Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on March 27, 2021, 03:36:03 PM
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

Well, we are different people with independent thoughts. :)

Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on March 27, 2021, 04:16:02 PM
Respectfully, I think you are confused, D:na Seneschal.  When I say that I object to the "third provision," I refer to the new A.3 being proposed in the second part of this law.

Actually, Dame Miestra was correct, at least with respect to the part of the Bill I was talking about. Of course, when I said "something along the lines of section 3," I didn't mean "section 3 exactly." What I see as the essential point of the proposed new A.3 is a way to address people who commit heinous crimes outside of Talossa that are not prosecutable within Talossa, an issue for which our current laws make no provision. That's an entirely different focus from the rest of the bill, which throws out our current criminal code and effectively replaces it with nothing. I do think we need a way to respond to problems like former citizen Canun.

If we have a citizen who turns out to be a child molester or human trafficker or mass shooter or something, we should have a way to keep them from dragging the whole country down if word of their association with Talossa were to get out. I do think any such provision should be more narrowly targeted and have more safeguards than the proposed A.3, and may very well require an OrgLaw amendment (and possibly even an amendment to the Covenants).

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on March 24, 2021, 03:07:38 PM
Am I right or wrong in my recollection that it was your idea to write the Wisconsin Code into our own laws in the first place?

Not quite right. The law that adopted the "civil and criminal code of the State of Wisconsin" (or "criminal and civil," I can't recall the precise formulation off the top of my head) as Talossan law predated me. The immediate problem I saw, and tried to address with my bill, is that it was unclear which portions of the Wisconsin statutes these words were intended to comprehend. So my bill identified specific titles of the Wisconsin statutes that would apply to Talossa, with the intent of making things clearer and more definite than they were before.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on March 24, 2021, 03:07:38 PMAnd am I right or wrong that the Wisconsin Code has never been used to punish a crime in Talossa, but on the other hand that you personally have relied on Wisconsin legal briefs in your representations before the Corts?

You're wrong on the first point, as Sir Alexandreu pointed out. I certainly have cited to Wisconsin case law, as I would encourage anyone to do. I've never used any resources that aren't available to anyone—particularly Google Scholar and Google Books.

We could do a lot to point people to relevant resources and provide research tips. At least the status quo provides guideposts to relevant sources of authority. I think you're mistaken in believing the situation would be improved by trading the status quo for a free-for-all where all the rules are made up as we go. When there are no clear standards set forth in the law, a clever lawyer can argue that any standard ought to apply.

I think there are some arguments for retaining Wisconsin-based criminal laws, but those are probably better discussed in the other thread (which I regret not having seen before now). But like I said before, I don't feel too strongly about that. What's critical, in my opinion, is that criminal offenses and their penalties be clearly set forth in the law. This 1) makes it possible for citizens to know what conduct is prohibited and 2) circumscribes the discretion of government prosecutors. Consider Sir Thomas More's advice to William Roper.

 

While something along the lines of section 3 of this bill is sorely needed, I have grave concerns about the remainder of this bill.

If the idea is to replace the entirety of our current criminal code with prosecutions based directly on the Covenant of Rights and Freedoms, I don't see how that's a viable solution. I'm not aware of any other country that allows direct criminal prosecutions for violating similarly broad statements of constitutional principles as are contained in, say, the Sixth Covenant.  If such a broad criminal law were to be enacted in the United States, it would be struck down as a violation of due process, as the US Constitution's due process protections have been held to require that criminal offenses must be defined with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. A similar rule is applied under Article 7 section 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which embodies the principles of nullum crimen sine lege (there can be no crime without law) nulla poena sine lege (there can be no punishment without law). This is consonant with the rule of lenity: the traditional principle of legal construction that penal statutes should be strictly construed, with doubts resolved in favour of criminal defendants.

If we pass this and it is struck down as unenforceable due to concerns such as those described above, we will then have no criminal code and no way to punish criminal acts within Talossa. Even if it isn't struck down, I don't see how a more vague, unpredictable, and arbitrary system of criminal law is an improvement. If the Sixth Covenant were held to establish valid offenses under the Seventh Covenant, for example, it would seemingly criminalize all of tort law (i.e., every tort would also be a crime), and potentially also criminalize near torts under an "endangerment" theory. I'm not strongly opposed to breaking our dependence on Wisconsin law, but I do think it's imperative that we do it right and not "on the cheap."

I like this, but are there typos in the first ("deprived of life, liberty, or property") and next to last ("subjected to cruel and unusual punishment") sentences of the proposed language?

I vote per on RZ19 and RZ20, and non on the VoC.

I vote per on RZ18, non on the VoC.

I vote as follows:

1: Option 3
2: Option 4
3: Option 2

Welcome back! May the next issue not be so long in coming!

I vote "per" on RZ17, and "contra" on the VOC.

Happy 2021, and belated happy XLII!

Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on December 28, 2020, 12:35:08 PM
This would be fine with the Crown, if it's fine with the Seneschal (if she wishes to do this and if Cresti's good with it).

I would be fine either way, but do hope to be around more regularly going forward.

Merry Christmas, Talossans! For those of you who celebrate, I hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday.

http://wiki.talossa.com/Glheþinaziuns_dels_Nadalets

https://talossa.proboards.com/thread/12553/feliceu-natal-talossa

And Happy Independence Day Eve!

Congratulations, BenArd!

RZ13: Per
RZ14: Austanéu
RZ15: Contra
RZ16: Per
VoC: Non

Sorry, had an editing error for RZ8 but am unable to edit my post. I vote "per" on RZ8.