Criminal Code Revisited

[AwesomeSaucer]

Why are we doing that? Just to mimic ostracism? I'm pretty sure the system already in place is fine, Mediator act or w/e already tries to fix offenses between members, if no agreement is met Ecclesia will deal with it. Offenses against the collective is the same thing. Just list the damn offenses and they will be dealt case-by-case.

I'm actually growing to like a "Mediator Act."  Should I assume the Mediator is like a "supreme judge?"

[Khem]

Why are we doing that? Just to mimic ostracism? I'm pretty sure the system already in place is fine, Mediator act or w/e already tries to fix offenses between members, if no agreement is met Ecclesia will deal with it. Offenses against the collective is the same thing. Just list the damn offenses and they will be dealt case-by-case.

I'm actually growing to like a "Mediator Act."  Should I assume the Mediator is like a "supreme judge?"

You can read the full text HERE.

[Delfos]

You should also read the 5 page long discussion on that vote Khem posted. the Citizen-Mediator got approved but not much else.

http://forum.taijitu.org/proposals-and-discussions/judiciary/

I suspect we may need a mediator to reach a compromise over a criminal code. I mean, maybe we can have an opinion poll and figure out that everyone (except Bustos) is in favor of a list of offenses whichever that may be, we can even throw the lists together and work from there, and see how much support ostracism or setting penalties is really worth anything.

I say, the mediator should work without barriers of a minimum/maximum sentence, and when that fails he will request Ecclesia to set it regarding the case. I doubt there will be that many offenses to the collective Taijitu region that aren't preemptively acted upon by the admins anyway, so why bother pretending Ecclesia has a say about those? You're all concern with "high" crimes, come on what can anybody really affect Taijitu with them "high crimes"? Espionage, we already said how ridiculous that was. Most of the crimes, if any, will be offending specific parties, there's no need to talk about permabans or any of that crap, admins already permaban at will following whatever rules they already have or think they have. Ecclesia or Mediator deals with "civil" issues, admin issues are for admins, if you want we can set the admin rules but I doubt that's necessary or will bear any effect at all.

[Myroria]

In general I agree that the mediator should be the main force of civil law.

However, I also strongly support criminalizing things like couping treatied allies. I think few regions would be inclined to sign a treaty with us if they can't expect us to punish a citizen that works against their government.

[Gulliver]

If we do adopt a criminal code, it should not include things already covered by RL law and the forum terms of service.  Mostly likely it will primarily focus on things related to NationStates, like the integrity of our democracy and the in game security of the region.

When I tried drafting something on my own a while back, I came up with the following list of possibilities (which I don't feel equally sure about):

• Seizing the ingame regional delegacy of Taijitu without having been elected Citizen-Delegate;
• Impersonating a member of the government or armed forces;
• Unlawfully seizing the delegacy of an allied region of Taijitu;
• Knowingly submitting false information on a citizenship application;
• Distributing militia secrets without the permission of the Citizen-Sergeant;
• Knowingly distributing false information about any election or vote of the Ecclesia;
• Distributing information which could be used to identify the real life identity of a person with their permission;
• Disrupting the regional message board of Taijitu with excessive or inappropriate messages;
• Distributing chat logs or private messages without the permission of all those involved; and
• Impersonating a private person.

I also included a conspiracy clause stating "[p]lanning, attempting or knowingly abetting anticivil activity or coercing another to engage in anticivil activity will be considered equivalent to engaging in it" and exceptions for when forced to commit the act or required by law.

Another thing the draft had was categorizing offenses into "major anti-civil activity" and "minor anti-civil activity" which determined how long someone could be banned for the crime and whether the Citizen-Delegate could ban or eject someone immediately if caught in the act.

Are we looking to draw a line between civil and criminal disputes? If civil disputes are handled by a mediator one-on-one how are criminal disputes, for a lack of a better word, tried? By the Ecclesia as a whole? Who brings charges? One option I see is letting anyone make a complaint of criminal behavior if they're the one affected, whether as a private citizen or government official, and possibly handle it procedurally in a fashion similar to what we've called "civil law" and not have such a stark distinction.

[Khem]

I feel like judgement of criminal offences should require more than a single person chosen to stand in judgement. Maybe a tribunal? I'd prefer criminal charges not be brought forth before the entire Ecclesia and in fact having a system of handling such cases anonymously until such time as judgement is achieved would be ideal to me. However I wouldn't want one Citizen or Officer to be in charge of such in case charges were to be levied against them. I prefer no distinction made between "major" and "minor" crimes with the sentencing to be determined as per the individual situation rather than a rigid standard of "X" time. Also loving the list.

[AwesomeSaucer]

Honestly, I just think the defendant should be able to choose whether to have a (public) bench trial judged by the Mediator, or a jury trial consisting of either a few members of the Ecclesia or the entire Ecclesia.

About the list, I enjoy it thoroughly, but I would personally take out the clauses relating to political matters.  I think Taijituan crimes should be personal, not political.

[Khem]

Honestly, I just think the defendant should be able to choose whether to have a (public) bench trial judged by the Mediator, or a jury trial consisting of either a few members of the Ecclesia or the entire Ecclesia.

About the list, I enjoy it thoroughly, but I would personally take out the clauses relating to political matters.  I think Taijituan crimes should be personal, not political.

I vehemently disagree, Political crimes are those I most want to see make it into a final bill. Without capacity to punish those who do such things as threatening a treaty by illegally seizing an allied regions delegacy our criminal code will be pointless. I believe firmly in criminalizing political offences.

[Delfos]

What judgement? He either did it or didn't, Mediator serves to reach a settlement between people, he won't judge crimes against the humanity, wtf. Ecclesia will do that, whether or not through interpretation of a Mediator to look up the "case" a present it in the most proper manner to Ecclesia, but he will never Judge. Jury? Ecclesia is the Jury, why are we talking about americanized justice system when we already established Ecclesia rules all, if you want parallelism, it's like Jury is Ecclesia, there's no Judge, we take a vote and that's the judgment. Anything "civil" will be handled for settlement between offended and offender, the idea here is that we want people to get along. Political crimes? Where the hell did that concept spawned from? You're going to judge them commies? How likely is it we're going to have an allied region complaining that some random dude participated on a raid that he shouldn't have anyway? Did that ever happened even? Come on guys, deal with reality, if sht happens we shall deal with it together in Ecclesia, where everybody is free to come up with a case and a fix, a fix!, not a freaking death penalty. You crazy people, calm your hammer-of-justice-rain-hell-upon-them-wicked scenarios.

[AwesomeSaucer]

What judgement? He either did it or didn't, Mediator serves to reach a settlement between people, he won't judge crimes against the humanity, wtf. Ecclesia will do that, whether or not through interpretation of a Mediator to look up the "case" a present it in the most proper manner to Ecclesia, but he will never Judge. Jury? Ecclesia is the Jury, why are we talking about americanized justice system when we already established Ecclesia rules all, if you want parallelism, it's like Jury is Ecclesia, there's no Judge, we take a vote and that's the judgment. Anything "civil" will be handled for settlement between offended and offender, the idea here is that we want people to get along. Political crimes? Where the hell did that concept spawned from? You're going to judge them commies? How likely is it we're going to have an allied region complaining that some random dude participated on a raid that he shouldn't have anyway? Did that ever happened even? Come on guys, deal with reality, if sht happens we shall deal with it together in Ecclesia, where everybody is free to come up with a case and a fix, a fix!, not a freaking death penalty. You crazy people, calm your hammer-of-justice-rain-hell-upon-them-wicked scenarios.

THIS.  EXACTLY.

[Myroria]

What judgement? He either did it or didn't, Mediator serves to reach a settlement between people, he won't judge crimes against the humanity, wtf. Ecclesia will do that, whether or not through interpretation of a Mediator to look up the "case" a present it in the most proper manner to Ecclesia, but he will never Judge. Jury? Ecclesia is the Jury, why are we talking about americanized justice system when we already established Ecclesia rules all, if you want parallelism, it's like Jury is Ecclesia, there's no Judge, we take a vote and that's the judgment. Anything "civil" will be handled for settlement between offended and offender, the idea here is that we want people to get along. Political crimes? Where the hell did that concept spawned from? You're going to judge them commies? How likely is it we're going to have an allied region complaining that some random dude participated on a raid that he shouldn't have anyway? Did that ever happened even? Come on guys, deal with reality, if sht happens we shall deal with it together in Ecclesia, where everybody is free to come up with a case and a fix, a fix!, not a freaking death penalty. You crazy people, calm your hammer-of-justice-rain-hell-upon-them-wicked scenarios.

a page ago you said that having the ecclesia deal with people after they did something uncodified was terrible and that we definitely needed a written criminal code

Also, let's be honest, half the things we're talking about banning are already forbidden in the ToS and we're playing a political simulation browser game. What would we put in a criminal code if not offenses against treatied allies and whatnot?

[Funkadelia]

I am opposed to a criminal code for Taijitu.

Despite the system never being tested, I am perfectly content with a pure form of ostracizing. If someone truly did commit some terrible act, I expect the citizen's ecclesia would be fully competent to ostracize that individual. Codifying these laws are useless. It leads to people relying strictly on text. That is to say that they will scrutinize that text and try to find loopholes and paltry ways to get out of being prosecuted for a crime.

By contrast, ostracizing does not allow for loopholes and adherence religiously to text. I think that the circumstances around a crime and their punishments should be on a case by case basis, and the examinations of each situation similarly would be on a case by case basis.

[Delfos]

What judgement? He either did it or didn't, Mediator serves to reach a settlement between people, he won't judge crimes against the humanity, wtf. Ecclesia will do that, whether or not through interpretation of a Mediator to look up the "case" a present it in the most proper manner to Ecclesia, but he will never Judge. Jury? Ecclesia is the Jury, why are we talking about americanized justice system when we already established Ecclesia rules all, if you want parallelism, it's like Jury is Ecclesia, there's no Judge, we take a vote and that's the judgment. Anything "civil" will be handled for settlement between offended and offender, the idea here is that we want people to get along. Political crimes? Where the hell did that concept spawned from? You're going to judge them commies? How likely is it we're going to have an allied region complaining that some random dude participated on a raid that he shouldn't have anyway? Did that ever happened even? Come on guys, deal with reality, if sht happens we shall deal with it together in Ecclesia, where everybody is free to come up with a case and a fix, a fix!, not a freaking death penalty. You crazy people, calm your hammer-of-justice-rain-hell-upon-them-wicked scenarios.

a page ago you said that having the ecclesia deal with people after they did something uncodified was terrible and that we definitely needed a written criminal code

Also, let's be honest, half the things we're talking about banning are already forbidden in the ToS and we're playing a political simulation browser game. What would we put in a criminal code if not offenses against treatied allies and whatnot?

judge on civil disputes, yes that would be terrible, half of you would convict Govindia just for being Govindia.

As said before, most things are already "illegal" and it will be very rare the use of mediator or Ecclesia to judge on some event. When was the last time there was trial in Taijitu in any form? It was probably me in trial, how familiar is that, I get to be on trial every now and then, better than banning me without one.

All we gotta do is make a freaking list, if we in the future think it's better to have penalties associated with the offenses, sure why not, I doubt it's necessary or productive, as I doubt we'll have a "trial".

Don't the treaties already predict the citizens of each party have to follow through? Doesn't being a citizen already say we have to follow through? Then why do we have to write that we have to follow through a third time? Isn't a treaty with a region a "law adopted by the Ecclesia" like our oath says?

If you want descriptive stuff like that then maybe we should also be protected by the law, maybe we can't be convicted if we're following orders in Militia, or for following orders from an allied military dude.

[St Oz]

[Khem]

I'd suggest those against the idea just vote against it if it ever comes to a vote. In the meantime this discussion is about what shape this should take (aside from the already existing ostracism and mediator) and compiling a logical list of offenses. As of this moment it is not illegal for a Citizen to break one of our treaties, seize the delegacy, falsify information, or divulge military secrets. These are the sorts of offenses I would like to see codified. Yes they are all political crimes because as Myro said...

Also, let's be honest, half the things we're talking about banning are already forbidden in the ToS and we're playing a political simulation browser game. What would we put in a criminal code if not offenses against treatied allies and whatnot?

Focusing on anything other just seems silly to me.

Now that I have stated that moving on to the next point of who specifically would sit in judgement of such. I would prefer that we structure this in a way where any trial would be presided over by a neutral party, with the Ecclesia casting votes of guilt or innocence and voting on specific penalties in the same time-frame. I would prefer such voting period be brief, yet the discussion lengthy.