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.
Not necessarily. My intention for this discussion was for the option of what Funkadelia suggested to be on the, but with keeping in mind that going this route would likely require amending the Bill of Rights. In truth, I am not
entirely opposed to handling things on a case by case basis and having the Ecclesia decide when presented with the case whether it constitutes a grievous crime, just a bit wary.
For me, political crimes make no sense. It takes more than one person to seize a delegacy in another region, so it makes no sense for me to single out one person for such "crime." Besides, Taijitu is a region that is known for avoiding the NS "raiding/defending" game, anyways.
Any criminal code would, I hope, include a clause stating that abetting a crime is also a crime as in my drafts, so that would cover assisting the seizure of a delegacy among other things. Also, while a portion of the community is not involved in raiding and defending, others (including myself) are and the the Citizens' Militia exists for this purpose.
If we do want to list crimes, again we should cut out things already covered by terms of use and focus on things which are in fact related to NationStates.
- Breaking the Terms of the forum, NS rules, laws and treaties of Taijitu;
- [st]Harass, bully, torment, stalk other members;[/st]
- [st]Hate speech, xenophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia;[/st]
- Misuse or distribution of personal information;
- Distributing chat logs or private messages without the permission of all those involved;
- Impersonation of a specific person or of a particular role in Taijitu;
- [st]Abuse of flaming, spamming or inappropriate messages;[/st]
- Willfully misinform regarding someone, some event or official policies of Taijitu;
- Disrupting Taijitu in any way as an agent of a foreign power;
- Deliberately seizing the ingame regional delegacy of Taijitu without having been elected Citizen-Delegate;
- Deliberately participating in a disruption,take-over or raid against an allied region;
- Deliberately submitting false information on a citizenship application;
- Disruptive distribution of Militia's activities to foreign agents.
I do not believe the Citizen-Mediator or any other nominally impartial investigator or arbiter should be leading the prosecution in a criminal case, the two roles are necessarily contradictory. If the Citizen-Mediator is going to be involved in criminal cases as well their role should be limited to finding of fact. Also In selecting a Citizen-Mediator, it might also be good for it to be possible for the parties involved to veto candidates they consider partial (with some limit to avoid there being no viable candidates). Sortition might also be a better alternative to election, and having there be more than a single one in (an empowered jury of sorts) potentially in more serious cases.
Refining on Delfos's rough process what I see now is:
- A citizen my make a complaint and ask for the selection of a mediator/jury to arbitrate/investigate.
- Mediator/jury arbitrates/investigates and decides whether a dispute can be resolved "out of court" and if not whether the matter is serious enough to bring to the Ecclesia.
- If they decide it should be brought to the Ecclesia they present their findings for a vote on whether the complaint holds water (possibly with a super-majority threshold)
- If guilt is established by the vote, a remedy or punishment is later decided separately. By who I'm not sure.
Note that this works regardless of whether we decide crimes and offenses should be explicitly listed in law or not. It only really changes what the standard for deciding if their is actionable evidence or if someone should be considered guilty is.
A vote establishing guilt could be the precedent for an ostracism vote, though that doesn't really make sense in this context since a single person has already been singled out as guilty. Perhaps a modified version? Alternatively we could drop ostracism or have it as an entirely separate mechanism.
