu] the RA did legislate — a [i:3vsksrwu]lot[/i:3vsksrwu] of discussion around that had established, if not [i:3vsksrwu]de jure[/i:3vsksrwu], at least definitely [i:3vsksrwu]de facto[/i:3vsksrwu], that [i:3vsksrwu]no other entity in the CDS, beyond the RA, has the power to change the laws[/i:3vsksrwu]. This is now the past.
All this, as said, would not be possible to approve under the [i:3vsksrwu]intended[/i:3vsksrwu] system of checks and balances provided by RA and SC working in tandem to deliver a coherent set of legislation to the citizens.
Thus, if the original role of the SC is not needed any more (as some might argue, and the best argument for it is "the citizens don't want that role to exist any more"), I would strongly recommend that the SC gets abolished soon.
Please don't misinterpret my words. Nothing of the above should be considered to criticise any aspect of either the RA or the new Judiciary. This is not necessarily a [i:3vsksrwu]worse[/i:3vsksrwu] system than before. It is, however, a [i:3vsksrwu]different[/i:3vsksrwu] system, and one that has [i:3vsksrwu]not[/i:3vsksrwu] been intended originally. Since the CDS [i:3vsksrwu]has[/i:3vsksrwu] to adapt to changes, and this means changing the system by itself, I also claim that this can't be argued to be "a bad move". It's a [i:3vsksrwu]necessary[/i:3vsksrwu] move — and again I mention that people elected the current RA because they [i:3vsksrwu]expected[/i:3vsksrwu] some of these changes, and the citizens are, at the end of the day, who decides what system they want to live under. In a sense, and risking a cliché here, this is what a democracy means — any system should be deemed to be "good" if it is a system that the citizens want to have, and take steps to implement it. It is also a [i:3vsksrwu]better[/i:3vsksrwu] system if [i:3vsksrwu]more[/i:3vsksrwu] citizens are willing to participate in the change (either actively, or at least publicly supporting it).
My doubts come only from "feeling the pulse" of some of the citizens in the street, and while everybody's opinion on the streets might be contradictory, I'm not so sure that everybody [i:3vsksrwu]agrees[/i:3vsksrwu] with this model at all. Having to rely upon social pressure to get people to "volunteer" to certain roles in the "New Government" is for me a sign that things are not so rosy and cheeky as one might argue that they are. But, as said, it is not the role of the SC any more to provide either advice, comments, suggestions, or even ideas on how to deal with the "complex social issue", since this "power" was removed from the SC. I have to rely upon myself only as a citizen to raise the question and my doubts.
In any case, if even "stronger and stricter controls on the action of the SC" are indeed called for, and implemented as new Acts, these will effectively render the SC worthless and void of purpose in our Constitution, except as a convenient placeholder to throw everything into it that doesn't fit elsewhere. If that happens, I will then resign my post as a Dean, since it's quite clear that I cannot fulfill my role and duty, when I've solemnly affirmed to "defend and uphold the Constitution", without any real powers to either defend or uphold it any more — it would be very hypocritical of me to "pretend" to fulfill a role that I've affirmed to do, without effectively having the [i:3vsksrwu]means[/i:3vsksrwu] to do so. Remember that for the [i:3vsksrwu]current[/i:3vsksrwu] members of the SC the Constitution is not simply a "set of rules" or "guidelines for a legislation" (which is a jurist's view of it) but a written document that [i:3vsksrwu]embodies the spirit of what the CDS ought to be[/i:3vsksrwu]. Defending and upholding the Constitution is far more than simply verifying if it's spelled correctly; it's defending and upholding the ideals for a democratic society that this document embodies. I've always scorned the concept that the Constitution is somehow "holy" or "written in stone" — like everything else created by humans, it should be adapted to changes — but what is important for me is the [i:3vsksrwu]ideals[/i:3vsksrwu] the Constitution establishes: a model for a democratic society. [i:3vsksrwu]That[/i:3vsksrwu] is what I affirmed to "defend and uphold", not a page on the Wiki with some spelling mistakes. Also, not surprisingly, the [i:3vsksrwu]requirements[/i:3vsksrwu] for being a member of the SC were exactly to "defend and uphold" these ideals — the Constitution with a capital C. Obviously, with these changes, a new set of requirements will need to be established to validate future members of the SC.
In conclusion, if the SC is emptied of all its original purpose and delegated to the task of being a "constitutional committee" to aid the RA in the legislative process — a very valid and important task, IMHO — I will naturally resign as Dean of the SC and offer myself to participate and help in the establishment of this constitutional committee, and work with the RA to do my best in that area instead. There have been informal talks on the streets, meetings organised by Rudy and a few others, which gave me the impression that a "constitutional committee" would actually fill a niche in the organisation of the CDS where I feel that my little spare time and my skills could be employed in more constructive ways.
