The Talossan Law Repatriation (Crimes Repugnant to Talossanity) Bill

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

We shouldn't build a legal system where potential crimes are a mystery

"Repugnant behaviour bringing Talossa into disrepute" isn't a mystery. It's within the discretion of judges and open to interpretation, sure. But I think it's sufficiently flexible that it can cover any kind of horrible crime that we might not think to make illegal in Talossa. Importantly it covers also crimes that we can't make illegal in Talossa because there is no way that, for example, we could ensure basic human rights for both plaintiff and defendant in a murder or rape case. Talossan statute law should only cover things we could safely try in Talossan courts and get a trustworthy verdict. And the only way we can determine that such a crime has been committed outside Talossa is to "trust" a macronational court or system, which IMHO has to be done on a case-by-base basis, not saying, for example, "we can trust French courts but not Singaporean courts" etc.

Conversely, we have to get rid of Wisconsin law precisely because "potential crimes are a mystery". If you knew that sex work was illegal in Talossa before now, then... wow, congratulations, because no-one else even thought of it.

Our judges aren't infallible.  After all, weren't you outraged over the outcome of the Pinatsch case?

"Guy Incognito" was found not guilty in what I felt was a truly bizarre decision. But if all bad judicial decisions are biased to letting the guilty go free, rather than the reverse, I'll live with it.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

The very best thing about this renewed debate is that we have up until the end of July (at the earliest) to come up with something better than 55RZ24, but that we can be sure that at least Wisconsin law will be gone as the default position. I have faith in all of us :D

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

We shouldn't build a legal system where potential crimes are a mystery

"Repugnant behaviour bringing Talossa into disrepute" isn't a mystery. It's within the discretion of judges and open to interpretation, sure. But I think it's sufficiently flexible that it can cover any kind of horrible crime that we might not think to make illegal in Talossa.

It's very flexible and under individual discretion and open to interpretation, yes.  That's one of my objections.  The list of crimes shouldn't be flexible, discretionary, or open to interpretation.

Talossan statute law should only cover things we could safely try in Talossan courts and get a trustworthy verdict. And the only way we can determine that such a crime has been committed outside Talossa is to "trust" a macronational court or system, which IMHO has to be done on a case-by-base basis, not saying, for example, "we can trust French courts but not Singaporean courts" etc.

I agree entirely.

Conversely, we have to get rid of Wisconsin law precisely because "potential crimes are a mystery". If you knew that sex work was illegal in Talossa before now, then... wow, congratulations, because no-one else even thought of it.

It's not.  The Eighth Covenant provides that "consensual sexual activity" cannot be taxed or burdened or outlawed.

"Guy Incognito" was found not guilty in what I felt was a truly bizarre decision. But if all bad judicial decisions are biased to letting the guilty go free, rather than the reverse, I'll live with it.

If they were all biased that way, that'd be nice.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

It's not.  The Eighth Covenant provides that "consensual sexual activity" cannot be taxed or burdened or outlawed.

My mistake then.

In my defence, this confusion could be easily avoided if we just had a list of acts that should be deemed illegal, bypassing the need to go through the Wisconsin criminal code and also the Organic Law and the Lexhatx to make sure nothing contradicts each other. I believe that if we want a native criminal code that is unambiguous and accessible to amateurs, we'll just have to compile our own, even if its tedious and annoying as hell.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

It's not.  The Eighth Covenant provides that "consensual sexual activity" cannot be taxed or burdened or outlawed.

this confusion could be easily avoided if we just had a list of acts that should be deemed illegal, bypassing the need to go through the Wisconsin criminal code and also the Organic Law and the Lexhatx to make sure nothing contradicts each other.

Indeed. The current system is a system of "mystery crimes" until someone can make a list of every single thing that is criminalised by the sections of the WI Code currently in force in Talossa. We, collectively, have a lot of work to do either way - all I want to make clear is that the status quo is not an option.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

It's not.  The Eighth Covenant provides that "consensual sexual activity" cannot be taxed or burdened or outlawed.

My mistake then.

In my defence, this confusion could be easily avoided if we just had a list of acts that should be deemed illegal, bypassing the need to go through the Wisconsin criminal code and also the Organic Law and the Lexhatx to make sure nothing contradicts each other. I believe that if we want a native criminal code that is unambiguous and accessible to amateurs, we'll just have to compile our own, even if its tedious and annoying as hell.

Yeah, we didn't want to do that, so we took a shortcut a long time ago.  We might need to do it to solve this, I'm not sure.  I dread dead law, which is why I built el Lexhatx in the first place.  I have to think about potential solutions to our manifold goals.

It's not.  The Eighth Covenant provides that "consensual sexual activity" cannot be taxed or burdened or outlawed.

this confusion could be easily avoided if we just had a list of acts that should be deemed illegal, bypassing the need to go through the Wisconsin criminal code and also the Organic Law and the Lexhatx to make sure nothing contradicts each other.

Indeed. The current system is a system of "mystery crimes" until someone can make a list of every single thing that is criminalised by the sections of the WI Code currently in force in Talossa. We, collectively, have a lot of work to do either way - all I want to make clear is that the status quo is not an option.

It's not really a mystery right now.  If someone wanted to sit down and make a list of crimes, it would be tedious, but perfectly easy.  There's only a handful of Eighth exceptions, after all, and most won't apply.  I mean -- the chapters invoked in our law are all clearly labeled and numbered, and they're all written in English in a way that's readable (if unpleasant).

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I dread dead law, which is why I built el Lexhatx in the first place

... you built El Lex because it was a demand of my political tendency over several elections, which if I remember right the then-RUMP government opposed, and if you didn't do it we would have done it ourselves! :D

If someone wanted to sit down and make a list of crimes, it would be tedious, but perfectly easy.

If it's a mystery except to those who want to sit down and do tedious searching, it's a mystery for the purposes of the nation as a whole. One approach to a true consensus solution would be for those who think WI law is "good enough" to make such a list, and then we can "pick and choose" which ones we want to keep in Talossan law. (Marcel finding the definition of perjury, which seems a perfectly good one for our purposes, is a good start.) But an alternative is to write an indigenous replacement from first principles, which I've asked people not involved in this debate so far to think about, and which is being discussed off-Witt for now.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I dread dead law, which is why I built el Lexhatx in the first place

... you built El Lex because it was a demand of my political tendency over several elections, which if I remember right the then-RUMP government opposed, and if you didn't do it we would have done it ourselves! :D

Regrettably, I'm sorry to say that your recollection is mistaken.  As early as 2012 and 2013 I was talking about how we should be centralizing all the main bills into one law.  I published my first manual attempting to consolidate things in 2012, for that matter!  It's still online.  There wasn't really any objection beyond, "That's a ton of work."

And it was.  Hours, and hours, and hours of work.

Also: why are you trying to pick a fight out of nowhere?  I wasn't talking to you or about you.

If it's a mystery except to those who want to sit down and do tedious searching, it's a mystery for the purposes of the nation as a whole. One approach to a true consensus solution would be for those who think WI law is "good enough" to make such a list, and then we can "pick and choose" which ones we want to keep in Talossan law. (Marcel finding the definition of perjury, which seems a perfectly good one for our purposes, is a good start.) But an alternative is to write an indigenous replacement from first principles, which I've asked people not involved in this debate so far to think about, and which is being discussed off-Witt for now.

No specific crime is much of a mystery, just making a comprehensive list of them (thus I said "list.")  Big lists are tedious.  But there's a table of contents for each chapter, so reading the list of every crime would take like... ten minutes, maybe?

If people are working on doing this actual criminal code elsewhere, good.  Glad to hear it :)  I wasn't looking forward to organizing the effort, since it's going to be a lot of work.  I can't wait to see what they come up with, since I find this topic very interesting.  Do you know when we can expect some updates?  You've set a pretty aggressive schedule for getting this done.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Any info here, D:na Seneschal?  You've said you will pass this bill unless the other one is ready by next month, and the goal here is formidable, so I don't want to let time slip by.  How is your party's bill coming?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Firstly, it's not a FreeDems initiative, it's cross-party. I suppose I can reveal that one of the people involved is the LCC leader so he can perhaps give an update on where they're at. I've opened the other "Talossan Criminal Code" thread so people can contribute to that as and when they're ready.

Funny story, someone in the coalition negotiations wanted to run a Talossan lottery. I had to inform them that all lotteries are prohibited under Wisconsin code. It's again not so much that we can't look up what's in that law with a little bit of Google savvy, it's that we would have no reason to suspect that half the stuff in there is illegal until some legal beagle goes on a fishing trip.  "Mystery crimes", indeed.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Firstly, it's not a FreeDems initiative, it's cross-party. I suppose I can reveal that one of the people involved is the LCC leader so he can perhaps give an update on where they're at. I've opened the other "Talossan Criminal Code" thread so people can contribute to that as and when they're ready.

Funny story, someone in the coalition negotiations wanted to run a Talossan lottery. I had to inform them that all lotteries are prohibited under Wisconsin code. It's again not so much that we can't look up what's in that law with a little bit of Google savvy, it's that we would have no reason to suspect that half the stuff in there is illegal until some legal beagle goes on a fishing trip.  "Mystery crimes", indeed.

Since the whole nation is under threat of this bill, I would love to hear as much as possible about where the alternative being written off Wittenberg by these people stands. But you also seem to have already put a lot of work into this other bill that you're developing, so is that the alternative? I can't tell.

I absolutely agree that it is annoying to have to look up potential crimes, and I hope that we can get rid of that, as I said. Of course, it will be far worse to replace that with a system where we can't even look them up!

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I can't hurry up what those guys are doing (in a discussion not involving me because it all happens on chat while I'm asleep), but why don't you look at my most recent proposal in the meantime.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

So now I've got a full-fledged Criminal Code Replacement proposal, superseding what those other people were doing offline. I think it deals with all the objections made by King, Baron and Cresti re: 55RZ24.

The last thing I want is for the same thing to happen as did for 55RZ24, that this will be ignored until it gets Clarked, and then suddenly all kinds of problems with it will be discovered.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

It is false to suggest that you received anything less than clear, prompt, and immediate feedback to this bill, long before you Clarked it:

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.

That said, I am glad that it is moving into the rearview mirror and I don't have to worry about it anymore. I haven't had much of a chance to do anything more than glance at the other bill, but from the looks of it you are trying to write a pretty comprehensive criminal code that lists specific crimes and suggested punishments. That will be infinitely superior to this bill, and I commend you for the hard work you've clearly already put into it. I have not looked at how you address the tangential issue of criminalizing convictions in other courts, but I will take a look as soon as I have a chance. Thank you for listening to and engaging with feedback on this bill.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I have not looked at how you address the tangential issue of criminalizing convictions in other courts,

That's section 7.2.10, which I've highlighted in the document; I'm taking Marcel's tack of explicitly stating what kind of crimes "bring Talossa into disrepute". Thanks for your attention.

Sorry, please use this link for the formatted version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OfQlUZrowS4frssyea6-SLxz8Pcss5WNNxyKud82lQw/edit?usp=sharing