[b:lim2l5x7]Proposed Constitutional Amendment[/b:lim2l5x7]
1. Article VII as Amended by the Judiciary Act of 2006 shall be repealed and replaced with the following:
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There shall be a judiciary consisting of the number of judges (three or more) as the Representative Assembly shall determine from time to time shall be required. Judges shall be nominated by majority vote of the Scientific Council and appointed by a two-thirds vote of the Representative Assembly. Judges shall serve a term of one calendar year from appointment, and may be reappointed for subsequent terms. Judges may be impeached and removed from office upon a two-thirds vote of the Scientific Council. The Judiciary Commission and the positions of Chief Judge, Chair of the Judiciary Commission, and the Public Judiciary Scrutiny Panel are hereby abolished.
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2. References to the Judiciary Commission, Chair of the Judiciary Commission and Chief Judge of Common Jurisdiction shall be deleted from Article I, Section 7 (Powers of the Representative Assembly), Article II, Section 4 (Powers of the Artisanal Collective) and Article III, Section 8 (Powers of the Scientific Council).
[b:lim2l5x7]Proposed Legislation:[/b:lim2l5x7]
1. There shall be five (5) Judges of Common Jurisdiction, to be nominated from among citizens of the CDS by the Scientific Council pursuant to procedures that the Scientific Council deems appropriate. Each judge shall serve a term of one calendar year from the date of confirmation by the Representative Assembly. The prior appointment of Judge Ashcroft Burnham shall be deemed to continue and be effective upon the date of passage of this Act.
2. A quorum of at least three Judges of Common Jurisdiction may elect one of their number to serve a term of one legislative term as Administrative Judge, who shall have the responsibility:
(a) subject to any duly ratified Act of the Representative Assembly, and the exercise of any authority delegated thereby, and subject to any contrary proclamation of the Chancellor, to commission and, once commissioned, maintain and administer as many court-houses as the chair shall deem appropriate, for the purposes of holding trials and other judicial hearings, and any other purposes as the Administrative Judge shall deem appropriate, provided always that neither the Representative Assembly or the Chancellor shall prohibit the commissioning, construction, maintenance and continued existence and use of at least one court-house;
(b)to expend any monies held by the Judiciary for any purposes connected with the discharge of any of the functions of the Judiciary;
(c) to publicise, both within the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, and elsewhere, the judicial system of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, or publicise the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (or any geographic subset thereof) by publicising its judicial system;
(d) to provide, and oversee the provision by others of, education concerning the law and legal system of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, and to issue, or regulate the issue of, qualifications in respect thereof;
(e) to provide advice to other governments and similar institutions in SecondLife and other such virtual worlds concerning the establishment and development of judicial systems therein;
(f) to maintain and publicise a record of all judicial proceedings, precedents and other public official judicial documents, not being documents relating to judicial proceedings in the Scientific Council;
(g) to bring impeachment proceedings against any Judge of Common Jurisdiction, on the grounds only of either or both of (i) gross dereliction of duty, whether culpable or not, but, if not culpable, sustained for at least 28 days; or (ii) bias, corruption, insanity, serious breach of the Code for Judicial Ethics, or any other conduct tending to bring the judiciary of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators into serious disrepute.
3. The Judges of Common Jurisdiction shall collectively have the responsibility:
(a) to draft and propose for adoption by the Representative Assembly a Code of Judicial Ethics, by which all Judges of Common Jurisdiction must abide;
(b) to propose for adoption by the Representative Assembly the procedures by which the Code of Judicial Ethics may be enforced;
(c) to draft and propose for adoption by the Representative Assembly procedures for discharging any of their powers.
4. Each case shall be assigned by random draw by the Administrative Judge to one of the Judges of Common Jurisdiction. In the event of an appeal, a panel of three judges shall be selected by random draw from among the Judges of Common Jurisdiction (other than the judge to who the case was initially assigned.
5. Only Judges of Common Jurisdiction shall preside over proceedings in any trial or other hearing, or deliver any judgment as to the law in any Court of Common Jurisdiction, or otherwise exercise any of the powers of any Court of Common Jurisdiction, save for those powers exercisable by juries, and any power, not exercised during the course of a trial or other hearing, deemed by any Judge of Common Jurisdiction to be administrative in nature, providing always that any party to such proceedings may appeal to a Judge of Common Jurisdiction from any such administrative decision.
6. Only Judges of Common Jurisdiction or juries empanelled in accordance with law shall deliver any judgment or verdict as to any question of fact in any trial or hearing in any Court of Common Jurisdiction.
7. A person who is a party to any proceedings before any Court of Common Jurisdiction shall not preside over those proceedings as judge or juror, or over any part thereof, or deliver any judgment or verdict in respect of those proceedings.
8. Subject to any powers of the Scientific Council when sitting as a court expressly stated in the text of this Constitution, Courts of Common Jurisdiction, and only Courts of Common Jurisdiction, shall have the power when giving judgment on a disputed matter between two or more parties (who must be residents of SecondLife or bodies corporate, including states, recognised as such by the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, but who need not be citizens of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators): –
(a) to make binding determinations of the rights, duties, powers, privileges, immunities, liabilities and disabilities of any or all such parties according to the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators;
(b) to make binding determinations of any facts in dispute between any or all such parties, provided that making such determinations are necessary in order to make such a determination as mentioned in paragraph (a) above, or (c) below;
(c) subject to either (i) a party formally accepting, or (ii) a court finding as a fact at a trial held in accordance with law that a party's conduct is culpable, to impose upon that party in respect of that conduct any penalty, including, but not limited to, banishment from any or all territory of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, either permanently or for such shorter period as shall be specified by the court, and forfeiture of any SecondLife asset (including debts and other such duties owed thereto), either immediately or suspended on such conditions as the court may prescribe;
(d) to make any non-penal orders such as to give effect to the rights, duties, powers, privileges, immunities, liabilities and disabilities of any party according to the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, including any law relating to judicial procedure, or any other person or body on behalf of whom any party makes any claim, or to give effect to any penalty imposed by any Court of Common Jurisdiction in accordance with paragraph (c) above; and
(e) to order that any person be removed from the court-house at which any trial or any other hearing is being held, or, if he or she refuses so to be removed, banished from the Confederation of Democratic Simulators for the duration of that trial or other hearing (and for up to one hour thereafter) on the ground that that person is disrupting court proceedings, improperly interfering with the administration of justice, or attempting to do so.
9. All trials and other hearings in any Court of Common Jurisdiction shall be held in public, and, subject to section 8(e) above and 10 below, any person (whether or not a citizen of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators) shall be entitled to observe the entirety of such proceedings, a full transcript of which shall be made available to the public at large in perpetuity and without charge.
10. Section 9 above is subject to any rule of law whereby a person who is to be a witness in any judicial proceedings may be excluded from those proceedings, and prohibited from receiving information about the course of those proceedings, until he or she has completed giving her or his evidence, provided always that, at the conclusion of the proceedings, any such person shall have the opportunity to access a full transcript of the whole of the proceedings.
11. When making any binding determination of the rights, duties, powers, privileges, immunities, liabilities and disabilities according to the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators of any parties in any proceedings in any Court of Common Jurisdiction, Judges of Common Jurisdiction shall be bound by the following sources of law, each item in the following list taking precedence over each subsequent item: –
(a) the Constitution (as interpreted by any judgment of the Scientific Council sitting as a court, or of the Scientific Council in any capacity before the passing of the Judiciary Act that sets a precedent);
(b) any duly ratified Act of the Representative Assembly;
(c) any regulations made under any powers delegated, whether directly or indirectly, by any duly ratified Act of the Representative Assembly;
(d) any judgment of the Scientific Council sitting as a court (or of the Scientific Council in any capacity before the passing of the Judiciary Act) that establishes a precedent;
(e) any judgment of any panel of three Judges that establishes a precedent;
(f) any judgment of any Court of Common Jurisdiction of equal superiority that establishes a precedent; and
(g) any directions or rules issued under Section 3 (c) above,
and where a judgment of the Scientific Council sitting as a court, or any Court of Common Jurisdiction, establishes a precedent as to whether any regulations of the sort mentioned in paragraph (c) above are made in accordance with, or conflict with, any duly ratified Act of the Representative Assembly, that shall take precedence over any contrary regulations.
12. A judgment establishes a precedent where, in order to determine the outcome of the proceedings in respect of which the judgment, or any part thereof, was given the judge or judges who determined such an outcome (and, if, where more than one judge so determines, they disagree, a simple majority of them) reach any conclusion or conclusions regarding the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, that conclusion, and the reasoning used in reaching that conclusion, being the precedent set thereby.
13. A Judge of Common Jurisdiction, when delivering any judgment in any proceedings, or part thereof, in any Court of Common Jurisdiction, shall be bound to conclude that any duly ratified Act of the Representative Assembly is constitutional and has binding effect.
14. A party to proceedings in the Court of Common Jurisdiction may appeal the outcome of such proceedings to a 3-judge panel constituted pursuant to Section 4 above, which may allow or dismiss such an appeal in whole or in part. The decision of any 3-judge panel may be further appealed to the Scientific Council.
15. Any Resident of SecondLife, or any body corporate (including any state) recognised by the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, whether or not a citizen of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, shall be entitled to commence proceedings to resolve any dispute capable of being resolved in accordance with the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, in a Court of Common Jurisdiction.
16. Subject to any provision in this Act, Courts of Common Jurisdiction shall have inherent jurisdiction to govern their own proceedings.
17. The Court of Common Jurisdiction shall not have the power to hold any impeachment hearing, or to order that any public official who holds office in the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (whether a Judge of Common Jurisdiction, the Chancellor, a member of the Representative Assembly, a member of the Scientific Council, a member of the Artisanal Collective, or other such body, or otherwise) cease to hold or be disqualified from holding such public office, or be suspended therefrom, whether with or without pay.
18. A person may not simultaneously serve as a Judge of Common Jurisdiction and: –
(a) a member of the Representative Assembly;
(b) the Chancellor, or any person to whom the Chancellor delegates any of her or his powers; or
(c) a member of the Scientific Council.
