Sir, the bill has already been Clarked. I've been discussing this in the Hopper for a couple of months, you and others have given significant and useful input already which led to amendments, and this is the very last chance to Clark a bill in this Cosa. My party has had "remove and replace Wisconsin law from El Lex" on our platform for years now.

I've explained in the past my annoyance at the way in which you repeatedly call for "more discussion" just to stop a decision altogether until you, personally, are happy with it (re: the question of whether Dr Nordselva should have become a Community Jurist). Others also seem to think that if they express displeasure with a law, that should be enough to take it off the table. But right now we make law by a majority with checks and balances, and not a consensus.

Something my compatriots who are only familiar with US law might be interested in is the debate in this country over the "principles of the Treaty of Waitangi" to which State actions must conform. The point is that - due to colonial-era skullduggery - the English and Māori versions of this nation's founding document say different and contradictory things, to the point that the English text authorises mass confiscations of indigenous land, while the Māori version suggests a level of indigenous autonomy which would render the current State illegitimate. So it has been up to the courts (and the sub-judicial Waitangi Tribunal) to work out, in light of community mores, just what those principles are. I suggest that Talossan common law should do just that with our Covenants of Rights and Freedoms. (Notwithstanding that, should we go with this measure, I would like to propose certain amendments to those Covenants to improve them as the basis for our common law.)

I honestly think that - if we are to have a CpI which is excluded from many roles of administrative, executive or legislative significance in our State - we should at least make their judicial role slightly more significant and interesting. Otherwise we're encouraging people to get bored and drift away. A "rebalancing" of the branches of government, if you will. (Given that any overstep may be corrected via statute - I certainly don't want to revise the very old English decision that common law cannot override statute law!)

I think it necessary to emphasise also that I envisage "Talossan common law" to reflect the mores of our community, which it would be burdensome and otiose to codify. We have precedent as to what happens when a judge makes a decision very at odds with community standards - the "Guy Incognito" case, where it led to a judge resigning. What we don't have predecent for is the kind of "rogue prosecutions" which the Regent and Sir Cresti both fear. Not even KR1 tried to do that (although he tried a Bill of Attainder, which would have been worse).

I must repeat: an indigenous codified law such as Sir Cresti suggests would also be a good suggestion, as would, frankly, deleting the whole mess since no-one really expects the Talossan State to punish murderers and rapists (we couldn't even punish a child molester). All I can say about my solution is that it's been pretty thoroughly discussed, with input from legal experts, and is now ready for a vote. And I must stress that it requires, at the bare minimum, a sentence of incarceration in a credible outside court, which is a pretty significant threshold.

This is a reasoned argument (more so than the Regent's sophistries, anyway), but I'm amazed that you think giving the State the administrative ability to take away citizenship is less oppressive than giving the CpI the discretion to decide - upon a formal complaint - whether someone has violated the Covenants and to evoke a discretionary punishment which may be far less than banishment. Conversely, if your fear is rogue prosecutions, not rogue convictions, might I suggest that limits on prosecutorial power would be the answer? I suggested elsewhere a "grand jury", but no-one bit on that one.

Let's go back to why we are doing this. It is not just because it is unseemly to have written another jurisdiction's laws wholesale into our own. It is because one of our own citizens is doing time for statutory rape, and that section of the law did not give Talossa's State or courts any options to disassociate ourselves from this charater and his crimes. I don't see how your suggested amendments (reasonable on the surface) would do so; mine would.

So now the argument comes from the Regent that the Covenants of Rights and Freedoms themselves are contradictory, and he thinks he could make a good case that the rights in the Eighth Covenant are abrogated by the Sixth Covenant (by his argument, the 6th Covenant would also ban abortion). And yet, this is a fundamental document of Talossan law which is actually harder to amend than the rest of the OrgLaw. And the Regent didn't care if parts of it contradicted the other parts before now, because... it was just for show, so it didn't matter? A highly unpatriotic position.

The thing is I answered all these sophistries ages ago, but the final answer is: we have an Uppermost Cort for a reason. The tradition of common law, of which Talossa is a part, states that courts make law where statute law is silent. We have 4 perfectly qualified UC justices and we put them through an arduous confirmation for a reason, and that reason is to make sure they can be trusted with that power.

To be precise, if a Talossan is busted for tax evasion, and someone makes a complaint under this law suggesting they should also be punished for Talossan law for it, I trust Dame Litz and her colleagues, cxhns. Marcianüs, Perþonest and Edwards to make a good decision. And let's face it, those guys are strenously underemployed. I remember an argument made that a figurehead monarchy would never work in Talossa because who would want a boring do-nothing job. And yet some people seem so terrified of judicial activism that they want to make the CpI exactly that.

Sir Cresti is correct that even being prosecuted would be a bad thing; which is why I amended my previous bill which would have allowed prosecutions even without a conviction in another jurisdiction's court. (That really would have been going too far.) But - as the A-Xh is currently absent - I'd like to ask a ranking lawyer from the Government. @Cresti, if you were A-Xh and a Talossan was put in jail for Al Capone-ing the US Feds, would you think that was a crime that needed to be punished in Talossa too?

OH BUT WHAT IF THE ZIU AND THE MONARCHY GO MAD AND APPOINT EVIL HANGING JUDGES TO THE UC, etc. The only answer to that is: what if camels learn to fly and drop miéidă down our chimneys. The purpose of such terrifying hypotheticals is always to make sure nothing happens, and Talossa is about activity.

My wife just asked me who designed the coins, and I had to say that I had no idea or had totally forgotten. Was it @the Burgemeister? We should put that information on a website somewhere.

Gabba gabba hey

Epic work from the Royal Bank and Post! My little girl who's getting into foreign coins will be enthralled

The Attorney-General is on leave at the moment, but I've had no disagreement on the principle from the Talossans with legal experience I've talked to. The Leader of the Opposition expresses himself cautiously neutral.

The circle can be squared if Ián Tamorán simply runs unopposed.

I hereby recommend the Regent to appoint @Istefan Perþonest to the EC.

Quote from: C. M. Siervicül on March 27, 2021, 06:26:03 PM
I agree that the second objective is a legitimate issue that we should address in some way, though I do take exception to the specifics of the proposal.

If the esteemed MC (or any other MZ) were to provide an alternative text that would do the same job while not offending his jurisprudential sensitivities, I would happily substitute that text in the interests of Cosa unanimity; splitting up the bill between its 2 objectives might also be an option. Of course, the right time to do this would have been months ago when I first proposed this measure; but better late than never.  Failing that, we're Clarking this and seeing where the votes lie.

Parenthetically, the reason we get so much bad law is that there is no incentive to offer timely, constructive counter-proposals to things we don't like; given how Talossa runs, saying things like "we need more debate" and other delaying tactics in the hope that the proponent just gives up/forgets about it is strikingly effective, if you support the status quo, and if your opponent doesn't have the political will just to build a majority despite you.  I'm reminded of the removal of hereditary monarchy - we would have NEVER got anywhere if we'd had to decide what the alternative was in advance.

Hahahahaha, this is exactly the opposite of what your offsider Cresti said, which was that we needed something like that section, but he objected strenuously to the first two sections  ;D

Please to be clarking:

• The Talossa Shall Choose Its King Amendment
• The Seneschál Election Tweaks Amendment
• The Due Process Reversion Amendment
• The Talossan Law Repatriation (Crimes Repugnant to Talossanity) Bill

Certainly, hitherto, Talossan jurisprudence has copied United States judicial practice. As you previously and correctly stated:

Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on January 12, 2021, 01:48:24 PM
Yes, the modern court system has been bent inexorably towards the court system with which most of the judges in office have been familiar.

And it is precisely this that I seek to replace with either a fully indigenous Talossan common law; or an indigenous Civil Law system. I see this as patriotism. What is the point of being Talossa if we are going to act like the Big Neighbour, or to assume that the way the Big Neighbour does things should be our way. It also removes the unfair advantage that trained US legal professionals have in a system which operates as a "toy version" of the system they spend their livelihoods in.

Once again I reiterate: I am taking option A only because option B would be far more work. A secondary motive is that an indigenous Common Law system would preserve the principle of stare decisis, which seems very popular with conservative Talossans; a Civil Code system would have no need for that and every judge could use their individual discretion in every case.