The Talossan Law Repatriation (Crimes Repugnant to Talossanity) Bill

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

I have to also add that Marcel could find out what the penalties for perjury are in Wisconsin. Since I'm too busy right now, could Marcel also Google what the legal definition of perjury is under Wisconsin law?

The statute in question begins with the words "Whoever under oath or affirmation orally makes a false material statement which the person does not believe to be true, in any matter, cause, action or proceeding, before any of the following, whether legally constituted or exercising powers as if legally constitutedis guilty of a Class H felony", which sounds like what youre asking for.

And all the legal issues (including judicial precedent) involved in finding someone guilty of perjury, that Talossan courts would currently have to know?

I'm afraid I'd have to sift through 173 years worth of court cases to find everything that might be relevant (a problem with Common Law in general) so probably not.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

The statute in question begins with the words "Whoever under oath or affirmation orally makes a false material statement which the person does not believe to be true, in any matter, cause, action or proceeding, before any of the following, whether legally constituted or exercising powers as if legally constitutedis guilty of a Class H felony", which sound like what youre asking for.

Thanks for that - that's the basis for a Talossan Perjury Bill right there, lol.

I'm afraid I'd have to sift through 173 years worth of court cases to find everything that might be relevant (a problem with Common Law in general) so probably not.

That's precisely right. My opponents want a Common Law system based on stare decisis. Incorporating Wisconsin law into Talossan law means that Wisconsin precedent becomes relevant. Only actual trained lawyers in the Wisconsin jurisdiction are capable of doing that. Cresti himself commonly brought up Wisconsin precedents in Talossan court cases; and yet some people who defend this transclusion of Wisconsin law also say that "Talossan law must be open to amateurs".

I've suggested a Civil Law system where only the text of statute matters, but that wasn't popular.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

About that. I'm not sure if I read this right, but it seems to me like Talossan courts cannot prosecute or punish a citizen who commits a crime against a non-citizen (Lexh A.3), which seems like an extreme oversight, because otherwise that crime would be covered by Wis. Stat. § 948.02, punishable by banishment, revocation of citizenship and civil disability for up to 180 years.

That's right. Others have pointed out that Talossa simply doesn't have the resources to properly try serious crimes in such a way that both justice could be done and the defendant's rights could be respected. Which is why it is ridiculous to have things like "murder, rape and robbery" (as KR1 put it) in Talossa's laws altogether. Which is why our only choice when deciding Talossan sanctions is to rely on the verdicts of credible (I put that word in the law advisedly, i.e. not the kangaroo courts of authoritarian regimes) outside courts.

... aw man, the more I look through El Lexhatx Section A the more I find out that it's based on the very very American distinction of "felony" and "misdemeanour" for grading various crimes. So the companion statute to indigenously define various crimes will have to either take that on board, or replace it, whichever is less annoying.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Which is why our only choice when deciding Talossan sanctions is to rely on the verdicts of credible (I put that word in the law advisedly, i.e. not the kangaroo courts of authoritarian regimes) outside courts.

Different countries' legal systems are pretty diverse, so wouldn't relying on credible outside verdicts require at least some kind of conversion key or something? EDIT: And how would you determine which countries have credible outside courts and which don't? It's easy for a lot of countries, but there are a ton of unclear or edge cases as well.

... aw man, the more I look through El Lexhatx Section A the more I find out that it's based on the very very American distinction of "felony" and "misdemeanour" for grading various crimes. So the companion statute to indigenously define various crimes will have to either take that on board, or replace it, whichever is less annoying.

German law states that, in general, a felony is any crime punishable by at least one year in prison, and conversely a misdemeanour is any crime punishable by less than one year in prison or by fine (§12 StGB). Maybe we could use something similar to decide which outside verdicts would constitute felony or misdemeanour charges in Talossa, in case the country in question doesnt make the distinction.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Currently we have a kludge in place to criminalize a wide variety of offenses that matter to us in particular.  This was a hasty and easy way to get in place these laws.  It was probably very necessary to do so, since we've prosecuted and/or convicted people of violating laws such as §947.0125, §939.10, §939.30, §939.31, §946.10, §946.61, and §943.70.  We need laws against some stuff.  I think we can all agree on that as a goal, right?  We want to be able to prosecute people who do some bad stuff that only we will care about and act on, like harassing a Talossan or whatnot.

We also want to be able to kick our or penalize people who do stuff that's very bad, even if it's not one of the things that matter specifically to us.  Iusti Canun is the obvious example.  So that's another goal we can agree on, right?  And we want to have due process for dealing with both of the above, so that's yet another one.

It's kind of annoying to look these laws up.  It helps a lot to be American, and it really helps to be familiar with American law in particular.  It's not impossible, of course.  Most native English speakers can pretty easily spend fifteen minutes or so and find the listed provisions from the Wisconsin statutes online, since they're identified by number and label. After all, it's not too impossible to look at a list of chapters and deduce where Chapter 240 might be, even if it's a bit of a janky solution.  (Certainly someone writing a bill which repeals all the crimes should take the time to look at what's in these sections.)  But it's not an ideal system for reasons of equity and access, and also because it'd be good to have our own laws that we control and wrote in their entirety.

So this is clunky and bad, and as I said a while ago, I think everyone involved agrees that we would like to replace the Wisconsin sections of our law with native law.  That's another goal we can agree on!

But!  This is way less important than one of the fundamental principles of law, so important it's stated in our Covenant of Rights and Freedoms: crimes should not be invented after the fact.  The citizens of a modern democracy should be able to identify what is a crime and what is not.  So that should also be a goal.  It's a fundamental principle of good government.  It's a fundamental principle of moral government.

We also have to remember that under Talossan law, the Courts can't do a single thing until someone brings a case. There's a lot of effort going into thinking up "edge cases" whereby some Talossan lawyer hates someone so much that, when he finds out they got 10 days in jail for making an audio porn tape*, he gets together a case to get them the Talossan death penalty; and then the UC, who hates this person just as much, ignores the bit of the new bill which says "strict proportion" and banishes them or declares it legal to hunt them for sport or something.

I know you're trying to make light of the possibility of abuse here, but it's kind of funny how hard you have to work at it.  I mean, is it really so hard to believe that there might be citizens in our country who might find out that someone was convicted of some crime at some time in some country, and then start up a prosecution just to mess with the other person?  Even if the charge gets thrown out, that's stress and time/money that's been spent.

If someone's ever spent a night in jail for disorderly conduct because they went to a protest, then got time served in the morning -- well, that person now has to hide that fact from the rest of Talossa forever.  Otherwise it's a club that anyone could hold over their head, since any citizen at any point could prosecute them for it.

You mock my concerns as though they're unreasonable, but it seems far more unreasonable for you to assume that everyone in the country will always behave well.  Surely you admit that it's a good goal to say that citizens should be able to know what is a crime and what is not, right?

If you do agree, then we have a good set of goals laid out for writing a decent bill:
* We want to criminalize some stuff that matters mostly to us and that we can actually address.
* We want to be able to kick out people that do other stuff that's so bad we don't want them around.
* We want due process to protect everyone accused of both of those sets of things.
* We want to have only law we write and control.
* We want citizens to be able to know what's a crime in Talossa and what is not.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I know you're trying to make light of the possibility of abuse here

I certainly am! I'll quote from Senator Plätschisch in the last debate over this: "I think the Regent's concerns would be quite valid if Talossa were a country with a multitude of citizens that actually threw people in prison. Given we are really just a few dozen citizens who all pretty much know each other, with no enforcement capability, the possibility of a serious abuse of this law seems too remote for me to spend too long caring about."

If someone's ever spent a night in jail for disorderly conduct because they went to a protest, then got time served in the morning

... then that doesn't matter, because none of that fits the definition of "convicted in another jurisdiction, by a credible judicial authority, of an offence incurring penal servitude which is repugnant to the values expressed in the Covenant of Rights and Freedoms".

But no matter - write your alternative bill, and if it's good enough I'll vote for it and withdraw my own.  The whole point is that this "kludgy, janky" fix which only US-qualified lawyers could properly operate would be there foreever if I hadn't forced the issue. You're welcome.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Different countries' legal systems are pretty diverse, so wouldn't relying on credible outside verdicts require at least some kind of conversion key or something?

Now you're getting into the weeds of "how can we really know anything, ever". If you're saying that there is no way that Talossa can determine that the court which convicted I. Canún of raping children was credible, then I give up, there is no point to any of this.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

If someone's ever spent a night in jail for disorderly conduct because they went to a protest, then got time served in the morning

... then that doesn't matter, because none of that fits the definition of "convicted in another jurisdiction, by a credible judicial authority, of an offence incurring penal servitude which is repugnant to the values expressed in the Covenant of Rights and Freedoms".

Yes, it does?  Being sentenced to a night in jail is penal servitude, and pretty much every imaginable crime could violate the Sixth Covenant.

But no matter - write your alternative bill, and if it's good enough I'll vote for it and withdraw my own.

That's quite a request, my goodness!  You want me to put forward a ton of time and effort within the next month, in the hopes of writing a wholesale revision of our entire criminal law that you deem "good enough," even though you won't deign even to answer direct questions about your goals here?

Do you agree to these goals as things that you would like to accomplish with the bill?  If you think one of them is bad, would you please say so now?

* We want to criminalize some stuff that matters mostly to us and that we can actually address.
* We want to be able to kick out people that do other stuff that's so bad we don't want them around.
* We want due process to protect everyone accused of both of those sets of things.
* We want to have only law we write and control.
* We want citizens to be able to know what's a crime in Talossa and what is not.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Now you're getting into the weeds of "how can we really know anything, ever". If you're saying that there is no way that Talossa can determine that the court which convicted I. Canún of raping children was credible, then I give up, there is no point to any of this.

No, I'm obviously not saying that.

What I am saying is that we would need some kind of way of consistently determining which outside court rulings correspond to which Talossan court rulings, because even among countries with credible criminal justice systems, laws and punishments vary wildly. Converting an American child rape conviction into Talossan would be very trivial, but child rape isn't the only thing that we'd want to punish in future, right?

It would be unreasonable to punish two different Talossans differently for the same crime based solely on where they happen to live and thus were convicted. For example, prostitution is illegal in Wisconsin punishable by a fine of up to 6666¤40 and/or 9 months in prison, but perfectly legal in Germany. What would we do about things like this?

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Different countries' legal systems are pretty diverse, so wouldn't relying on credible outside verdicts require at least some kind of conversion key or something?

Now you're getting into the weeds of "how can we really know anything, ever". If you're saying that there is no way that Talossa can determine that the court which convicted I. Canún of raping children was credible, then I give up, there is no point to any of this.

There doesn't seem to be any need to be so dismissive of the very valid point that different legal systems have very different standards and penalties for things.  He's not having an existential crisis, he's pointing out that things are complex.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

prostitution is illegal in Wisconsin punishable by a fine of up to 6666¤40 and/or 9 months in prison, but perfectly legal in Germany. What would we do about things like this?

Tell me which part of the Covenant of Rights and Freedoms "prostitution" (i.e. sex work) is repugnant to, first.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Tell me which part of the Covenant of Rights and Freedoms "prostitution" (i.e. sex work) is repugnant to, first.

Firstly, let me preface that the word "prostitution" is the neutral legal term for sex work in German, and I wasnt aware of any negative connotations in English. Sorry for that faux pas.

Secondly, prostitution is criminalised by Wis. Stat. § 944.30, which means it's currently illegal in Talossa as well if it occurs between two citizens, which is why I used it as an example. I wouldn't mind legalising it of course, but others might, and I'd rather have a debate in the Ziu about which crimes to keep and which to drop rather than leaving it vague.



EDIT: My idea of legal reform would look something like this:
- We draw up a list of things that should be illegal and how to punish them, and whether they are misdemeanours or felonies, with the distinction being that felonies can result in banishment or revocation of citizenship.
- If a Talossan is convicted by a credible outside court of an act that is in the aforementioned list, they get punished accordingly by a Talossan court. We would also draw up a list of countries whose legal systems are considered credible for ease of use.

The problem with this is that different crimes are defined differently in different credible countries, so to make sure that the act in question is actually a crime in Talossa, we'd have to check the other country's criminal code etc etc, which would only make matters more complicated. So my idea sucks, but its the best one I have currently.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

pretty much every imaginable crime could violate the Sixth Covenant.

OrgLaw VIII.6 declares that "The Cort pü Inalt, and any other cort existing under this article, shall interpret all matters through the lens of the Covenants of Rights and Freedoms". If "every imaginable crime violates the Sixth Covenant", then think a minute about what you've just argued about the very basis of Talossan law. A possible reading of the 6C would be "if you annoy someone, you have no rights under Talossan law". And the OrgLaw requires that our Corts interpret all matters through this lens.

Admittedly, my bill presumes that the Uppermost Cort is comprised of justices who will apply common sense, natural justice and community mores in making their decisions. But if you're right and we can't expect the Cort to do that, then we have a much bigger problem.

Do you agree to these goals as things that you would like to accomplish with the bill?  If you think one of them is bad, would you please say so now?

* We want to criminalize some stuff that matters mostly to us and that we can actually address.
* We want to be able to kick out people that do other stuff that's so bad we don't want them around.
* We want due process to protect everyone accused of both of those sets of things.
* We want to have only law we write and control.
* We want citizens to be able to know what's a crime in Talossa and what is not.

No, all those are good. I think my bill covers some of them, not all; but because we can't trust the King not to veto, I won't shift from my bill until I'm sure the alternative will get through.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

prostitution is criminalised by Wis. Stat. § 944.30, which means it's currently illegal in Talossa as well if it occurs between two citizenstc etc, which would only make matters more complicated. So my idea sucks, but its the best one I have currently.

There you go - another argument for repealing Wisconsin law! Thanks.

My point about the Covenants is that you couldn't bring a case against a Talossan for sex work under my bill, but now that I know you can bring one under Wisconsin law, that just makes the reform more important. Did you see AD's mournful little fable about the Talossan who got a night in jail for protest and could theoretically be legally harassed by other Talossans, assuming a prosecutor and a judge who wanted to be real pieces of miéida? Well, ha ha, because that might happen right now if anyone of us is doing sex work.

(BTW, yeah, "prostitution" is considered pejorative in contemporary English, but no offence taken.)

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

pretty much every imaginable crime could violate the Sixth Covenant.

OrgLaw VIII.6 declares that "The Cort pü Inalt, and any other cort existing under this article, shall interpret all matters through the lens of the Covenants of Rights and Freedoms". If "every imaginable crime violates the Sixth Covenant", then think a minute about what you've just argued about the very basis of Talossan law. A possible reading of the 6C would be "if you annoy someone, you have no rights under Talossan law". And the OrgLaw requires that our Corts interpret all matters through this lens.

Respectfully, I think this might not be a correct reading of the Covenants.  They aren't a criminal code.  The Government can't prosecute someone for violating the Sixth Covenant in some vague way.  For example, if you thought I was annoying, you couldn't direct the A-X to prosecute me for disturbing your tranquility, even though that's "against" the Sixth.  The lens thing basically just means that quartz should look to them for important principles in a general way. That's why we have specific laws, since the Sixth isn't a super-crime-code which makes everything we don't like a crime.

Your bill, however, would make them wholesale the basis for deciding what's a crime and what is not in Talossa.  And that's part of why it's a bad idea, because they weren't written that way, aren't understood that way, and would criminalize pretty much everything in theory.

I'm not saying it's impossible that the lens clause might be the basis for a successful prosecution. But I would be extremely skeptical of the strategy.

Admittedly, my bill presumes that the Uppermost Cort is comprised of justices who will apply common sense, natural justice and community mores in making their decisions. But if you're right and we can't expect the Cort to do that, then we have a much bigger problem.

We shouldn't build a legal system where potential crimes are a mystery and just trust that every judge will invent only the correct crimes.  Our judges aren't infallible.  After all, weren't you outraged over the outcome of the Pinatsch case?

No, all those are good.

Great.