New Local Government Study Group

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

I am sorry to hear of your decision to leave the CDS after the election (though I do question the timing; are you voting in order to sabotage the CDS?).

Putting aside your criticisms of the residents of the CDS, many of whom had long believed you held us in the low regard you demonstrate above, I do think this decision is not a surprise. In your fable about the poor rebuffed accountant on Dec. 31 in another thread, you ended with this:
"The accountants, meanwhile, seeing the unfolding absurdity, all left (bar one who never really liked writing things down in advance anyway, and would much rather have to work it all out at the end, even if it made the results inaccurate), and formed a lobby group to persuade the government of the frontier land to require proper auditing. "

This was before the SC meeting in which you claimed you "realized" we are all idiots and justice can never come to the CDS.

Your decision is also contrary to your advice to others on Dec. 17, back before your supporters in the RA realized they had been had, and you didn't respect their opinions any more than you respect the unwashed masses of citizens you sought to rule:
"There is conflict, people are not going to agree, the correct solution is for everybody to defer to what the democratically-elected legislature have already decided and not to cause unending instability of the sort that is already threatening to drive people away or discourage them from joining in the first place."

I do wish you well in your efforts to start an effective and useful judicial system in SL, and hope you will take what you have learned here and use it to improve your ideas.

[Patroklus Murakami]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":yo76l14n]The mind-bending and pervasive incompetence and unprofessionalism of the CDS's present institutions was most starkly illustrated in last week's meeting of the Scientific Council, in which, not only was it revealed that the procedures approved only the previous week had not even accounted for the overwhelmingly obvious eventuality of a tied vote on whether or not to ratify a bill, it became obvious that a member of the Council (Pat) had sent an e-mail to every other member, urging them to ratify a particular bill, and not resubmit it for rewriting, because he (a strong supporter of the bill himself) believed that there were political reasons for doing so, that he considered that the next iteration of the legislature would "not be like any other legislature", and in which it became quite apparent that the members of the Council did not even have the same understanding as each other of what it [i:yo76l14n]meant[/i:yo76l14n] to ratify a bill. When the vote as to whether to ratify the bill was tied, the Council spent around [i:yo76l14n]forty-five minutes[/i:yo76l14n] discussing what to do, and eventually decided to re-take the vote couched in different terms, which resulted in two people who had hitherto voted not to ratify it, but to submit it to be rewritten, to vote to ratify it, but "recommend" that it be rewritten. It was therefore quite clear that two people who had honestly believed that the Bill was unconstitutional had nonetheless voted to ratify it just out of convenience, in consequence of not even having a rule to deal with a tied vote. (It is quite apparent that they cannot have changed their view on the constitutionality itself, since the substantive constitutionality was not discussed at all during the forty-five minutes).[/quote:yo76l14n]Ash, since you misrepresent both what I did and the actions of the SC I have to correct you on this.

First of all, of course I wrote to other SC members to put forward my understanding of the constitutionality of the amendment repealing much of the Judiciary Act. What else would you expect a member of the SC to do? I backed that up with similar arguments in the meeting. How is that anything other than what SC members are expected to do? Would you prefer it if SC members kept their views to themselves and just turned up to vote at meetings? Trying to persuade others of the strength of your case through reasoned argument is part of the process of decision-making.

Your characterisation of my 'political reasons' for interpreting the Constitutional Amendment (CA) displays a complete lack of understanding of what I said. My point was as follows: "The next RA must be considered as a different body to this RA and all business that we have with this RA must be transacted before the new RA is sworn in." In other words, 'leaving it for the next RA to decide' would have been, in my opinion, a deliberate and wilful frustration of the express will of the elected legislature. The SC had to decide whether the CA was constitutional or not and, if wasn't, refer it back to the RA.

Here, again, you misrepresent what took place at the SC meeting at the time of the vote. The first vote was to [b:yo76l14n]veto[/b:yo76l14n] the CA, [b:yo76l14n]not[/b:yo76l14n] to ratify it. The vote tied 2-2 which means it was [b:yo76l14n]not[/b:yo76l14n] vetoed. The second vote, to refer back a portion of the text to the RA because of a potential conflict with another part of the Constitution, also tied 2-2. Ash is right to say that our procedures don't cater for a tied vote in these circumstance; we'll learn from that and devise better ones. After some discussion of what to do I suggested that we take two further votes, the first to ratify (or not) the Constitutional Amendment, the second to refer it back (or not) to the RA. On the first vote there was a majority in favour of ratification and so the Constitutional Amendment was duly ratified. If the SC members had believed the Amendment was unconstitutional, as you contend, they would have voted 'No' on the first vote and 'Yes' on the second. But they didn't, so I guess your interpretation of their motivations must be incorrect?

It has to be said that throughout this discussion you, and Michel, continued to talk over SC members, interrupt, obfuscate, harrass and attempt to divert and frustrate proceedings despite repeated requests from SC members and the Dean to behave yourselves.

Finally, you seem hung up on the fact that I (and only I) changed my mind and switched from supporting the Judiciary Act to opposing it. I would like to point out that 4 out of 5 RA members also changed their minds. That, and the reasons why they changed their minds, are the reason that much of the JA was repealed.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":1qbbd1o7]Really? I disagree with your redefinition of a fairly clear word.[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

I am not "redefining" anything. It is possible to be recklessly dishonest. If I hear somebody knocking at the door, and, without checking, I confidently proclaim, "That's Mr. Brown", then I am being dishonest: I am claiming to have knowledge that I know that I do not have. I am deceitfully passing off guesswork as something that I know.

If one makes an unqualified claim to truth (such as, "[i:1qbbd1o7]X is true[/i:1qbbd1o7]"), one is claiming to have [i:1qbbd1o7]knowledge[/i:1qbbd1o7] of X: "[i:1qbbd1o7]X is true[/i:1qbbd1o7]" implies "[i:1qbbd1o7]I know that X is true[/i:1qbbd1o7]". Knowledge of X entails a [url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowl ... B:1qbbd1o7]justified, true belief[/url:1qbbd1o7] that X is true. Justification entails reasons in support. "[i:1qbbd1o7]I know that X is true[/i:1qbbd1o7]" therefore entails "[i:1qbbd1o7]I have reasons to believe that X is true[/i:1qbbd1o7]". Therefore, if one claims "X is true", but has no reasons to support proposition X, one is claiming "[i:1qbbd1o7]I have reasons to believe that X is true[/i:1qbbd1o7]" when one knows that one doesn't have any such reasons. It is, therefore, just like the Mr. Brown at the door example, dishonest to make such a claim in such circumstnaces.

[quote:1qbbd1o7]I agreed to a compromise someone proposed (not you) almost immediately, but it was not a two-party talk. You were not in on it, and neither were many others. So the talks broke down, not among those who agreed, but among those who didn't sign on.[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

Your phrasing is so unclear, I have no idea what the above means.

[quote:1qbbd1o7]Ash, [i:1qbbd1o7]it's not your government[/i:1qbbd1o7]. You are one citizen among many and no matter how well-conceived a plan is (in the eyes of the person who created it), the People retain the right to say how they will be governed.[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

I never claimed that it was my government - to suggest anything to the contrary is palpably absurd. That people have a power to do something does not entail that they are not being grossly reckless for exercising the power in that way, nor does it entail that they should not be very strongly criticised for such recklessness. I have never claimed that the legislature does not have the power to destroy the judiciary: merely that using the power in that way is grossly reckless. Why, therefore, you have responded to my statement that such a destruction was grossly reckless merely by pointing out that they had the formal power to do so is utterly incomprehensible.

[quote:1qbbd1o7]My perception is that your support eroded when you began to "bring up" issues that, in fact, people had not assented to (though they may have passed the Act in which they were couched).[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

What on earth do you imagine "assent" means if it is not entailed by either voting for or having one's elected representatives vote for a piece of legislation that entails the very thing assented to?

[quote:1qbbd1o7]I know of no real personal attacks that were not foundational to reasonable arguments against the JA.[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

What about Jon Seattle's accusation that I had deliberately designed the judicial qualification requirements to ensure that nobody other than me ever got to be a judge? That was conclusively proven to be unfounded.

[quote:1qbbd1o7]Playing the pity card might work better if you had presented some humanity throughout the process, or were principled in your restraint of attacks on others (such as in this thread).[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

What on earth makes you think that I am "playing the pity card" (whatever you could possibly mean by such a bizarre phrase)? I am citing the wrongdoing of others.

[quote:1qbbd1o7]Obviously you would not agree, but will you bend to the democratic government that you tried to beat me over the head with in earlier posts?[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

Again, your phrasing is so unclear that I have no idea what on earth you mean by this. What exactly am I supposed to have beaten you over the head with?

[quote:1qbbd1o7]Thanks for that clarification. But if you were opposed to me making Esperato the mandatory language of the CDS, I wouldn't be right in calling you an "anti-language extremist", would I?[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

What part of "who will stop at nothing or next to nothing" do you not understand?

[quote:1qbbd1o7]I haven't ignored you[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

You have ignored me, since you have [i:1qbbd1o7]again[/i:1qbbd1o7] made the suggestion that I do something that I have already explained is necessarily futile (and you have not even attempted to show how it could possibly be anything other than inevitably futile).

[quote:1qbbd1o7]I have made a reasonable point - force is not really possible here in SL, so if a judiciary truly does depend on enforceability, then there CAN be no judiciary in SL. I, however, believe that a judiciary can be built on principles other than force, and have said so repeatedly.[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

You have done nothing other than make bland assertions repeatedly: you have repeatedly failed to address the point that most people who lose cases, have, in consequence specifically of having lost and nothing else, no confidence in the system at all (at least for a time), and are overwhelmingly unlikely to give in voluntarily. You have incessantly ignored all of the points that I made against your points, and merely repeatedly asserted your original point.

[quote:1qbbd1o7]Because attempts to impose force (which if tried against me would result in, as I have said, my departure from the community and thus neither of us getting what we want) would be a real pain in the neck.[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

If the judicial system has the capacity to do something that you find "a pain in the neck", then it most certainly does have the capacity to enforce: all that is needed for enforcement is a genuine disincentive. Of course, you leaving the community is also a part of enforcement: such a system would ensure that only those who obeyed the law remained in the community for any length of time.

[quote:1qbbd1o7]The Judiciary Act was kind of like a child that always wanted its way; some of its demands would be appeased (give me a toy! pay this small fine!) and some wouldn't (I want a pony right now! take this harsh punishment or else!), but in any case it would be a great annoyance.[/quote:1qbbd1o7]

It is utterly absurd to personify a piece of legislation. I can only imagine that you are attempting obliquely to claim that [i:1qbbd1o7]I[/i:1qbbd1o7] am somehow like a child who always wants his own way. Moon once said that I did not "compromise enough", and Beathan, in his usual dishonest and extremist way, even went so far as to claim that I was somehow insane for not agreeing with him more often (even though, as I pointed out, he had not agreed with me any more than I had agreed with him).

That is an utterly misconceived claim: I will always do, and seek to persuade others to do, what I honestly believe is right. If I am invested with any sort of power, I will discharge it in whatever way that I believe it ought to be discharged. I am open to be persuaded, by genuine reasoned argument, that, in fact, something else is right, but, if I do not agree with the reasons, I will not give in merely because somebody else wants me to do so: to do anything else would be nothing short of intellectually dishonest. If I change my position, therefore, it is either because I have no choice, or because I have genuinely changed my view about what is right. The latter will never happen unless there is a truly strong reason that is capable of showing how the reasoning that lead me to my present conclusion is irredeemably flawed. If nobody is able so to demonstrate, then I will not change my view. Any other attitude is weak and cowardly, and expecting anybody else to have any other attitude is aggressive and dishonest.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Patroklus Murakami":15ar9grr]Ash, since you misrepresent both what I did and the actions of the SC I have to correct you on this.

First of all, of course I wrote to other SC members to put forward my understanding of the constitutionality of the amendment repealing much of the Judiciary Act. What else would you expect a member of the SC to do? I backed that up with similar arguments in the meeting. How is that anything other than what SC members are expected to do? Would you prefer it if SC members kept their views to themselves and just turned up to vote at meetings? Trying to persuade others of the strength of your case through reasoned argument is part of the process of decision-making.[/quote:15ar9grr]

The e-mail was not published, so I do not know exactly what was in it. I can only go on what you said in the meeting, which was to make allusions to what you believed that the consequences would be of not passing it. Of course, because of the insane decision not to take a transcript of Scientific Council meetings, we now have no record at all of the details of that.

[quote:15ar9grr]Your characterisation of my 'political reasons' for interpreting the Constitutional Amendment (CA) displays a complete lack of understanding of what I said. My point was as follows: "The next RA must be considered as a different body to this RA and all business that we have with this RA must be transacted before the new RA is sworn in."[/quote:15ar9grr]

Those were not your exact words. You said something very much like, "The next RA will not be just any RA".

[quote:15ar9grr]In other words, 'leaving it for the next RA to decide' would have been, in my opinion, a deliberate and wilful frustration of the express will of the elected legislature. The SC had to decide whether the CA was constitutional or not and, if wasn't, refer it back to the RA.[/quote:15ar9grr]

That view clearly shows that you [i:15ar9grr]did[/i:15ar9grr] have political reasons for your view on whether the Council should have ratified the Bill, since that is conceptually incapable of having a bearing on whether the Bill was constitutional or not.

[quote:15ar9grr]Here, again, you misrepresent what took place at the SC meeting at the time of the vote. The first vote was to [b:15ar9grr]veto[/b:15ar9grr] the CA, [b:15ar9grr]not[/b:15ar9grr] to ratify it. The vote tied 2-2 which means it was [b:15ar9grr]not[/b:15ar9grr] vetoed. [/quote:15ar9grr]

No, the vote on whether to "veto" the bill was unanimously against it.

[quote:15ar9grr]The second vote, to refer back a portion of the text to the RA because of a potential conflict with another part of the Constitution, also tied 2-2. Ash is right to say that our procedures don't cater for a tied vote in these circumstance; we'll learn from that and devise better ones. After some discussion of what to do I suggested that we take two further votes, the first to ratify (or not) the Constitutional Amendment, the second to refer it back (or not) to the RA. On the first vote there was a majority in favour of ratification and so the Constitutional Amendment was duly ratified. If the SC members had believed the Amendment was unconstitutional, as you contend, they would have voted 'No' on the first vote and 'Yes' on the second. But they didn't, so I guess your interpretation of their motivations must be incorrect?[/quote:15ar9grr]

That is a gross misconception of the powers of the Council, which again underlines the total inability of the members of the various institutions in this destitute nation to do anything that remotely resembles discharging their functions properly. A bill is ratified by the Scientific Council, and becomes an act, if it is constitutional and not in violation of the founding documents. If a bill is unconstitutional or in violation of the founding documents, the Scientific Council may either veto it, if it believes that it is irredeemably flawed, or resubmit it, if it believes that the unconstitutionality or violation of the founding documents can be corrected with minor revision. A resubmission entails that the bill does not come into force until it has been rewritten and re-passed by the Assembly. The Council has absolutely no power whatsoever to prevent a bill from coming into force unless it is unconstitutional or in violation of the founding documents. A vote to resubmit, therefore, entails that the person who so voted believed the bill to be unconstitutional and/or in violation of one or more of the founding documents.

It is absurd, therefore, to claim that anybody thought that, by not exercising the power of non-ratification in the form of a veto, rather than in the form of a resubmission, they were, in fact, voting to ratify. A vote for resubmission, as I tried to explain at the meeting, and as was ignored, and as I explain above, is necessarily a vote that the bill is unconstitutional and/or in violation of one or more of the founding documents. There were, in the first round, two votes for resubmission. Those who then later voted to "ratify" (undoubtedly without having any real conception of what ratification is in the context) were, therefore, necessarily voting to ratify a bill that, minutes earlier, they had honestly believed was unconstitutional, where the constitution is specifically designed so that the whole purpose of the Scientific Council is to prohibit the legislature passing acts that are unconstitutional.

[quote:15ar9grr]It has to be said that throughout this discussion you, and Michel, continued to talk over SC members, interrupt, obfuscate, harrass and attempt to divert and frustrate proceedings despite repeated requests from SC members and the Dean to behave yourselves.[/quote:15ar9grr]

Why does it "have to be said"? And, again, this is a gross misrepresentation of what occurred. I had no intentions of harassing anyone, or attempting to divert anything - I spoke when it was clear that what was occurring was utterly incoherent and misconceived as it was, alas, on many occasions.

[quote:15ar9grr]Finally, you seem hung up on the fact that I (and only I) changed my mind and switched from supporting the Judiciary Act to opposing it. I would like to point out that 4 out of 5 RA members also changed their minds. That, and the reasons why they changed their minds, are the reason that much of the JA was repealed.[/quote:15ar9grr]

Jon always opposed it, but voted for it under the party whip. Moon only changed her vote because she believed that other people did not support it. Justice always wanted a different sort of judiciary, but voted for the Judiciary Act as a compromise (and then proceeded to do everything that he possibly could, including procuring his personal friend (in RL), Publius, to take public office here and immediately embark on an anti-judiciary campaign which Justice then legitimated by pressing people to pass Publius's resolution in the week immediately following the passage of the Judiciary Act), Claude changed his vote no doubt to follow the party line (it was quite clear from private correspondence that he, too, supported the Act in principle), and, Pelanor, as we know, was a strong supporter of the original judiciary throughout.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":1lkvlg9z]Putting aside your criticisms of the residents of the CDS, many of whom had long believed you held us in the low regard you demonstrate above,...[/quote:1lkvlg9z]

The regard in which I hold people is a function only of their attitudes. Those who will criticise others or their ideas without adequate reason do not deserve to be held in anything other than low regard; those who make aggressive personal attacks without reason, lower regard still.

[quote:1lkvlg9z] In your fable about the poor rebuffed accountant on Dec. 31 in another thread...[/quote:1lkvlg9z]

The fable was not about a rebuffed accountant; it was about an organisation that was so institutionally stupid that it destroyed itself.

[quote:1lkvlg9z]This was before the SC meeting in which you claimed you "realized" we are all idiots and justice can never come to the CDS.[/quote:1lkvlg9z]

At the meeting, I realised that, even had the Judiciary Act not been destroyed, there would be little prospect of any long-term justice in the CDS because of the way in which such a high proportion of the government behave.

[quote:1lkvlg9z]Your decision is also contrary to your advice to others on Dec. 17, back before your supporters in the RA realized they had been had, and you didn't respect their opinions any more than you respect the unwashed masses of citizens you sought to rule:
"There is conflict, people are not going to agree, the correct solution is for everybody to defer to what the democratically-elected legislature have already decided and not to cause unending instability of the sort that is already threatening to drive people away or discourage them from joining in the first place."[/quote:1lkvlg9z]

The legislature has deliberately failed to do that, which is one of the principal reasons that there is no point in me (or anyone else) having any further association with this place.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Excuse me, Ashcroft, but is it not appropriate that the same Assembly that ratified the JA be the one to repeal it? If it is truly the will of the people that there be something like the Judiciary Act, then the new RA is perfectly capable of passing such a thing - and as it has been pointed out, the new RA will better reflect the current makeup of the citizenry in the CDS, thus better reflecting the will of the people.

Of course, we cannot apply this principle to every single law and change the legislature makes, or we'd have nothing but chaos... but given the fact that the debate over the JA has taken up an [i:2b4t65dx]entire term[/i:2b4t65dx] and it remained controversial even when in place, I believe it is a unique case. It's clear that there is a wide desire for some kind of formalized judiciary, better equipped to deal with cases than the ad-hoc prodecures the SC used. It's equally clear the public opinion is not for the judiciary envisioned by the JA, and in a democracy, I'd say public opinion counts for quite a bit.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Aliasi Stonebender":a3nera1m]Excuse me, Ashcroft, but is it not appropriate that the same Assembly that ratified the JA be the one to repeal it? If it is truly the will of the people that there be something like the Judiciary Act, then the new RA is perfectly capable of passing such a thing - and as it has been pointed out, the new RA will better reflect the current makeup of the citizenry in the CDS, thus better reflecting the will of the people.[/quote:a3nera1m]

This is not related to the point that I was making, which is that whether or not one considers it desirable that the same institution repeal something that it created, that is conceptually incapable of being relevant to whether the particular bill was constitutional. Also, that does not detract to any extent whatsoever from the fact that it was, substantively, grossly irresponsible to destroy a system providing for a fair and professional judiciary. That, however, matters rather less than it appeared to matter at first, since there is no prospect whatsoever of any system of justice ever coming anywhere near success in a community where those invested with power act in the ways described above.

[quote:a3nera1m]Of course, we cannot apply this principle to every single law and change the legislature makes, or we'd have nothing but chaos... but given the fact that the debate over the JA has taken up an [i:a3nera1m]entire term[/i:a3nera1m] and it remained controversial even when in place, I believe it is a unique case.[/quote:a3nera1m]

There is no room for special pleading.

[quote:a3nera1m]It's clear that there is a wide desire for some kind of formalized judiciary, better equipped to deal with cases than the ad-hoc prodecures the SC used. It's equally clear the public opinion is not for the judiciary envisioned by the JA, and in a democracy, I'd say public opinion counts for quite a bit.[/quote:a3nera1m]

If public opinion counts, then that opinion should be properly tested before being acted on, something that the present legislature deliberately shunned in favour of imposing its views on how things should pan out immediately before an election. That I consider to be an act of nothing short of corruption (acting because of a perception of public opinion, and simultaneously refusing to put such opinion to a fair test, insisting that public opinion favours destruction without any reliable means to substantiate such a claim).

[Desmond Shang]

Wah, such dark days.

Personally, I'm sorry to see Ashcroft's judicial structure largely swept away. Devil in the details, yes. But... baby with the bathwater perhaps? I really haven't been following closely enough to know. I suspect even Ashcroft's detractors wish he would continue on.

The double-irony here is that Caledon (which will never have an institutionalised judicial system) actually has a critical mass of people who are law professionals. I know some quite well. So, who am I to criticise any failure of the Confederation? Yet, I cannot (and shall not) turn the clock back and change my covenant in such a fundamental way, on hundreds of people. I wonder how it might have been different.

Much to think about.

I would urge everyone to take a deep breath, have a pause and a pint with friend and enemy alike, and reconsider. It's a big step, to abandon a civilised nation and toss oneself into the incredible wasted heath of casinos and blingtards.

Justice is a dear, dear expensive thing. Just how expensive I think is rapidly becoming apparent. In first life, there is usually some blood involved, when trying to create justice where there was none before.

Ah, and one last point. Seems your democracy is largely working.

[Jon Seattle]

Desmond,

Before Ashcroft started us on this path we had a small but serviceable court (the SC) with five very careful, intelligent judges drawn from multiple factions and different walks of life. Ashcroft dislikes that court, but it has wide spread public confidence and for most purposes worked reasonably well. The RA has now restored that court.

Ashcroft’s more extensive system was never fully implemented but in the interim the old court ceased to function. We were worse off then when we started because we were between the two systems and had no functioning judiciary.

Whatever my personal feeling about the plusses and minuses of the act (I started as a mild supporter but became critical when I saw how it was being implemented), the JA really failed because its architect failed to win public confidence. Instead of hearing every complaint or question as an attack he might have tried to understand the fear that underlay those concerns and allayed those fears by deliberately including more people in the decision making process.

Ashcroft will claim at length that the one day got up and canceled the judicial act; but the fact of the matter is that the RA considered and enacted a series of resolutions and bills starting on 11 Nov to try to restore public confidence in the court and its implementation. Ashcroft resisted every attempt and here we are.

If there is anything to say to Ashcroft it is this. It takes more than just legal skill to implement a judiciary. It also takes negotiation skills and the ability to listen.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Desmond Shang":3psdaz04]It's a big step, to abandon a civilised nation and toss oneself into the incredible wasted heath of casinos and blingtards.[/quote:3psdaz04]

Actually, I was thinking of joining Caledon. I know that you don't want a judicial system, but at least most of the people there are thoroughly civil. How does one join the waiting list?

[quote:3psdaz04]Justice is a dear, dear expensive thing. [/quote:3psdaz04]

It is indeed - expensive in human resources that those here seem ready to waste in others and unwilling to invest in sufficient quantities themselves. Those who unthinkingly strive for simplicity in all things, come what may in terms of loss of function, are undoubtedly doing so out of laziness (whether consciously or not).

[quote:3psdaz04]Ah, and one last point. Seems your democracy is largely working.[/quote:3psdaz04]

When the existing legislature deliberately pass legislation immediately before an election such that, even if over four fifths of the population wanted to retain the previous judicial system, they would not be able to do so, rather than waiting until after the election to act, democracy is most certainly not working; and democracy, in any event, is of very limited value without the rule of law, for which there is grossly insufficient regard here.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Jon Seattle":3aykskuu]Before Ashcroft started us on this path we had a small but serviceable court (the SC) with five very careful, intelligent judges drawn from multiple factions and different walks of life. Ashcroft dislikes that court, but it has wide spread public confidence and for most purposes worked reasonably well. The RA has now restored that court.[/quote:3aykskuu]

You are deluding yourself if you think that the Scientific Council is anywhere near competent enough to run a fair judicial system: its members have no experience and precious little understanding of law (or even of the logical interaction between rules), it has virtually no procedures (the Soothsayer Rules were a deliberate attempt to eschew true procedures, and are almost meaninglessly vague), and a history of making catastrophic errors (why on earth was there no jury in the Ulrika trial? The Council most certainly did not have the power to hear cases without one under any circumstnaces bar none).

[quote:3aykskuu]Ashcroft’s more extensive system was never fully implemented but in the interim the old court ceased to function. We were worse off then when we started because we were between the two systems and had no functioning judiciary.[/quote:3aykskuu]

That is false - it was implemented enough to work on the 5th of December, the moment that the original Code of Procedure was published. Somebody, Thor Forte, actually filed a case shortly before it was destroyed (and is now very unhappy indeed that there is yet more delay in his case, which should have been filed by Aliasi within two weeks of the 5th of December). We were all ready to schedule a pre-trial hearing when the system was destroyed. You have gone from a functioning system to an intractably dysfunctional one.

[quote:3aykskuu]Whatever my personal feeling about the plusses and minuses of the act (I started as a mild supporter but became critical when I saw how it was being implemented), the JA really failed because its architect failed to win public confidence.[/quote:3aykskuu]

Public confidence is not won by giving in to the detractors, who disagree on principle with the express choices already made on principle, and will never be satisfied until those choices are reversed, no matter how much thought and discussion was put into them when they were first made, and no matter how strong the arguments in favour of them. Those people will never be convinced, and will never agree with people who take the other position. It is won by giving a system sufficient time to prove itself in practice at doing the very thing that the system was designed to do in the first place: hear cases and dispense justice. The people who are won over then are not the extremist detractors who will never change their views, but the great majority of citizens who have little opinion on the theoretical basis of the judicial system, and only care whether the system is efficient, effective and fair or not. It is the deliberate failure of the legislature to wait before making a decision until the system had been seen in practice over a considerable amount of time that is one of the most absurd, reckless, dishonest and improper acts in this whole mess, proving quite conclusively that those who govern the CDS are utterly unfit for any sort of public office.

[quote:3aykskuu] Instead of hearing every complaint or question as an attack he might have tried to understand the fear that underlay those concerns and allayed those fears by deliberately including more people in the decision making process.[/quote:3aykskuu]

It is vague platitudes such as "including more people in the decision making process" (without explaining what people should have been included in making what decisions in what ways and for what reasons) that is precisely the problem with the way in which the debate has been conducted.

[quote:3aykskuu]Ashcroft will claim at length that the one day got up and canceled the judicial act; but the fact of the matter is that the RA considered and enacted a series of resolutions and bills starting on 11 Nov to try to restore public confidence in the court and its implementation. Ashcroft resisted every attempt and here we are.[/quote:3aykskuu]

I resisted attempts to undermine the principles that underlay the principled compromises that had been reached and to make the judicial system flawed (by making the qualification requirements for judges too easy, or the procedures too vague), and did so in each case on principle.

[quote:3aykskuu]If there is anything to say to Ashcroft it is this. It takes more than just legal skill to implement a judiciary. It also takes negotiation skills and the ability to listen.[/quote:3aykskuu]

I listen to, and only to, reason. The most serious criticism that there is of the way in which this debate has been conducted is that the detractors of the judicial system, and the legislators who unthinkingly followed them, have been utterly impervious to any attempts to engage in genuine reasoning, and have responded to any counterargument, not with analytic deconstruction, but with aggressive repetition of the original points, strings of pejorative adjectives, gross misrepresentations of the arguments that oppose theirs, and malicious personal insult (or simply by ignoring them entirely).

The reason that I have not given in to other people's claims that oppose the principled positions that I took at the outset is because they have never provided me with any reasons to displace the reasons that I already had to take the original positions in the first place. I never, ever change my view unless there is a stronger reason to adopt the new position than there was the old, which will almost inevitably entail finding reasons to show that my original reasoning is logically flawed, or that there is empirical evidence of which I did not previously know. Merely stating another position over and over is no argument, nor is making bald and unreasoned claims that my position is bad and another's is good. To give in to pseudo-argumentation of that nature would be nothing short of intellectual dishonesty.

As to negotiation skills, the most important of all such skills is recognising when the negotiation is over and the deal has been sealed. Once a negotiated compromise has been reached, it is utterly absurd to expect one side immediately to recommence negotiations, to negotiate a new position [i:3aykskuu]between[/i:3aykskuu] the compromise position reached and the other side's original, pre-compromise position. Negotiation is utterly worthless unless the product of that negotiation, a firm and lasting deal, is assured. There was plenty of negotiation before the Judiciary Act was passed; after it was passed, we were all entitled to take the outcome of those negotiations as final and binding. Why on earth should one or other party to the original negotiations countenance discarding of the final pact almost immediately after it has been reached in favour of some new deal more favourable to the other side?

Imagine the converse of the situation; imagine that, a week after the Judiciary Act had been passed, I did what Justice did, and brought a first-life friend in who, upon seeing the Act, proclaimed that it was wholly absurd that judges were appointed by any means other than the absolute discretion of the Chief Judge, and submitted a resolution to the Representative Assembly demanding that the constitution be amened forthwith to restore the power of the Chief Judge to appoint all judges, and abolish the PJSP, and that I then agreed with him. Would you not think that a dishonest act, reneging on what had originally been agreed, trying to subvert the process of negotiation and produce a result more favourable to my preferences of how a system should be run despite having agreed on principle to a compromise only shortly before? It is not surprising that I take exactly the same view of Publius's similar actions in the opposite direction, and Justice's unquestioning countenancing of them shortly thereafter. Why on earth should somebody negotiate when it is clear that there is no fixed end point to that negotiation that the other parties thereto will respect?

[Desmond Shang]

Interesting. Seems that figuring out how a justice system should be *started* is more intractable than what the justice system actually should be.

So the judicial system goes back to an older system, does it? Is the older system capable of incremental improvement? Not just change, but actual improvement? That seems to be the big question.

As for Ashcroft's question of Caledon citizenship, one has but to ask. But tacky would not be a strong enough word if I were to, vulturelike, usher in the disaffected of Neufreistadt every time something happened. And it would not reflect well upon those who left, either.

I won't have a stream of refugees come over every time there is a tough decision in Neufreistadt - I don't need a vulturelike reputation and I do well enough on my own.

Please try again in the CDS. New elections, new people, new ideas - the only constant is change itself. And I suspect you have learned a great deal too. Worst case, yes, Caledon is a refuge. But you'll need an experiment in governance like the CDS to work with, or you will never realise your full potential on the grid.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Desmond Shang":3g6otrt6]Please try again in the CDS. New elections, new people, new ideas - the only constant is change itself.[/quote:3g6otrt6]

The very fact that one is having to try again in these circumstances means that there has been a failure of reason and propriety so serious as to be irrecoverable. As stated above, I do not believe in throwing good effort after bad.

[quote:3g6otrt6]And I suspect you have learned a great deal too.[/quote:3g6otrt6]

I have learnt that, at the first sign that anybody who has any power to do something is in the least irrational, I should leave immediately and never come back, and certainly put no more effort into doing anything over which that person has any real control.

[quote:3g6otrt6] Worst case, yes, Caledon is a refuge. But you'll need an experiment in governance like the CDS to work with, or you will never realise your full potential on the grid.[/quote:3g6otrt6]

No - I'll need an experiment in governance in many ways [i:3g6otrt6]un[/i:3g6otrt6]-like the CDS, where those who are involved with it have the right attitudes of professionalism and rationality.