TL;DR: the Amendment and Statute, with the exception of the JP (explained), actually keep things as they are yesterday. THe criticism that we have no working trial cort actually is a roll over because the King never did his job. Discharging the JP Cort was two-fold: I don't like the use of "justice" because apparently that confuses people, and I don't like lay judges. But I am not particularly against either of those two in a "hill to die on" kinda way. But by the time this got raised, the veto had happened and it was getting voted on. I pointed out that only a few lines in teh GC cort statute can be changed so theyw ill be appointed a la justices of the peace. That's literally all that needs to happen. But this remains an absolutely true statement: King John never appointed JPs, as he was required to do, so the JP Cort never actually formed, and Talossa did not have a trial cort or any lower cort to hear a new case.
I do not know if I’m allowed to comment here, but I think it necessary to clarify some things.
There is no need to set up a third cort
The Judiciary Amendment of 2020 has a *single* part—the amendment. When I first introduced it as a Senator, a criticism was that it needed certain legislation to work. So I drafted legislation that was tacked to the bottom. So the act itself has two components—the Amendment and the Statute. I did raise the fact that the Statute should be separated out to avoid confusion, but that was not heeded. Whatever.
Now, the Amendment itself sets the baseline for how many judges must be on the UC. There is the Senior Judge and two permanent Pusine Judges. So the Cort must always have three seats to be filled. The Ziu can increase that number to nine judges maximum. Why this mechanism? Simple. Under the old system, the number of justices was organically set to five. The Ziu could not, without a constitutional amendment, adjust that number based on the needs of Talossa at that moment. It seemed to me that the number should really be statutory. However, I was also concerned with cort stacking. So I figured allowing the Ziu to adjust the number of judges as needed, but also put a ceiling on it, with requiring that these changes be passed in consecutive Cosas, would shield the Cort from becoming to partisan. The statutory part of what I proposed set the Cort to five judges because, as it was raised by the King, who would be kicked off of the current Cort?
Next, under section 6, if there is no inferior cort established, a UC Judge can sit as a lower cort. Lower corts do not issue binding decisions ON CORTS OF COORDINATE JURISDICTION. In other words, if the Ziu creates a lower cort, a UC judge cannot sit a as a nisi prius cort unless permitted by statute. That simple. Further, no corts of coordinate jurisdiction can bind the other. For example, say we grew to over 1000 citizens, and it was determined that we needed an interim appellate cort, say two of them. The appellate cort, sitting above the inferior cort (i.e. not a cort of coordinate jurisdiction) can set binding precedent. But it cannot set precedent on the other appellate cort. One lower cort cannot set binding precedent on the other. This is actually pretty standard in US Federal Courts, which is actually not the case in some state courts (e.g. California and New York’s intermediate appellate courts will bind all lower courts, even those outside of their immediate appellate jurisdiction, until a split). None of this means that a decision is not persuasive authority. Again, similar to US federal system.
Let’s stay with precedent. Under the old system, prior to the new Organic Law, but the system established in (2014?), a UC justice could sit as a trial court judge, and an appeal could go to a single UC justice, but the result of that appellate decision WAS NOT BINDING. The Organic Law prohibited it. Under the current framework, a decision must go before a three-judge panel for it to be binding, but if only two judges or one are available, then it is not binding. That is not to say that it is not persuasive authority.
Okay, let’s talk about the statute. Yes, this abolished the Justice of the Peace Cort. I stated I was not a fan of it. By virtue of this statute existing, a UC Judge cannot sit as a nisi prius judge. WOW BUT THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN AT THE OUTSET. Well, okay, this is a valid point, but let us consider that the new Organic Law actually eliminated the ability of a UC justice to hear a case, and we had the JP Cort, but the King never actually appointed any JPs, so Talossa actually has not had a trial cort for months now. I’ve brought his up to people before.
In any event, I do not like the idea of lay persons acting as judges, and that is why that concept was not carried over. But the lower cort, in the from of the General Cort, would continue with appointed judges. Miestra disagreed with me on this. However, by the time this issue arose, I was already on the Cort and changes to the legislation would mean another veto. My suggestion was to go forward, and merely amend the statutory component to remove appointment and replace it with what were then known as PJs. That simple. Like a statute with a few lines.
In any event, the fact that Talossa has no trial cort at the moment was not changed by this amendment because there were no actual appointed PJs because the King never got around to appointing the nominees. But this is where we are at. A simple statute will remedy this problem.
Or, you can simply abolish the GC, not set any lower Cort, and keep the judges at five so one can sit as a nisi prius cort. The possibilities and versatility of the amendment to address Talossa’s judiciary needs without running to change the Organic Law while preserving judicial independence is evident in the language itself. Like, you can literally eliminate, altogether, el lex G.13.1 and, boom, we have a lower cort. You can create a lower cort and decide how judges get picked. You can lower the number of UC judges to three so we don’t tie so many people to one Cort and prevent them from serving on a lower cort or being in the cabinet. We can grow to 500 people and decide it’s better to have a nine judge cort, so they can sit in panels of three and decide cases. Like, these critiques are a bit disingenuous given that all of the above was available for over a year, and seek to paint the new system as broken at the outset to praise the old system while ignoring that the old system was actually broken.
