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The laws should all be written down, clear and accessible.

Sounds reasonable.

We should have written down laws that govern what the Congress can do and what the President can do. And so it is. It’s the Constitution. Mind you the constitution doesn’t say that Congress can pass criminal law, or establish various orgs, or run the Health Care system. It doesn’t say that the Congress can pass laws dealing with intelligence services or regulate the forums or the irc. It doesn’t say that Congress has very much power at all. Not specifically. But it has been interpreted that way. That interpretation has been justified by looking at the overall structure and intention of the Constitution informed by our Real Life experience, guided by a desire to fashion a workable coherent intelligent system.

We should have written down laws to deal with the proceedings within congress. And so it is. The House has its rules. Mind you when speaker Pimpdollaz, and speaker Alias Vision came to apply those rules there was enormous agitation about their interpretation. Both speakers were undoubtedly applying the specific wording to specific facts but found, as all decision makers do, that the written down words must always be interpreted and applied. They were undoubtedly attempting interpretations which were informed by the overall structure and intention of the Rules informed by Real Life experience, guided by a desire to fashion a workable coherent intelligent system.


We should have written down laws to deal with how the executive should act. And so it is. The Constitution provides for it. Various statutes of Congress provide for it. Mind you, the Constitution gives the President power to do just about anything, with few limits. The fact that he is restrained is a result of a restrictive interpretation of the Constitution. It has been interpreted that way. That interpretation has been justified by looking at the overall structure and intention of the Constitution informed by our Real Life experience, guided by a desire to fashion a workable coherent intelligent system.


We should have written down laws to deal with how a court case is brought before the Court and the procedure to be followed. And so it is. These provisions are in the Constitution. Mind you, they aren’t very clear and not very helpful standing alone. And they leave out a lot. Yet there is a process that is followed and there are procedural safeguards that have evolved as a result of the interpretation of these beggar words. The procedures and safeguards, such as the presumption of innocence in criminal matters, the onus of proof, the requirement to show at least a plausible case before being permitted a trial, and more – all of these are the result of interpretation of a few words. That interpretation has been justified by looking at the overall structure and intention of the Constitution informed by our Real Life experience, guided by a desire to fashion a workable coherent intelligent system.


We have no written down laws about evidence, except the bald statement that the Chief Justice gets to decide what is or is not admissible. In the absence of a written code of evidence law, we articulate and apply principles justified by looking at the overall structure and intention of the Constitution informed by our Real Life experience, guided by a desire to fashion a workable coherent intelligent system.


We have no written down laws about a lot of things. Certainly though, it is always possible to find in the Constitution or in our statutes a relevant section which assists in some way. The Constitution provides, for instance, that the Court may deal with all disputes between citizens. But how exactly? The answer has been: by articulating and applying principles justified by looking at the overall structure and intention of the Constitution informed by our Real Life experience, guided by a desire to fashion a workable coherent intelligent system.


If “interpretation” of the words is so important and so central to the law, there should be written down rules, passed by Congress, which describe those rules. There aren’t. And there will not be. Congress is much too busy dealing with thing like wars, and taxes and the economy and social policy legislation to spend its time developing a compendium of evidence law. Moreover, Congress rightfully expects the Judicial branch to take care of this. And it does. We write down the law in our opinions.
Opinions of the court are “written down” and a valuable source of the law. They are accessible in the sense that they are publicly available. It takes a fair amount of effort, however, to be fully conversant with them and to that extent they can be described as “inaccessible”. What they contain, however, should take no one by surprise.


Through operation of precedent, eCanadian law includes:

- The doctrine of stare decisis: courts will follow their precedents, apply consistent judicial principles and deal with like cases in like fashion.
- A general high order principle stated as follows: a duty to treat others honestly and in good faith.
- A presumption of innocence in criminal matters.
- A “beyond reasonable doubt” burden, placed upon the prosecution in criminal matters
- A “balance of probabilities” burden, placed upon an applicant in civil matters
- A duty of impartiality placed on Judges
- A duty placed on councel to advocate their client’s case ferociously, impersonally and honestly.


Not an exhaustive list of course. But nothing surprising. The reason these things are not surprising is that they accord with most people’s expectations. They resemble real life. But the Court does NOT “apply real world law”. When it needs to make a decision about principle it considers. It considers carefully. It aims to apply principles which are justified by the overall structure of the game. The Court seeks to create a workable coherent intelligent system.


In deciding which principles will find a permanent place in eCanada’s law, the Court will sometimes look to the lessons and examples of real life. This is no more and no less than taking advantage of the experience of others. It is a wise thing to do. In past opinions, the Court has described this as examining “analogues”. It is error to think that the Court “applies real world law”. In fact, it finds explains and applies eCanadian law. For those who believe eCanadian law is becoming incredibly complex I recommend the following thought. All of the detail is easily understood : treat others honestly and in good faith.


Now this is a great wall of text, and there are those who, understandably, say to simply apply common sense. In fact that is what we do. But if we don’t write great walls of text explaining ourselves, there are always the vocal (and legitimate) who want to know “how the heck do you justify that”. So there is a constant need, especially in cases of novelty, to explain. Yet, at root, things are pretty simple.


Just how simple things are is illustrated by the two recent cases. The Constitution provides citizens with a right to security of government assets. Is it really a surprise that this will be enforced? In an effort to be entirely impartial and fair, the Court set out very long reasons. Those reasons examined the whole corpus of applicable legislation, principle and analogues as well as arguments on both sides of the question. This should not be interpreted as “being unusure or being confused”. The result was pretty obvious: you can’t take or keep things that aren’t yours. Yet, even after this searching analysis, the common sense conclusion, based on our written laws and constitution, does not find favour with all. That is not a surprise. It is natural. Especially if you have a horse in the race.


There are those who, again with perfect legitimacy, say that a player should not have to suffer in the case of novelty: when he didn’t realize. When such a case comes before the court, I have every confidence it will be dealt with appropriately. The recent cases involve a player who openly admitted that he realized he was doing something wrong and a player who, after being repeatedly advised of the state of the law did nothing – refused - to comply. Whether or not their actions comply with the in-game rules is not for us to decide. It has been noted that the in-game rules include prohibitions against keeping or obtaining property in certain fashions. The in-game sanction includes the possibility of permanent ban.


This is not an apologia. It is simply explanation. Some players have already experienced the value of the Court. Players whose rights were protected from forum bans, from being placed on watch lists etc. It would be well to keep in mind that the Court is a line of defense for most citizens. And that it does a great deal more than hear criminal cases.


A few words about the process of reform. It is extremely unlikely that Congress has the political will to engage in the lengthy examination of statutory reform. Our statutes (our written down laws) are often poorly drafted and have omissions. This is a game after all, played by ordinary people who shouldn’t be held to a standard of excellence in legal drafting. Our statutes can “do the trick” quite nicely if they aren’t interpreted rigidly, with an eye to finding every missed or awkward word. And, like our statutes, the Constitution can probably “do the trick” for judicial reform. It provides a broad canvas on which to paint and wide jurisdiction in the Court to craft its own procedures and the common law. The Great Debate assists in giving direction to changes which can be introduced. And you, the public can have an active voice.