I would not be so certain about the usefulness of the Scientific Council any more, Aliasi. There was a very good reason for the SC to make pronouncements not on a literal interpretation of the Constitution — and a debate, at the time, about how to deal with that.
There is a good example to explain the difference (similar examples were given for weeks, if I remember correctly, and I can't recall them). Suppose that the RA approves an Act to define that the notion of harassment, in a virtual world, cannot be applied and is void of significance, thus must not be deemed a criminal act under the CDS. This Act would now argue that, since harassment is a RL concept with precise RL formulations and effects, it is already covered by the Linden Lab Community Standards, and thus citizens in the CDS should not be burdening the judiciary with it.
Constitutionally, harassment is not defined, so the SC cannot pronounce that Act as unconstitutional — since an Act by the RA has now provided with a clarification of what is meant by "harassment" and how to deal with it (or rather — [i:sf8usgnu]not[/i:sf8usgnu] deal with it), thus [i:sf8usgnu]adding[/i:sf8usgnu] to the Constitution, not changing it.
The SC would have to fall back to the UNDHR. The word "harassment" is not even mentioned there. It could be interpreted as being "invasion of personal privacy" (article 12) or "supression of well-being" (article 25) or even "violation of duties to the community" (article 29 a) ). But this is a really very vague and broad interpretation of what "protection from harassment", in the context of the UNDHR, actually means. The UNDHR assumes (correctly) that things like [i:sf8usgnu]what[/i:sf8usgnu] harassment means will be defined on national legislation, and established with a precise meaning and definition, and probably with a reference to the appropriate articles ("When the term is used in a legal sense it refers to behaviours that are found threatening or disturbing, and beyond those that are sanctioned by society", says the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment:sf8usgnu]Wikipedia[/url:sf8usgnu]).
The SC might then fall back to the LL ToS/CS: "Given the myriad capabilities of Second Life, harassment can take many forms. Communicating or behaving in a manner which is offensively coarse, intimidating or threatening, constitutes unwelcome sexual advances or requests for sexual favors, or is otherwise likely to cause annoyance or alarm is Harassment."
However, using this very forced example, one could always argue that the RA, through this Act, is not [i:sf8usgnu]removing[/i:sf8usgnu] a right that the citizen already has under the LL ToS. It is only establishing the [i:sf8usgnu]depenalisation[/i:sf8usgnu] of harassment in the CDS. A good orator would now argue that there is no need to duplicate LL's functions, but that the RA should only legislate in the case the LL ToS/CS omits crucial information (for example, how to deal with business transactions) and has no mechanisms to deal with certain offenses. Harassment is covered by both the LL ToS/CS and RL law.
Using the current definition imposed by the Judiciary Act, the SC would not be able to do anything. Strictly reading the Constitution, the RA is not approving an unconstitutional act. It is [i:sf8usgnu]not[/i:sf8usgnu] saying that harassment is allowed in the CDS; it's just saying that, henceforth, harassment will be dealt at a "higher court", ie. at the LL level or in RL courts, but never at the CDS level. This does not violate anything in our founding documents. So, we would effectively live within a virtual nation where, for a citizen to get legal protection from harassment, they would need to get it from outside the jurisdiction. Notice that no fundamental rights have been removed by this act; and a victim of alleged harassment can still appeal to LL for justice.
The point here is that a [i:sf8usgnu]literal[/i:sf8usgnu] interpretation of the founding documents allows indeed the RA to pass a similar case. One has to "hope" that the RA members have enough common sense [i:sf8usgnu]not[/i:sf8usgnu] to pass a similar act (thus, by default, currently, any victim of harassment is able to address the Judiciary, even if the Judiciary, at this stage, [i:sf8usgnu]might[/i:sf8usgnu] simply forward the case to LL — but that's a completely different story!).
The purpose of the Philosophical Branch (a much better description of the way the SC should work) was thus to prevent these clear loopholes. Before the Judiciary Act, this "unpenalisation of harassment act" would simply be vetoed on the basis of [i:sf8usgnu]unethical[/i:sf8usgnu] and [i:sf8usgnu]irresponsible[/i:sf8usgnu] behaviour — a society that refuses to establish its own rules of behaviour, specially when people are hurt and demand justice, is unacceptable, from an ethical and moral point of view. And this would be the case where the former SC would most certainly intervene, and forbid the RA to classify a deplorable action as "not worthy of attention by our Judiciary" just because they have passed the responsibility of dealing with it outside the jurisdiction. (Probably, such behaviour would even be deemed impeachable on [i:sf8usgnu]moral[/i:sf8usgnu] grounds under the former model).
The leeway given to the former Philosophical Branch in deciding complex social issues based on abstract, vague, and emotional concepts like "democracy", "freedom", "ethics", "morals", "common sense", "righteousness", "community values" and other similar, subjective things was deemed to be [i:sf8usgnu]important[/i:sf8usgnu] for a working community. In effect, one could, obviously, under the current model, sue the RA for not upholding a proper moral stance. However, this would then put the burden of interpreting and applying the law into the hands of the Judiciary — ie., if you don't like the laws because they are immoral, you'll have to sue the RA and expect the Judge to accept such a case — which, again, would need to be tried [i:sf8usgnu]not[/i:sf8usgnu] according to literal interpretations of the law (we have no law to define that the RA can only pass morally acceptable laws), but [i:sf8usgnu]subjective and personal values[/i:sf8usgnu].
Messy. The former system was much easier and clearer. The SC had the right to veto and impeach based on much more than mere letters written on paper. And, in return, the RA has an even stronger impeachment procedure — it could simply impeach any SC member [i:sf8usgnu]whatever the reason[/i:sf8usgnu]. This would mean that, in the above case, the SC could prevent an "immoral law" to be passed, but if it abused [i:sf8usgnu]that[/i:sf8usgnu] power (ie. "all laws from now on are deemed to be immoral, and pre-vetoed on the grounds that the RA members are all a bunch of morons"), the RA was free to impeach all SC members without even giving a cause for it.
I'm not saying that it was a [i:sf8usgnu]better[/i:sf8usgnu] method. I'm just saying that if this method is [i:sf8usgnu]removed[/i:sf8usgnu] — because it relied on subjective approaches to interpretation of laws, when in many cases only a subjective approach lead to fairness and moral integrity — a [i:sf8usgnu]new[/i:sf8usgnu] method will have to be devised to replace it.
I can only assume that it will be the [i:sf8usgnu]Judges[/i:sf8usgnu] that will have a leeway in stepping outside the literal interpretation of laws to decide ambiguous cases . If that's the case, it's a simple transfer of powers, from the SC to the Judges of the Common Jurisdiction. If it's not, something has been lost in the process. Was it something important? That's up to the citizens to decide.
One can always argue, "oh, but that is such an extreme case, we don't really need to worry about it now — the possibilities of it happening are so remote, that discussing them [i:sf8usgnu]now[/i:sf8usgnu] is mostly pointless". I do agree that the possibilities are so remote as to be virtually nil. However, the whole purpose of the former Philosophical Branch [i:sf8usgnu]was exactly to deal with the extreme cases[/i:sf8usgnu], the one-in-a-million cases that pop up once in a while and are deemed impossible to resolve under the existing system. That was the whole point of the existence of the SC: not to interfere in the society on a daily base, but to be called upon during extreme emergencies and exceptional cases. And, of course, if it started to call everything an emergency and abuse these extraordinary powers — it would be simply impeached, and new, more reasonable members appointed to office.
In essence, what does this mean? The old model assumed that "emergencies" would be rare, and thus the SC would, over time, have less and less "influence". On the first year of the CDS, there was indeed a lot more active participation of the SC — perhaps for the wrong reasons, but also because "almost everything seemed to be an emergency" (one might argue that it really wasn't). On the second year, however, we're more mature. It's hardly likely that the RA will pass Acts that are unconstitutional — they consider them very carefully, discuss them in-world and on forums, legislation is prepared with meticulousness, sometimes to a level of obsessiveness. This is [i:sf8usgnu]good[/i:sf8usgnu]. The RA also understands the whole principles and ideals behind the Constitution — it perfectly knows how to change it while keeping balances and checks. It is a body with high morals, a strong commitment to the community, and a high sense of duty. An example? This term, contradicting my own predictions, [i:sf8usgnu]almost all RA sessions had a quorum[/i:sf8usgnu], and the RA met at least as often as during previous sessions. If there is any proof that we're seriously entering a mature stage of our democracy, I'll point this out as the best possible example.
So, my above "extreme example" is also extremely unlikely, and as time goes by, and the Constitution keeps being changed by the very same body of people that have to work under its bounds, the RA will be less and less likely to commit any gross violation of the Constitution, deliberately or not. Thus, the issue of a constitutional violation will become less and less important over time — as it should be. In RL politics, thousands of laws get approved per day, and only a tiny handful might ever been deemed unconstitutional — and this slowly becomes the norm in the CDS as well. There will be a SC to validate the constitutionality — but, in almost all cases, this validation will be done [i:sf8usgnu]a priori[/i:sf8usgnu] (very likely in a "constitutional committee" in the near future). It's also very unlikely that any case be brought to the Court of the Scientific Council on constitutional basis — with our tiny population, most of these cases will simply never exist. Perhaps a bit at first, but after 1 or 2 cases it will be quite clear that these exceptions will be minimal in number.
So, I still argue that the current role of the SC as it stands is negligible and is better suited for a [i:sf8usgnu]different[/i:sf8usgnu] branch — the "High Court" or "Constitutional Court" or something like that. It will only have to worry about a legal document on a Wiki page and not much else. The [i:sf8usgnu]former[/i:sf8usgnu] role of "upholders and defenders of the ideals of our society" — a Philosophic Branch, in effect — seems not to make sense any more.
Of course, there is also a personal side issue to all of the above. I have neither skills, talents, or willingness to discuss trivial details in the literal correctness ("correct" in the sense of "constitutional") of a written law, so I would not qualify for the "High Court", and have absolutely no interest nor time to participate in such a branch. My qualifications for the Philosophic Branch were based on a completely different set of skills, so there is no place for me in the "High Court".
