Surveying Citizens Views on the Judiciary Act

Forum to discuss issues pertaining to the organisation and operations of the judiciary.

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The Judiciary Act should be:

left intact
6
38%
amended by Justice's proposal
8
50%
amended some way other than Justice proposed
2
13%
 
Total votes: 16

Justice Soothsayer
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Surveying Citizens Views on the Judiciary Act

Post by Justice Soothsayer »

I've heard from a lot of citizens who think the judiciary should be changed, and I am wondering if this view is common. I've created my own short poll on this question. If you pick "amended some other way than Justice proposed", please consider writing a reply below that indicates how you would amend the Judiciary Act.

If you don't like my poll questions, or think they are a "push poll", feel free to create your own survey.

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Ashcroft Burnham
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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

What do you consider the minimum threshold of participation of our 65 citizens for you to take these results as meaningful?

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Post by Diderot Mirabeau »

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":381u0ah3]What do you consider the minimum threshold of participation of our 65 citizens for you to take these results as meaningful?[/quote:381u0ah3]

I will take the results as meaningful in so far as they encompass a number of citizens greater than the number upon which you base the below sweepingly dismissive statement:

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":381u0ah3]It will not have the respect of all our citizens: it will certainly not have my respect, nor the respect of those who value judicial independence, nor the respect of those who believe that the one thing that is more important than anything else in a virtual world legal system is legal certainty, and the one area in which legal certainty is more important than any other is legal procedure.[/quote:381u0ah3]

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Post by Justice Soothsayer »

Sorry, but another possible answer didn't get saved: "Repeal the Judiciary Act in its entirety". If that's your choice, feel free to indicate so below.

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Post by Justice Soothsayer »

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":100p5tf6]What do you consider the minimum threshold of participation of our 65 citizens for you to take these results as meaningful?[/quote:100p5tf6]

All voices are meaningful, and each is free to interpret the results as they like.

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Post by Beathan »

I predictably favor repeal. I think the SC was working as is -- and would have worked extremely well with minimal tweaking. However, as a compromise, I am willing to wholeheartedly accept, even endorse, Justice's proposal.

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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

[quote="Justice Soothsayer":3d811zqy]All voices are meaningful, and each is free to interpret the results as they like.[/quote:3d811zqy]

Let me clarify: I meant statistically significant to the extent that one can genuinely claim that the poll is representative of the population at large.

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Post by Beathan »

Ash asked how many votes would be needed for a statistically significant poll. We have five votes with a population of under 70. That is a percentage participation of more than 7%. Of course, with a population as small as ours, we need a larger relative sample size than for larger populations. However, the concept of "statistical significance" has no meaning in statistics. The issue is rather one of confidence -- and different people accept different levels of confidence. Personally, I thnk that when 7% of an electorate talks -- especially if that 7% is likely to be active voters -- the government should stand up and take notice.

However, as a countervailing point, this is arguably a push poll. In such case, we should take care in drawing conclusions from it. However, each of us -- and each member of the RA -- can and will draw their own conclusions.

Edit -- we now have eleven votes -- and the poll is running roughly 3 to1 against the judiciary as constituted. This trend has continued throughout the voting. I expect that it represents the real feeling of our community. I would project support for the judiciary at at between 15 - 20, opposition at between 40-45, assuming zero apathy and full familiarity with the recent debate.

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Last edited by Beathan on Tue Dec 05, 2006 12:03 am, edited 2 times in total.
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abolish

Post by Dianne »

I would just like to note that I voted for the third option but in fact I would vote for "completely abolish" if it was a choice. This is not so much because of technical or individual failings of the judiciary acts structure but because I don't believe the act was really necessary and because I believe it was an unnecessarily confusing mix of procedural detail and constitutional revision.

IMO the big mistake that was made here is that the issue of revising the basic governmental structure to include *a* judiciary was confabulated with the particular details of *this* judiciary when they should have been separate. IMO we should have instead decided whether we wanted a judiciary and how that would affect our governmental structure first and dealt with all those issues, and only when that was decided, gone forward with proposals for judges, courts etc.

i.e. - way to much, and way to fast, with no actual need driving it.

my 2 cents :shock:

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Re: abolish

Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

[quote="Dianne":uwm3mq5z]i.e. - way to much, and way to fast, with no actual need driving it.[/quote:uwm3mq5z]

Many people have been complaining that it has been too [i:uwm3mq5z]slow[/i:uwm3mq5z] to deal with their outstanding cases, those cases being a very real need that is driving it.

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Re: abolish

Post by Gxeremio Dimsum »

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":14llnsdg]Many people have been complaining that it has been too [i:14llnsdg]slow[/i:14llnsdg] to deal with their outstanding cases, those cases being a very real need that is driving it.[/quote:14llnsdg]

It is my understanding that had the Judiciary Act not been passed, the cases would have been decided by law from the RA or, better yet, by the SC. The passage of the Judiciary Act took away the ability of those bodies to deal with the problems for the time being.
I know that the defendant in the griefing case for one is eager to have his situation heard and dealt with, which I believe would already have been done in a world without the Judiciary Act.

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Re: abolish

Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":1lwr8v1w]It is my understanding that had the Judiciary Act not been passed, the cases would have been decided by law from the RA or, better yet, by the SC. The passage of the Judiciary Act took away the ability of those bodies to deal with the problems for the time being.
I know that the defendant in the griefing case for one is eager to have his situation heard and dealt with, which I believe would already have been done in a world without the Judiciary Act.[/quote:1lwr8v1w]

Actually, there were a whole series of cases that the Scientific Council was supposed to have "reviewed" under the now repealed Defense of the Republic Act that it never did so, and banishments either lapsed without consideration, or remained illegitimately in place.

For example, before the Judiciary Act was passed, I remember talking to one fellow (not one of our pending cases as far as I am aware) who had been banned from the CDS. He didn't agree with his banishment, and he asked how he could appeal it. This was a lot more than 28 days ago. I told him that, as was the case then, that, under the present arrangements, there was nothing that he could do, and that the best for which he could hope is that a body that had seldom met would meet within 28 days and review his decision in his favour. I could not, however, assure him that he would have any opportunity to make representations to the SC, that the SC would tell him when and where it was meeting, or even that the SC would meet. It was only by IMing me that he even knew that there [i:1lwr8v1w]might[/i:1lwr8v1w] be a process of review, and which he [i:1lwr8v1w]might[/i:1lwr8v1w] have an opportunity to make representations, if he was lucky.

Indeed, to my knowledge, since the Defense of the Republic Act was passed, although a number of people were banished under it, not once did the Scientific Council actually meet and "review" the banishments issued under it, as it was its duty to do.

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Post by Jon Seattle »

1. The current Judiciary Act should be suspended. (Not abolished, or radically revised all in one day as Justice would have us do.) Keeping it is force is keeping us from working out a solution that makes sense for our community.

2. The proponents of the various judicial proposals (Ashcroft, Beathan, Justice) should work together with interested citizens to create some proposal with true public understanding and support. This is important as what is happening now is that the parties are bashing it out on these forums.

There are quite a few studies now that show that web-based forums are notoriously bad ways of working our differences. Conflict tends to escalate and discussions work towards divergence of views and not consensus.

- There should meetings in-world of a commission open to all people who are interested in establishing a judiciary. This group should work on a common proposal and then bring it to the RA.

- The current Judicial Act should remain suspended until this work is finished. If it takes a long time, well, so be it. This is not something we want to rush in to. The old system (run by the SC) will work until then.

We have three vastly different competing proposals and lots and lots of heated debate. Having a fractious bunch running the judicial system does not inspire public confidence.

I (and I think many other citizens) object to the CDS government, the RA, and public discourse being hijacked for months to talk about the judiciary to the exclusion of all other concerns. The CDS is a real organization with bills to pay, things to build, people to train, and events and promotion campaigns to run. Remember that space we have in Second Life?

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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

[quote="Jon Seattle":qw9ccysv]1. The current Judiciary Act should be suspended. (Not abolished, or radically revised all in one day as Justice would have us do.) Keeping it is force is keeping us from working out a solution that makes sense for our community.[/quote:qw9ccysv]

Why does keeping it in force have any such effect? Keeping it in force enables us to test it to see whether it works, whilst we decide whether it is really as bad as some people seem to think that it is. In any event, suspending (rather than repealing) parts of the constitution is unconstutional, and not something that the RA has the power to do. Whilst any text remains part of the constitution, everybody, including the RA, is fully bound by it. Removing text is called "repealing". Furthermore, suspending the operation of an entire judicial system, without immediately replacing it, is unlawful, since it does not provide an effective judicial system, as mandated by the UNHDR. That is again something that the RA does not have the power to do.

[quote:qw9ccysv]2. The proponents of the various judicial proposals (Ashcroft, Beathan, Justice) should work together with interested citizens to create some proposal with true public understanding and support. This is important as what is happening now is that the parties are bashing it out on these forums. [/quote:qw9ccysv]

I already have spent an enormous amout of time debating with proponents of various different ideas about how the judicary should work before we came to the agreement that we reached back in October. If all that work is going to be disregarded, and everybody forced to start all over again, then I will have no confidence that any solution reached by this subsequent agreement will not surcumb to the same fate, and will have no incentive to participate in it. That will apply to all of the other parties, too, except those who did not participate the first time around. There is a limit to how much of a person's time will be wasted, and how much of a person's work disrespected and thrown away without being tried, that a person will take and still be willing to do more.

[quote:qw9ccysv]There are quite a few studies now that show that web-based forums are notoriously bad ways of working our differences. Conflict tends to escalate and discussions work towards divergence of views and not consensus.

- There should meetings in-world of a commission open to all people who are interested in establishing a judiciary. This group should work on a common proposal and then bring it to the RA. [/quote:qw9ccysv]

I am not interested in establishing another judiciary. I am interested in working with the judiciary that we have already established. I am not alone in that. Any such commission would deliberately marginalise such people in favour of those who never liked the idea in the first place and will seize any excuse to do away with what they agreed at the time for good reason.

[quote:qw9ccysv]The current Judicial Act should remain suspended until this work is finished. If it takes a long time, well, so be it. This is not something we want to rush in to. The old system (run by the SC) will work until then.[/quote:qw9ccysv]

As explained, this would be unconstitutional: the RA has no power to do this.

[quote:qw9ccysv]We have three vastly different competing proposals and lots and lots of heated debate. Having a fractious bunch running the judicial system does not inspire public confidence.[/quote:qw9ccysv]

Neither does unconstitutionally and unlawfully suspending a system before it has even started to operate, despite being ready to operate, and denying citizens justice indefinitely.

[quote:qw9ccysv]I (and I think many other citizens) object to the CDS government, the RA, and public discourse being hijacked for months to talk about the judiciary to the exclusion of all other concerns.[/quote:qw9ccysv]

So do I. I thought that that would all have finished in October when the Judiciary Act was finally passed. All that I want to do is get on with judging cases in our present system, the system on which I have invested so much of my time and effort over the last half a year, and educating people in how it works. The only way to stop public discourse from being so hijacked is to refuse to entertain any suggestion that the system be changed until it has had enough time to be tested thoroughly. What you propose will do the opposite: ensure that the judiciary remains unresolved for an indefinite period of time. Some people, having spent half a year working on the project, and half a year battling hard to defend important ideals from those who would have an unworkably oversimplified system, or those who would have the judiciary under the thumb of politicians, both to the infinite detriment of justice, to secure the prize of living in a community in which true justice and the rule of law prevails, being a pioneer in SecondLife, being able to say to the world, "this is what I have had a hand in creating - look how well it is working", and, above all, having the fascinating task of judging cases. I never came to the CDS because I enjoyed having to battle with people about the future of the judiciary: I came here because I wanted to bring a proper judicial system to a virtual world, with all the benefits for the inhabitants thereof that I have outlined many times before, and be a judge in that system.

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Post by Jon Seattle »

Hmmm.. Ashcroft, it seems to me that your assertion that the representative assembly does not have the ability to pass an amendment to suspend the judiciary is an astounding attack on representative government. You are telling me we cannot go back, that somehow we have handed power over to you and we have no ability to moderate that power?

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