[quote="Patroklus Murakami":3o7ogmki]The decision to recommend the dismantling of most of the Judiciary Act was not lightly taken by any of us. I have been a firm supporter of the plan to develop a judicial system for the CDS from the outset and, even during the Special Commission, argued strongly for implementing what the RA had approved even in the face of very strong opposition. But I'm forced to the conclusion now that this is the wrong system for the CDS and that it is imperative that the RA take action.[/quote:3o7ogmki]
At this stage, what, precisely, in your view was wrong with it? It seems that your problem is that the system is different to what you had expected it to be: what exactly had you expected, and how, precisely, does what we actually have vary from what you expected?
[quote:3o7ogmki]What is clear to me now, in a way it wasn't even a couple of weeks ago, is that we started off on this project from the wrong starting point and there has been miscommunication and misunderstanding of intentions all along the way. Ash has been completely honest and open about his intentions throughout. I don't believe that he has a 'secret agenda' or that he wants to 'take over the CDS'. I think he's completely sincere about wanting to develop the best possible legal system for the CDS and to be its Chief Judge.[/quote:3o7ogmki]
I am most grateful for that observation. I still remain overwhelmingly dismayed by the capacity of some members of our community to make unfounded personal accusations of dishonesty whose basis cannot conceivably be more than idle speculation.
[quote:3o7ogmki]Ash's early posts back in August outlined in detail what kind of justice system he envisaged, in particular that it would be a 'common law' system. I don't think we fully appreciated the significance of that at the time.[/quote:3o7ogmki]
What did you think that a common law system entailed, exactly?
[quote:3o7ogmki]The problem with this starting point is that, rather than asking us what we needed, in the manner of a consultant coming in to assess a client's needs, Ash already had a pretty firm idea of what he thought we needed.[/quote:3o7ogmki]
I don't think that that's entirely fair: before I posted the initial "Developing our legal system" thread, I had discussions in-world with Gwyneth and, I think, Pelanor, who both gave me some good idea as to what the existing problems had been (lack of procedures), and the potential solutions (to have procedures). Gwyneth commented at that stage that a common law system was the way to go (although it now seems that she was not fully aware of what a common law system entailed), and, indeed, that, in her view that Neufreistadt, as it then was, already had a common law system. I agreed that a common law system was the only sensible way to go, since it would take an unreasonably long time (Gwyneth has estimated two years) to create from scratch entire comprehensive codes of law on all relevant subjects of the sort that are required by a civil law system. I understand that, now that you realise what a common law system entails, you do not like common law systems at all; may I ask how you imagine that a civil law system could possibly be feasible given Gwyneth's no doubt accurate estimate at the amount of time that it would take before such a system could even begin to operate?
As to whether I consulted other members of the community on other details (which I came up with in order to minimise the disruption to the present system as much as possible; I did not, for example, propose the abolition of the Scientific Council, as a more radical judicial reformer might have done, but carefully integrated it into the proposed system, retaining some of its judicial functions, even), anyone who has read the "Developing our legal system" thread will remember that I posed a very large number of questions indeed, and positively invited comments from people. There were a few comments, and many of those were general comments praising the efforts, and the comments that I did receive were confined to specific areas. Some of them I responded to (such as the comment on juries), and some of them I disagreed with (such as the comment on jurisdiction).
My plan was always to wait patiently for people to develop a firm idea about whether the system that I proposed was the system that they wanted, but people were very slow to engage with it (perhaps through lack of time), so Gwyneth suggested that the best way forward was for me to draft a Bill that would introduce the system, based on how I believed that the system should work, and submit it for approval to the RA, which I did. That Bill contained responses to comments that I had received on the initial thread, such as that in relation to juries (jury trial was not made compulsory in any circumstances, which was a departure from the previous constitution).
It seems quite apparent that, at all times before the Judiciary Act was finally passed and ratified, I was the only person prepared to put a significant amount of effort into design (although, during the debates on judicial selection, other people, such as Moon, did make creative contributions to deal with controversial issues that arose), and that the legislature was happy to let me do all the work and approve it - until it worked out what it actually meant. Whether one agrees with the judicial system that I have created or not, it cannot be denied that that is an utterly appalling way of working.
To get a system that is thorough, comprehensive and coherent, one needs to start with a singular vision and plan: design by committee where each committee member either starts with a plan that is incompatible with each other such member, or no plan at all, is a very unattractive alternative, since such committees will spend the bulk of their time working out ways to resolve their disagreements, rather than getting on with the work of designing the details of all the components of the system and making sure that they all fit together.
[quote:3o7ogmki]When we challenged these ideas e.g. on the requirement to consent to anything you ever say, at any time, in any place in Second Life being recorded and potentially used in one of our Courts, we had a battle royal to get any changes made.[/quote:3o7ogmki]
Technically, of course, nobody had to battle me to change anything: I had no formal legislative power. I defended the position in relation to chatlogs on principle, on the basis that what I proposed was the most just and practical, and that I disagreed with the reasoning behind the arguments to the contrary. Details matter.
[quote:3o7ogmki]It's clear to me now that at this point we should have either a) gone through every point of the proposal and challenged every detail we didn't like e.g. the loss of Scientific Council's role as final arbiter of forum moderation[/quote:3o7ogmki]
I am extremely surprised to see you write that now, as that is what I always assumed until now is exactly what had happened, and that everybody had read all of it and agreed with all parts of it, except for those parts that were expressly challenged. That is certainly how I should have approached it had I been a legislator, and, I have to say, it puts the legislature of the CDS in a very, very bad light indeed that it appears that it approved a Bill without having even read all of it, let alone considered what it meant. To do such a thing is astonishingly irresponsible (although subsequent events have made it quite clear that the legislature is indeed more than capable of being astonishingly irresponsible). How can anyone ever again place any degree of confidence whatsoever in legislators if they passed an Act without having expressly and carefully considered what all of it meant? Really, anyone who did such a thing ought resign. That is an extremely unprofessional approach to government.
[quote:3o7ogmki]or b) said that we didn't like the process and wanted to start from first principles rather than a ready-made system.[/quote:3o7ogmki]
The system that I designed was built from first principles, principles that I thought that the unanimous passage of the Act on three separate occasions made quite apparent were shared. It was not ready-made: it was designed specifically to fit the CDS. It is a made-to-measure system.
[quote:3o7ogmki]I feel pretty awful about the fact that we have spent so many months in discussion about the Judiciary Act and that so much work has gone into it and yet we must dismantle the core of it. But it's clear now to everyone, apart from the architect of the system and those who wish to participate as legal professionals within it, that this judicial system is not well suited to our needs.[/quote:3o7ogmki]
I do not agree that that is an accurate statement: it is certainly not supported by any statistical evidence. I know of a non-trivial number of people, other than those who want to be engaged as legal professionals within the system, who are equally opposed as I to its destruction. Indeed, an entire faction, with an ever growing membership (most of whom are not legal professionals), strongly opposes the destruction of our present judiciary. Of course, those who do want to participate in the legal system as professionals are also citizens, and their opinions matter not one iota less than anybody else's.
[quote:3o7ogmki]The right decision, under these circumstances, is to acknowledge that a mistake has been made and do what you can to put things right. Continuing to defend a decision that you no longer believe in would be, in my opinion, a far more reckless and cowardly position than doing what you can to make things right and accepting the consequences. And then, yes, the people will get to deliver their judgement at election time. But the election is no good reason for failing to take the right decision right now.[/quote:3o7ogmki]
It is, because only then will there be a true test of what proportion of the citizens really do want to see our judiciary destroyed, and replaced with perpetual uncertainty, perpetual conflict, and a never-ending amount of work to create yet another judicial system that may or may not be functional. How but by waiting until after the election can one really tell whether the majority of our population want the judiciary that we have created to be destroyed or not? Sampling the forums is certainly not an adequate basis for that sort of decision, as most people in the community do not visit the forums.
What disaster will befall the CDS if the judiciary as it presently stands, and has stood for the past three months, is preserved for another two weeks in order that the will of the populace can truly be tested?
