Judicial Reform - public discussion paper
•
by olivermellors
Proposed changes to the constitution will permit change/reform of the Court. In anticipation, the following draft is published for public commentary, input, improvement.
This paper is a working paper being circulated amongst the Justices for discussion as well. They represent my present opinions only. It is hoped that, together we can implement meaningful reform.
____________________________________
Pursuant to the constitution, the Court has inherent power to regulate its own process. The Court now adopts the following as part of its practice.
1. Evidentiary hearings abolished
Formerly, a party had to go through a procedure called an evidentiary hearing. He had to produce sufficient evidence which IF believed MIGHT lead to success. This procedure arose from the constitutional requirement to decide whether to take a case before setting a trial date. It caused confusion and delay. It will no longer be employed.
Henceforth, a party wishing to begin a proceeding will post a request in the Supreme Court area of the forums. Any Judge may, thereupon, open a new thread for the case in the “new cases” area. The case will then proceed in the usual fashion as hereafter described.
2. Order of speaking abolished
Formerly, the constitution required a pre-determined “order” for the presentation of statements, evidence and questions. This procedure strongly reflected real world practice. It has led to delay, confusion, argument of a technical nature which defeat the Court’s purpose, and it is based on a model which is inappropriate in our world.
Henceforth, each party will simultaneously file whatever evidence they wish the Court to consider. This includes documents, screenshots, links,witness’ statements and anything else a party wishes to rely upon. The Court will, in appropriate cases, give further directions so as to achieve fairness between the parties, including directions for the submission of questions and delivery of answers. As a general rule, questions will be submitted all at once and answered in the same fashion. As a general rule, evidence from all witness will be received and dealt with simultaneously. Moreover, the Court may on its own motion, file and rely on evidence wherever it finds it provided that it gives the parties notice and an opportunity to respond to it.
Henceforth, judges will, at all stages of the proceedings, be free to ask questions and involve themselves actively subject to management by the Chief Justice, in order to achieve fairness and justice between the parties.
3. Evidence – admissibility v. weight
The Court has previously stated the judicial principle that anything logically probative is prima facie admissible. The job of judges includes the critical task of determining what weight to assign to evidence. Some evidence will be given no weight at all even though admitted. Some evidence will be given great weight. Judges are required and entitled to make inferences from the evidence to arrive at a judgment of how the facts stand.
Real world analogues and evidentiary rules such as “hearsay” are not well understood by the eCanadian community. In the real world they operate to avoid waste of time. In our world, it is the reverse. Technical evidentiary arguments based on RL rules observed on television, are the time wasters. Accordingly, the Court will avoid such arguments, relying on the golden rule that “anything logically probative is admissible”. Unreliable evidence or evidence with low reliability will be accorded appropriate weight.
4. The standard of proof – reasonable doubt
The “reasonable doubt” standard in criminal cases is very very poorly understood. Use of the expression is to be avoided by the Court. Nevertheless, criminal cases must rise to the level of convincing a judge that he is sufficiently convinced to merit the imposition of penal sanctions. This is a high threshold. We all understand that. Giving it the title “reasonable doubt” doesn’t help anyone. Ignoring the realities of our eWorld is not justice.
In civil cases, we will continue to employ the expression “on the balance of probabilities”, which is a lower standard.
5. Interim orders
In appropriate cases, where there is some urgency or other good reason shown, a single judge may make a temporary order. Any such order is automatically referred to the full panel for review and confirmation, amendment or dissolution.
6. Trial before a single judge or panel
In appropriate cases, the Chief Justice may direct that a case be heard by a single judge. In such a case, the judge has complete conduct of the case until final disposition subject only to intervention by the Chief Justice in the event of unforeseen circumstance or patent injustice. The decision of a single judge sitting as a trial judge is binding from the time it is delivered, subject to appeal to the full court. On appeal, the panel may make such interim or final order as could be made by the trial judge.
The above applies with necessary modification to panels short of the full Court.
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
All the court can do is impose IRC/Forum bans as a punishment or deterrent
Until a time when the court has jurisdiction over the forum admins, and the forum admins do not have carte blanche over the eCan forums and IRC, the Supreme court is absolutely useless
PS - the above is a horrible idea, people are used to court proceeding as seen on TV and based on Real Life. The mish mash you propose will just cause confusion and make arguing a case virtually impossible
it is comical that Oliver seems to post all these rulings without the agreement of all the justices
and BTW the chief justice does not make all the decisions like Oliver thinks...the role of the chief justice is to organize discussions and votes...not make rulings without decisions
"Until a time when the court has jurisdiction over the forum admins, and the forum admins do not have carte blanche over the eCan forums and IRC, the Supreme court is absolutely useless"
This much is true.
I agree that these reforms are a step in the right direction. However, I would like to see more power to congress. Make congress elect admins (i.e. the "enforcers"), make congress elect a single judge. When people criticise 'roleplay', what they're actually criticising is roleplay for the sake of roleplay which should be condemned. Fact is, this isn't the real world and a community this small does not require an independent judiciary.
RL procedures don't served our community. They are often too complex to understand (even if you have watch one of those clown trial on TV).
Those rules are way simpler, and will save the court a lot of time.
Great improvements.
Petz it's not his fault.
His parents paid all that money for law school before he flunked out and wound up making his living as a telemarketer that now the only way he can stop himself from falling into a downward spiral of depression is to justify all that money they spent by being "Top Dog" in an imaginary court for a game on the internet.
Cut him a little slack.
These changes are improvements.
Look guys, if you want reforms to the judicial system, here are reforms. We will never achieve perfection, continuous improvement is the best case scenario.
I was involved in the Rolo trial and I thought it actually went pretty well and I see how Oliver has addressed some of the complaints that arose during the trial that were legit.
You can't change the rules during a trial, that was established in the PimpDollaz case and portrayed the courts as a real sham (create the law you want during the trial to get the conviction you want). I don't think these changes would affect the outcome of the Rolo trial either.
Petz has brought to my attention the need to make clear that this is a working document, which I am circulating amongst the public and the bench for comment. It does not represent the present thinking of anyone but myself. Apologies if some were misled.
i apologize to Oliver as well as my typing may have come across quite harsh
PTO'er !