Let's focus on the point here. What shall we replace El Lex A:1-4 with?

- a full replacement Talossan legal code? Far too much work.
- would the Regent's special prosecutor system work fully to replace these sections? And how? Can we have a hypothetical example, eg: what would a "special prosecutor" have done in the I. Canún case?
- do we need extra "principles" to guide the Courts in these "special prosecutor" cases outwith those currently in the Covenants?

There is a much broader question I've raised of whether our current "quasi common law system" is adequate for our purposes - and indeed what is the statutory basis for it since the reference to Anglo-American principles was taken out of the OrgLaw. (Are we to assume that Talossa inherited the common law on 26/12/79?) The alternative would be to resort to Civil Law, i.e. precedent no longer has value and where there's no statute the Court can't rule.

All right, time for some archeology. Wisconsin law was written into our law (at the proposal of KR1) by 31RZ14, which reads in part:

QuoteWHEREAS under Talossan law, there are no actual, legal prohibitions against murder, rape, robbery, or any other crimes...

So clearly KR1 was thinking of the kind of crimes of gross moral turpitude that I. Canún is currently doing time for. This was further amended (at Sir Cresti's proposal) by 35RZ21. The list of those sections of the Wisconsin Code "dynamically included" in our law are:

QuoteChapters 240-243 Fraudulent Conveyances and Contracts
    Chapters 401-411 Uniform Commercial Code
    Chapters 421-429 Wisconsin Consumer Act
    Chapters 700-710 Property
    Chapters 938-951 Criminal Code
    Chapter 961 Controlled Substances

I suppose we could go through Old Witt's debates to find out exactly why Sir Cresti thought these sections should apply to Talossa. But I maintain the following:

• putting Wisconsin law into Talossan law means that Talossan judges and lawyers have to be familiar with Wisconsin case and statute law to really know our law, which is ridiculous and puts the Talossan law out of reach for any but US-trained lawyers (like Cresti, lol)
• no case of "murder, rape or robbery" has ever been tried under these law in Talossan court
• I believe that the only time these sections were invoked was when Cresti relied on Wisconsin court decisions as precedent in Talossan court - see above

These sections need to be repealed. Talossan law should be indigenous. But what will they be replaced with? That's what we're discussing.

A point I've made which seems to have been ignored is that Talossa's current common law system already allows courts a lot of discretion to hear cases on matters not referred to by statute. So if we adopted a set of "Principles of the Common Law of Talossa", Courts could base their decisions on those rather than on the "Anglo-American" precedent enshrined by the previous OrgLaw. But if the idea of judges ruling on matters not specifically referred to by statute is a problem, then we should switch to a Civil Law code post haste, which removes judicial discretion over matters not in statute. The Regent seems upset by something which is the status quo.

Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on January 12, 2021, 09:17:33 AM
I want to be clear that we should be unbelievably careful about this, and we should make sure we set up such a system to strictly limit judicial power.

If your priority is to "strictly limit judicial power", then certainly we should cease to operate our judiciary on a "quasi common law approach", with principles of stare decisis etc., which gives the judiciary massive power compared to a Civil Law system like France, where judges simply cannot rule unless a statute explicitly references the matter. In contrast, even disregarding the Wisconsin statutes, the Court currently has wide powers to rule based on judicial precedent, even where there is no statute.

I repeat that, with the deletion of the term "Anglo-American judicial principles" (or whatever it was), this "quasi common law approach" no longer has any backing in the Organic or Statute law - it's sheerly kept in place by inertia/the desires of the CpI justices at the moment. Choose between "limiting judicial power" and "allowing judges to rule on something which isn't specifically mentioned in Talossan law", because you can't have both. "

Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on January 11, 2021, 06:48:31 PM
My suggestion would instead be to eliminate the Wisconsin provisions from our statutes, but also -- very carefully! -- create a review process where our courts can appoint a special counsel to investigate convictions in other jurisdictions, and where the court then issues ruling based on carefully specified principles that incorporates the special counsel's findings.

That is a good idea!

A different issue, however, that was raised with regard to Wisconsin law was that it could act as a fallback where Talossan law is silent. Please refresh my memory, someone - I believe that in the ESB affair (or was it another election fraud case?) we found that there wasn't a Talossan statute to cover the obvious crime, but there was a Wisconsin one. I can understand that, but for the reasons previously stated, I don't like it. While I'm at it, it seems that the reference "Anglo-American common law" which used to be in the OrgLaw has fallen out of the new version. The OrgLaw is now silent on the basic principles of our jurisprudence - all we have to rely on is the way "the Cort has always done things".

So: some principles rooted in both Talossan tradition, universal human ethics, and "common sense" that would enable judges to rule effectively in cases where Talossan statute law is silent, and replacing the "importing" of Wisconsin law. In addition to the current Covenant of Rights and Freedoms, of course. What do we think?

My big issue is the one the Regent keeps bringing up: Talossan law should be accessible to ALL Talossans. At the moment, being well-versed in Talossan law means also being well-versed in Wisconsin law. That means that trained lawyers in the US judicial system will always have an advantage over other Talossans - i.e. they'll be able to pull out precedents and statutes from Wisconsin to win cases (I believe Sir Cresti has done this a few times). And UC justices will have to learn Wisconsin law to be prepared for many of our cases.

I can't see how anyone would defend this. That said: what to replace it with? I suggest "judge-made Talossan common law, based on universally accepted judicial principles among Talossans, until such time as the Ziu replaces it." Another option is to go full Napoleonic Code, but that seems like too much work.

All this is totally excellent.

One issue that the MinSTUFF doesn't raise is that, for too longer, back-end admin of the Database has been totally on the hands of MPF, who has other things to do in his professional and personal life. As far as I can tell, his need to do other things is why the referendum didn't start on 1 January (like I assumed it would). So anything that increases synergy between MinSTUFF and the Chancery, and means MPF doesn't have to do miracles every so often, is excellent.

I reached out to the Chancery over the last week on the following issues:

1) questioning when the referendum would start, since it had to be during this Clark.
2) the aforementioned discussion of 50 word statements.
3) in the last few hours I offered my opinion that Sir Pol and the Regent were right and 1-option ballots were perfectly legal, and thus the ballots should be resent.

That's it.

No, the SoS didn't appoint me to anything. I offered informal assistance. And I will do so again, as and when it is necessary or useful to do so, as long as there is no law against it; and if the Regent doesn't like it, I suppose he has certain options, one of them being "lumping it".

However, I should emphasise that this was a very special case. I recognized that one reason preparations for the referendum were not going smoothly was that the SoS really didn't know what to do; I expected him to fill the gaps with traditional practice, but that was possibly foolish. So this was a case of me cleaning up my own mess. I refuse any suggestion that there was anything improper about it; but it shouldn't happen on a regular basis, certainly not in general elections, and I am considering legislation which would regularise the conduct of occasional referendums.

If there's a legal theory that there are laws restricting who the Secretary of State can appoint to Chancery roles or reach out to for informal assistance, I think we should hear it now

I utterly disagree with the Regent's political theory that there must be a Chinese Wall between the Government and the Chancery, and I challenge him to provide any law or precedent saying there must be so. If he's accusing me of "rigging it" in some way, let him come out and say so.

By the way, the Ministry of STUFF is working very closely with the Chancery on the question of integrating the Database, Wittenberg and talossa.com. I'll leave it to Senator Grischün to add the details, but if the Regent is going to set his hair on fire and declare it illegal and/or corrupt, then we should find out now.

---

On another issue, I must take some kind of blame for the confusion re: this referendum. My bill establishing the referendum left a lot of details out of the law, because - when written - I assumed the SoS would "fill in the gaps" with established practice. It was my failing to understand that the SoS, being brand new to the job, would not know what established practice was, and "guess" to some degree. One of those holes was exactly who was to provide the 50 word statements for each option - which ended up being entirely improvised. So I dropped Dr Nordselva in it, to some extent, and I want to apologise fro that.

For those interested, the discussion re: the 50 word statements went like this:

ME: "Here's the Option 1 50 words. You should put them all on a page on talossa.com."
THE SOS: "I haven't got Option 2 and 3's 50 words."
ME: "FREAKIN' YIPES!"

... and it was all sorted out in less than a day. Amazing enough that me doing my best to make sure the Status Quo and Dual Monarchy options got their statement on the ballot is being spun by the Regent into something shameful and corrupt.

Thanks very much for your prompt attention, esteemed SoS.

Everyone here should chill out and realise that his is Dr Nordselva's first ever public vote and he's flying by the seat of his pants. Administrative errors were inevitable, and they are being fixed. In this situation, the Regent's nasty little innuendos whereby me helping out the various campaigns get their 50 words in becomes a sinister-sounding "co-ordination behind the scenes" are disgraceful and should be withdrawn.

I was careful, when writing the legislation for this referendum, to copy/paste the rules from Senäts elections. So the rules should be exactly the same as for Senäts elections.

Estimadăs és estimäts cüncitaxhiens:

The 55th Coså budget set a target of ℓ325 ($US487.50) in voluntary fundraising to fund our programme.

I am announcing today the PATRIOT POINTS programme to encourage broad participation in the fundraising scheme. Every citizen gets one Patriot Point for every $1 of "voluntary taxation" (donations) (click the CONTRIBUTE graphic on the front page of our national website) or stamp/coins sales, as confirmed by the Burgermeister of Internal Revenue.

Whoever has the most PATRIOT POINTS on 15th April* this year will receive the Seneschál's Medal for Merit in the regularly-scheduled Investitures Ceremony (El Lexhatx F.40.2). Second prize is a fancy certificate. Third prize is you're fired a slightly less fancy certificate.

Please bear in mind that this Voluntary Taxation Programme is proof of concept. If Talossans respond to it well, we can consider removing other forms of taxation - for example, the fees to run in Cosa/Senäts elections. I'm not personally a fan of pay-to-play democracy, but we can consider abolishing them if Talossans show that they are responsible enough to fund State activities voluntarily.

Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favour.


* or 15th May if we have a month of recess

CAN WE HAVE A 50-WORD STATEMENT FOR THIS OPTION WITHIN 24 HOURS, PLEASE?!?

Thanks to Senator Plätschisch for his quick response.