[TRG] Law & Order

Day 2,947, 11:50 • Published in USA USA • by J.A. Lake
Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum


There's something missing in the eUnited States, a rather large portion of the real government we've evidently chosen to emulate.

When the Constitution was framed in the late 1780s, three branches of government were laid out to create, enforce, and interpret the law.

The Executive Branch, headed by the President, enforces the law to this day. Agencies such as the Department of Justice answer to the man in the Oval Office, and carry out laws passed by the men and women in the next branch.

The Legislative Branch is a collective (today) of 535 Senators and Congresspeople that are supposed to pass all laws necessary and proper to execute the powers vested in them by the United States Constitution, which include regulating interstate commerce, coining money and regulating its value, and declaring war. These laws are interpreted by the final branch.

The Judicial Branch is the network of courts that exist across the United States, from the one that fined you for driving 70 in a school zone to the one that decided to strike down state prohibitions on same-sex marriage several months ago. If the Congress should pass a law that is enforced and challenged on Constitutional grounds, the Supreme Court of the United States can choose to hear it and render judgement.

If you hadn't guessed by now, the point of this article is to talk about the Judicial Branch.


In reality we have a fairly functional system between those three branches- each checks the power of the next and balances the system, more or less. What we have here is something a little less workable. There are only two of the three branches of government- the Executive and Legislative. Worse, it would seem that judicial powers are vested in the legislature, meaning that one branch makes the law and decides if it is constitutional.

This clearly leads to a dangerously unbalanced metagame, wherein Congress holds too much power in its hands. As demonstrated in the recent revolt, Congress performed actions of the all three branches- enforced the law (blacklisted 20-some citizens of the country), decided the constitutionality of their actions, and wrote new laws laying out what blacklisting entailed.

Most distressing is that none of this is unconstitutional, by the looks of it.

Congress is too powerful, and accountable to no one. The biggest executive check on the legislative branch does not appear to exist- veto power. Citing the lack of a judiciary, there are no judicial checks on Congress. Congress is unchecked!

Indeed, much of the legal language that dictatorship loyalists hurled at the December 6 Revolutionaries was about legality and the rule of law. I say there is no rule of law- Congress rules the land. It writes laws, it declares them constitutional, and it enforces them itself.

Some of this is in response to game mechanics- there is no system of courts written into the game, after all. Typically I am very strongly anti-meta, but I would say that if there is no in-game Constitution, nor in-game means of censuring Congresspeople, why can there be no meta-courts to hear legal challenges?

A meta-court could function to review laws when they are challenged by people. It could serve as a legal recourse for those censured or even blacklisted by Congress and believe it was done unfairly. Most importantly, it would serve to keep Congress in check.

Implementation would be difficult, without a doubt. It would almost certainly require a substantial rewrite of the Constitution or, hopefully, a new Constitution.

First, the law must be enforced fairly per the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. As it stands, there is no such clause in the eConstitution. There is no due process- people claimed to be in breach of the law are declared guilty without a trial and oftentimes on Congressional boards off-site.

Second, the law must be enforced equally on all parties, per the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Again, no such clause exists in the eConstitution. Law can be applied arbitrarily per Congress' wishes.

These two most basic principles of law are ignored here.

So what we would need is an eSupreme Court, a body that can put a foot down and rein in our runaway Congress. The decisions of this body must be legally binding to Congress (and everyone else, for that matter), apolitical, fair, and equal. It is a branch that should be coequal to the other two.

What would an eSupreme Court look like?

I've come up with some principles that should guide the creation of an eSupreme Court.

1) It is not hosted on the eUS Forums.

This would serve to protect the eSupreme Court's deliberations from the eyes of Congress, and ensure that no outside pressure is put on the eJustices to rule one way or the other.

2) eJustices must not hold a position in the Legislative or Executive Branches while serving on the eSupreme Court.

The reasoning here is obvious. If a Congressperson or member of the Executive Branch sat on the eSupreme Court, not only would it distract from their duties to those branches but it would create an immediate conflict of interests.

3) eJustices must be immune from Congressional or Executive removal or censure.

Again, this safeguards the eSupreme Court from external pressure.

4) Decisions handed down by the eSupreme Court must be binding.

A court with no teeth is subject to situations like Andrew Jackson's, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." Penalties must be stiff for disobeying rulings of the eSupreme Court, perhaps as far as impeachment or censure.

This is by no means a perfect framework, but a place to start. Without a Judicial Branch, there is no means by which to honestly claim the rule of law on this country. To truly be just we must establish the legal apparatus that embodies justice. Legislating to legislate, and claiming that such practice is legal beyond question is not creating the rule of law- it is subverting it and replacing it with a dictatorial Congress.

Thanks for reading.