[AMENDMENT] Protecting Our Courts Amendment (POCA)

The Magisterium
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Article C: Judicial

Section 1

This Concordat does hereby invest judicial power in the Conclave, which shall be the interpreter of this Concordat and the judge and jury of Citizens.

Section 2

The Standing Orders of the Conclave shall be considered legally binding within the Conclave, unless contradicted by this Concordat or statutory law.

Section 3

The Conclave shall be composed of four Arbiters, which shall not serve concurrently as the Delegate or as a Magister. In the final decisions of the Conclave, the total number of votes cast may not exceed 3, as determined by the Standing Orders of the Conclave.

Section 4

The Arbiters shall elect from amongst themselves a Viceroy who shall oversee the proceedings of the Conclave, administrate elections in the Region, and represent the Conclave to the Executive, the Magisterium, and the Praesidium. The Viceroy shall submit election regulation changes to the Magisterium for majority approval. The Viceroy shall be charged with maintaining the Standing Orders of the Conclave.

Section 5

Arbiters are appointed for six month tenure, after which they shall retain their seat until a Member is nominated to replace them. An Arbiter may be reappointed when their term ends.

Section 6

The Conclave may rule on the actions of the Delegate or the Praesidium and nullify any which are contrary to this Concordat or statutory law. Furthermore, the Conclave may nullify any law passed by the Magisterium that is contrary to this Concordat. The Conclave is empowered to compel a legally required action by Order with an indictable penalty, as limited by law. The Conclave cannot overturn Concordat Amendments any part of the Concordat.

Section 7

The Conclave may rule on the actions of any Citizen to be in violation of this Concordat or of the indicted offences as prescribed by the laws of the Region and sentence those found guilty pursuant to statutory limits. Trials in the Conclave shall be in open session.

Section 8

The Conclave may remove a Vizier or Magister by a 2/3 vote for abuse of power, inactivity, or dereliction of duty.

Section 9

The Conclave may, via a 2/3 vote, temporarily suspend any government official who is being tried for an indictable offense from exercising some or all of their governmental powers during trial. This temporary suspension shall be lifted at the end of said trial or lifted early by a 2/3 vote of the Conclave.

Section 10

The Conclave may not apply any legislation to any situation that occurred before the legislation was passed. The prohibition of the Conclave overturning Concordat Amendments, as stated in this Article, shall be an exemption to this mandate.

Section 11

Any Arbiter with substantial prior involvement with a matter that goes to trial must recuse themselves from said trial. If necessary, an Arbiter may be forcefully recused with the support of all other non-recused Arbiters. Recused Arbiters may not perform Arbiter duties for any matter directly related to said trial.

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here is my reasoning for each change. some remain from the initial POCA amendment, some are new, or slightly altered.

1… quorum for conclave decisions; we can’t have the court making decisions unless at least half of them are involved in making those decisions. combined with the section mandating recusal on matters that affect them, this also prevents the conclave from destroying itself, just in a better way than i first intended

2… del must nominate within seven days; delegate can just not nominate or renominate an arbiter if they know the magisterium won’t reconfirm, basically meaning confirmations are nothing and our checks and balances don’t exist

3… if an arbiter renom fails, no more arbiter; if an arbiter renom fails, it means the people have exercised their checks and balances to reject the arbitership of that individual, so their position should be forfeited

4… cannot be nominated twice for the same seat; the nomination already failed, the delegate shouldn’t be able to do it again

5… cannot overturn any part of the concordat; why did we just restrict them to not overturning amendments? they shouldn’t be able to overturn any part. idk if this changes anything too much, but it’s more comprehensive

6… prohibition of overturning conk amendments no longer can be ex post facto; idk why this was included here, That Ruling was already deemed illegal and undone, we just want to prevent it from happening in the future, which section 6 does

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I think this section needs some language on what happens when the appellate Arbiters are split, and I think that language should be that the original ruling is upheld.

I don’t even know if it should go under this article, but while we’re amending things, why can’t the Magisterium lift the temporary suspension as a check against that power?

If more than two Arbiters recuse from a matter, I think we should have a line of succession of other government officials to fill in as special Arbiters or someone or something with the power to appoint special Arbiters because potentially waiting up to six months to go to trial is an eternity.

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“The same Arbiter(s) may not be assigned appellate jurisdiction for two adjacent matters unless they explicitly recuse themselves.”

What does this mean? I can’t make any sense of it.

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God-Emperor: If two or more Arbiters recuse from a matter, I think we should have a line of succession of other government officials to fill in as special Arbiters or someone or something with the power to appoint special Arbiters because potentially waiting up to six months to go to trial is an eternity.

Of all the bad ideas for Conclave reform, including the one offered above, this is the worst I’ve yet seen. This would bring unqualified, likely partial actors into the process of making binding legal judgements. If you want trust in Conclave to tank, I guess, then this is a great idea. Otherwise leave Arbiting to Arbiters.

(My apologies for the bad markdown, this forum is rather unintuitive, especially on mobile.)

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It sounds similar to the “Lay Judges” system used in various countries Lay judge - Wikipedia

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The Delegate and/or the Provost might be unqualified to be Arbiters, but not necessarily likely. As for partiality, if we’re at the point where three Arbiters have recused themselves, bringing officials in from the Executive or Legislature might be prudent. If Arbiters are too partial to make binding legal judgements. those judgements still need to be made. If three Arbiters have recused themselves, the Conclave may already be tanking so this might be what’s needed to keep it afloat. The whole point of this is for when the Arbiters can’t Arbiter, but arbitration still needs done. I don’t think it’s wise to wait for one or more six month terms to end before an issue can be resolved.

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What happens if the Delegate doesn’t nominate someone within the allotted week?

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Basically Viceroy Evil Aurora can’t assign Lib and Shadow to be appellate judges every time because she doesn’t want them to have any affect on the original decision, so after Lib and Shadow take their turns, two other appellate judges are assigned for the next time.

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idrk. what do we normally do when officials dont do their job within the allotted time period? what do we do when Viceroy Evil Aurora (really beating this dead horse) decides not to start the elections on the 1st? genuinely asking, i actually dont know and i think it exposes a weakness in our law. i suppose conclave can force the delegate to via that one other section of Article III?

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i disagree, i think this idea goes against the spirit of that part of my amendment. the idea is that another concrisis can’t happen. we can’t have a ruling by the conclave that everyone in the conclave is not a valid member of conclave.

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for the first thing, i think i’d prefer that be left to the soc, which already deals with what to do when the conclave is tied in its current form. for the second…idk. i wanna say yes more checks on conclave, but then again what if magi is stacked and wants evil delegate 1 to continue delegating while they’re on trial for high treason? they can continue gathering endorsements and influence and running the executive to the ground while they’re on trial; the viziers can’t act to remove them

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In that case, I think you mean “consecutive”.

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There’s the Truancy procedures that can be invoked I believe

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If the alternative is that we have to wait up to six months to act, we might not just have a concrisis, but a crisis crisis. The law properly written in that situation would make them valid members of the Conclave for that case anyway.

First, if the Viceroy was the dissent in the original case, it leaves appeals cases open to the possibility that the Viceroy and one other Arbiter could overrule the other three, or if the Viceroy has recused themselves, even an acting Viceroy.

Second, if the delegate is evil and two thirds of the Magisterium are evil, are we assuming the Conclave is untouched? All it would take to remove a good delegate is a couple evil Arbiters and some trumped up charges without any checks.

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its somewhere in the del elections act, but iirc the Viziers take over

Otherwise, I think the only way is delegate removal. Conclave Orders may be of help, if that’s what you’re referring to, but that’d depend on the Conclave taking initiative which it currently doesn’t seem it really wants to do, in any case.

In any case, we do need a system in place to encourage or punish the Delegate if they fail to meet the nomination deadline.

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With the proposed amendment, isn’t it always the case that the two ‘appellate’ Arbiters overrule the other three? Do we want to invite strategic jockeying between Arbiters to see who lands on the appellate spot, to have more sway in jurisprudence?

I also don’t really see the case for an appellate procedure in the first place.

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According to the SoC, if there’s a tie, the Viceroy breaks it. If the Viceroy was the dissenting vote in the original case, the Viceroy breaking a tie between the appellate Arbiter could lead to two Arbiters deciding the case. I admit it’s an unlikely scenario.