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Post by tuandle on Mar 5, 2021 16:22:12 GMT
Starting discussion on the Judicial system
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48 posts
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Post by Ervald on Mar 6, 2021 18:20:30 GMT
Here is my proposal.
Regarding who can apply for cases, I say anybody should be able to apply for one. The two types of cases are criminal and judicial reviews. People can appeal. This is the slightly complicated part. The Constitution says this " All citizens shall also have the right to appeal, which shall be heard by a jury of their peers." Nowhere else in the constitution does it say that trials will have juries, only for if people appeal a case. My personal interpretation is our trials do not have juries unless it is an appeal.
On the process of the case, all parties would share evidence with each other and the judge before the trials, parties make their opening statements, there are arguments, and then closing statements. In the arguments phase, either party can call witnesses. In a criminal case, the judge would declare if the defendant is innocent or guilty and then declare the sentence. In a judicial review, the judge would give their ruling on the law or constitution or whatever it is. In appeals, the jury would vote if the sentence in the previous case should be overturned or not.
I think there should be a right to counsel and pleas, just "Guilty" or "Not Guilty".
Those are my current thoughts.
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Post by tuandle on Mar 6, 2021 19:15:55 GMT
I agree
I think for the appeal instead of a jury we change it to the council of Fourty.
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48 posts
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Post by Ervald on Mar 7, 2021 0:04:03 GMT
I agree I think for the appeal instead of a jury we change it to the council of Fourty. Well, for the jury, we could say "Only members of the Council of Fourty will be allowed to be part of the Jury". Obviously, with trials happening on the forums, only Council of Fourty (COF) members that are registered on the forums as citizens could become part of the jury. I am taking a look at the current number of people on our forums and out of 24, we only have 20 people that have citizenship. Out of those 20, we have 9 people that are part of the COF, including the entire Consiglio and the Doge (we got 1 or 2 people from the COF on our forums that haven't applied for citizenship yet). The main issue is that the COF is everchanging with members being replaced if nations go to the graveyard or the individual have their nation move out of Venice. We could have just 9 people from the COF on our forum or all 40 even though I doubt it will ever be that high. It will change from month to month. So, I think what we need to do is have a set number of jurors so that no matter how many people from the COF are registered on our forums, we will still be able to do trials. Those jurors will have to be part of the COF. I would like to propose 3 jurors. Not too many, but not too few. However, this sets up the question of who will pick which COF members to become the jurors? I propose either the Chief Magistrate or the Doge.
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Post by tuandle on Mar 7, 2021 3:00:41 GMT
I think that makes sense for 3 members of the COF that are citizens on the forum to be the jury.
I think the Doge should chose the jurors.
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48 posts
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Post by Ervald on Mar 7, 2021 3:06:06 GMT
Sounds good to me. Oíran, got any thoughts on this so far? Not just about the COF jury thing, also about my first post in the thread about my thoughts on the judicature as a whole.
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Oíran
Senator
Currently alive
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Post by Oíran on Mar 9, 2021 1:27:07 GMT
the council of fourty is great. However, some nations have moved on. Is there a way to find every nation?
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48 posts
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Post by Ervald on Mar 9, 2021 2:09:00 GMT
the council of fourty is great. However, some nations have moved on. Is there a way to find every nation? Well, only members of the COF that are on our forums as citizens would be eligible to be jurors. And whenever nations part of the COF leave Venice or go inactive, Atlantis selects a new member to fill that vacancy ont he COF. Speaking of the COF proposal, I was speaking to a citizen in private, The Areopagite , who told me that he felt the Doge picking jurors would be unfair since the Doge could have a bias in an appeal trial and only pick jurors that he believes would vote for the verdict he wants. Areo recommended selecting jurors randomly through a random selection tool which could be a program or website. I was informed the Doge, Atlantis , likes this idea but suggested that instead of the jurors being drawn from the COF, it should be volunteers. I would like the Doge to offer his thoughts in more detail.
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Post by Atlantis on Mar 10, 2021 5:59:06 GMT
I am hesitant to involve the Council of Forty because, at it stands, the body is merely an honorific that notes longevity in the region. There is no requirement to be a citizen to sit on the Council, and while I suppose our older nations may — on average — be more experienced and well-informed, I feel it generally is not the best marker.
I would personally suggest that the jury be a random pool from a random generator or some kind, or perhaps we maintain a thread where citizens can sign up to be prospective jurors (limiting the pool more, but perhaps making the pool more qualified?)
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48 posts
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Post by Ervald on Mar 11, 2021 0:00:55 GMT
I mean, the jury would probably have to publicly announce their decision so I would fine with it being a thread where people sign up.
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48 posts
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Post by Ervald on Mar 16, 2021 23:47:32 GMT
We got busy with the legal repository legislation, so I want to touch on if we're good with changing the jury for appeals proposal from COF to just a public signup? For that signup, would we do random selection of 3 jurors from that list?
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Post by tuandle on Mar 17, 2021 2:13:42 GMT
Yes I think that is a great idea
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Post by Atlantis on Mar 18, 2021 5:20:33 GMT
Yes I think that is a great idea For what it's worth, I agree
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48 posts
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Post by Ervald on Mar 20, 2021 15:00:45 GMT
I think we're all in agreement, then. tuandle, want to start on a draft?
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Post by tuandle on Mar 20, 2021 21:52:17 GMT
Sure, I will start on that tomorrow, I am busy today
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