The Talossan Law Repatriation (Crimes Repugnant to Talossanity) Bill

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I repeat again that you guys had two months to wake up and suggest amendments here. Our current system, where a Bill is Clarked with 5 days before voting and its opponents go "miéida sant, we didn't think you were serious! Please stop!" is ludicrous and leads to bad law.

You posted a first draft of this bill on February 10th.  I pointed out huge problems on February 13th, and you said nothing for a very long time.  Then more than a month later, on March 17th -- again, that's only two weeks ago! -- you posted the new draft.  Within the week, you received detailed feedback on these specific problems.  That discussion continued in good faith and in detail right up until March 24th, at which point you Clarked the bill.

Perhaps you are thinking of some other bill?  Since you're not describing what you did with this one.  There was no way for anyone to know that you'd just abandoned your first draft after the February exchange -- you never said, "I do see the problem here, so let's fix it."  You just stopped replying and said nothing for a month.  I am not a mind reader.

I also had no way to know that you never looked up the laws you were repealing.  It never would have occurred to me to ask if you'd done that, since such a question would seem very insulting for me to ask.  I certainly would have helped you find them if I had known.  I usually just google "Wisconsin statutes," which is an easy way to get there for me.

I hope that the Ziu sees these manifold problems and more time can be taken to fix this.  You have Clarked numerous bills this term and I'm not sure a single one has lost even one vote from your party, however, so that seems unlikely.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Well, quite often with you the best way to end a discussion that's going nowhere is just to cease replying, because you always have to have the last word, lol

[Þon Txoteu É. Davinescu, O.SPM]

I repeat again that you guys had two months to wake up and suggest amendments here. Our current system, where a Bill is Clarked with 5 days before voting and its opponents go "miéida sant, we didn't think you were serious! Please stop!" is ludicrous and leads to bad law.

You posted a first draft of this bill on February 10th.  I pointed out huge problems on February 13th, and you said nothing for a very long time.  Then more than a month later, on March 17th -- again, that's only two weeks ago! -- you posted the new draft.  Within the week, you received detailed feedback on these specific problems.  That discussion continued in good faith and in detail right up until March 24th, at which point you Clarked the bill.

Perhaps you are thinking of some other bill?  Since you're not describing what you did with this one.  There was no way for anyone to know that you'd just abandoned your first draft after the February exchange -- you never said, "I do see the problem here, so let's fix it."  You just stopped replying and said nothing for a month.  I am not a mind reader.

I also had no way to know that you never looked up the laws you were repealing.  It never would have occurred to me to ask if you'd done that, since such a question would seem very insulting for me to ask.  I certainly would have helped you find them if I had known.  I usually just google "Wisconsin statutes," which is an easy way to get there for me.

I hope that the Ziu sees these manifold problems and more time can be taken to fix this.  You have Clarked numerous bills this term and I'm not sure a single one has lost even one vote from your party, however, so that seems unlikely.

You do understand that the Ziu seeks counsel, not because we have to... but because we chose to. The legislative body of this Kingdom is a separate entity... not part of the Sovereign's day to day. We heard your input... and while we do appreciate the Regent's desire to be a bit more involved (WAY more than John has in a while)... you also need to learn to stay in the lane of the office you hold. We as a legislative body spend far too much time arguing with the Sovereign/Regent over freaking nonsense. The duties of the Government are handled by the Ziu... not by you... and we will be a better nation when that is clearly understood.

[Tierçéu Rôibeardescù]

I would say that I think the clerking of this bill without the improvements that were pointed out when originally posted is not in the spirit of what the hopper is for. Its intended for legislation to be discussed and improved for the betterment of our nation. If that improvement does happen I believe that my fellow members are within their right to be angry about it.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

On the question of codified vs. statute law. I was talking the other day with various Talossans about our legal definition of treason - never mind why - and my legal search came to the shocking conclusion that, while the Organic Law makes provision for treason, it is nowhere defined in our law except El Lexhatx A.20.5, which applies that term to... bogus "official Talossan websites".  There is nothing in codified Talossan law which criminalises attempting to overthrow the State.

The point of this observation is that you'd have to work a long long time to create Talossan statute law which perfectly covers all our needs. I support the "common law" approach of giving discretion to judges to cover the gaps, although statute law should replace it at our earliest convenience.

I should also point out that the last time Patrick Woolley spoke to me, it was to express his enthusiasm about... bringing back the common-law felonies. So, yeah.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Directing judges to invent crimes as needed is easier than legislating, but it seems unwise and unethical.  A citizen of a country should be able to know what is a crime and what is not.

[Ián Tamorán S.H.]

Treason is an offence against the state itself ("high treason") and not internal violent dissent ("petty treason").  Most nations have dropped the concept of "petty treason" and use "treason" to mean "high treason" - which is what, I presume, we do (and shall do) here in Talossa. For that particular Crime Repugnant to Talossanity I think we have no need for the Justices to be involved in contentious deliberation: the answers to "Is this person trying to kill the monarch?" and "Is this person supporting external war against Talossa?" make the question "Is this (potentially) treason?" a clear one.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

It is my intention to resubmit this bill to the First (real) Clark of the 56th Cosa. Note that under Organic Law VII.11, it will not be subject to royal veto.

However, I will happily withdraw it before then in favour of any other bill which accomplishes both of the below:

(a) removes Wisconsin law from El Lexhatx;
(b) takes into account the objections made by the King in his veto decision, and Sir Cresti and everyone's favourite Baron in the thread above;

and is able to get a majority and avoid another Royal veto. Removing Wisconsin law is that much of a priority for me. I will also note that I will totally support any bill which makes "harassment, perjury, bribery or counterfeiting" crimes under indigenous Talossan law as a companion to this.

[Glüc]

So basically, judges will now have full discretion to declare anything they dislike enough a crime as long as they can find some justification in the sixth amendment (which should be easy enough for most things)?

OH NO!

Edit: Ok, this was based on the bill at the top of thread. Apologies

[Glüc]

And then of course, the blame of any future negative consquences rests not on people voting for a bad bill but on the people warning for these consquences not putting in hours of work to write a better one.

Yay, politics...

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Let's try that again.

===
WHEREAS the 31st Cosa chose to deal with the lack of Talossan law against "murder, rape, robbery" and other serious crimes against the person by incorporating the laws of the State of Wisconsin into Talossan law, where indigenous Talossan law does not contradict them;

AND WHEREAS the 35th Cosa amended this to specify only certain sections of the Wisconsin Statutes, which currently comprise sections A.1-4 of El Lexhatx;

AND WHEREAS this means that a thorough knowledge of Talossan law necessarily requires a knowledge of Wisconsin law;

AND WHEREAS Wisconsin law has never in fact been used to punish infamous crimes committed by Talossan citizens, such as statutory rape;

AND WHEREAS the practice of Talossan law and jurisprudence should be open to all Talossans, not just those who are already professional lawyers;

AND WHEREAS the only way Wisconsin law has been used in Talossa is by trained practitioners of United States law introducing Wisconsin precedent into their Talossan legal briefs, giving those trained in United States law an unfair advantage over those who are only trained in Talossan law;

AND WHEREAS we should find a different way to achieve the original intent of the measure, which was to make infamous crimes against the person a crime under Talossan law;

AND WHEREAS the basic principles of what is moral, right and good under Talossan law are already contained in our Covenant of Rights and Freedoms;

AND WHEREAS previous versions of the Organic Law specified "generally accepted principles of Anglo-American law" as a foundation for Talossan law, but this has been removed;

AND WHEREAS it is wise to re-establish some legislative basis for Talossan juridical practice;


BE IT ENACTED by the Ziu that:

1.  Sections A.1-4 and A.7-8 of El Lexhatx are repealed in their entirety.

2. Sections A.1-3 of El Lexhatx shall henceforth read as follows:

1. The basis of all Talossan law and jurisprudence is the principles contained in the Covenant of Rights and Freedoms.

2. Where Talossan statute law is silent, Talossan courts shall make decisions in accordance with Talossan juridical precedent. Judges may also use precedent from other legal systems with which they are familiar to guide their decisions, though such precedent shall not be binding.

3. A Talossan citizen who is 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, shall be guilty of the crime of "repugnant behaviour bringing Talossa into disrepute", and be liable to a punishment of severity in strict proportion to the severity of the said offence.

3. The sections of Title A of El Lexhatx shall be subsequently renumbered consecutively.

This was the version that was passed by the Ziu, Gluc.  It is better than that first one to which you're referring.  The newer version only criminalizes nearly any conviction in any other court, rather than any action anywhere.  Unfortunately, this version of the bill would allow the Government to prosecute you for something as trivial as failing to register your car on time, since nearly every crime (in America anyway) can be punished by a few days in jail as one potential consequence.  This bill does have the downside of legalizing many crimes in Talossa, too.  Perjury in a Talossan court, harassment of another Talossan, etc won't be a crime anymore, if it passes.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Quick quiz, Glüc: do you know what Talossa's current laws against harassment, perjury, etc. are? No you don't, because they're not in El Lexhatx, they're (apparently) in Wisconsin law somewhere, and AD actively mocked me because I didn't already know that.

It's the incredible hypocrisy and dishonesty that gets me. "With judicial discretion, people won't know what the law is". And we don't know what the law is now, unless we know exactly what sections to look up in Wisconsin law. Or even how to look things up in Wisconsin law in the first place. AD will come back and say that that's not a burden on average Talossans, and if you agree with that... well.

As we found out with the question of the monarchy, if people like the status quo, they will not engage in good faith to change things unless you give them a worse alternative. So: have at it.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

I didnt know what the current law on perjury was, so I googled "wisconsin law perjury" and found Wis. Stat. § 946.31, which would mean it's a Class H felony. I didnt know what that was, so I googled some more and found Wis. Stat. § 939.50, which would mean the punishment for perjury before a Talossan court would be a fine of up to 6666¤40 and/or up to 6 years in prison. Except imprisonment isnt a de facto authorised punishment (Lexh A.5.3), so possible punishments would be banishment (Lexh A.5.1), revocation of citizenship (Lexh A.5.2), civil disability for up to 18 years (Lexh A.5.4, Lexh A.6.1) and/or the aforementioned fine (Lexh A.5.5), and I guess restitution (Lexh A.5.6) and reprimand (Lexh A.5.7) but those seem kinda silly in this context.

For me, the problem isnt finding out what is and isnt legal, the Wisconsin Statutes are all freely available on the internet, and the Lexhatx will tell you which of these statutes apply to Talossa and which punishments are permitted, but something about this still rubs me the wrong way... I can't really pinpoint it though. I guess part of it would be that the punishment is up to SIX YEARS IN PRISON, what the hell??

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

An additional problem here is because of how the royal veto works, I have to reintroduce this bill exactly the same as passed by the last Ziu. I mean, I could "tweak" the exact provisions of what kind of extra-Talossan crimes might be prosecutable in Talossa; another good amendment might be to bring in a Public Defender system for people who can't represent themselves in Talossan court (because they're in jail or whatever). But because the (current) King's vetoes are so capricious - he almost always waits until the Ziu debate is over, then pulls out a veto if he feels like it - then there's no point trying an amended bill which will probably just be vetoed itself on relatively spurious grounds.

Furthermore, I have reached out to certain heavyweight Talossan legal beagles to write statute law on "perjury, harassment, counterfeiting and bribery", so hopefully that project will be coming soon. As Marcel says you can Google it, but only if you know what you're looking for. Before I started this process I had no idea that such things were even covered by the sections of Wisconsin law written into Talossan law - El Lex does not list "perjury. harrassment, counterfieting and bribery" among the issues covered by Wisconsin law in Talossa. 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? And all the legal issues (including judicial precedent) involved in finding someone guilty of perjury, that Talossan courts would currently have to know?

Further, these issues were only raised after the original version of this bill was Clarked - by the very same trained lawyer who included these sections into Talossan law in the first place, a fellow who is relatively inactive these days. I feel like I'm going mad sometimes trying to explain why it was not right that there were whole sections of Talossan law that only Cresti knew existed. And anyway - as Marcel points out - the penalties are inappropriate for Talossa, which is a good enough reason in itself for removing these sections.

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. As opposed to the current system, where we can't do jack about it as a Kingdom when we find out a prominent citizen raped little children.

* actually happened to the late Frank Zappa, he was entrapped

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

As opposed to the current system, where we can't do jack about it as a Kingdom when we find out a prominent citizen raped little children.

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.