Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

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Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby Doc » Fri Sep 16, 2016 11:00 pm

Are there any plans to include a provision for a Supreme or Constitutional Court option for countries into the Rules?

For example: Kalistan has a Constitutional Court, which rules on "constitutional" (read RP rules which deal with the structure of play within Kalistan. Things like "Bill descriptions have to be germane to the bill" and, most recently, "RP rules which have not been repealed take precedence over statutory changes, even if those statutory changes occur by a regular majority, until the RP rule is repealed first." (http://classic.particracy.net/viewbill. ... lid=484237)

I wonder if other nations have a supreme or constitutional court which make decisions like this? And if not, would you all consider, when revising the rules, add a provision for supreme courts which can pass rulings like this?
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Re: Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby CCP » Sat Sep 17, 2016 1:24 am

The rp law rule doesn't cover this effectively?
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Re: Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby Aquinas » Sat Sep 17, 2016 4:15 pm

It is possible to role-play the judicial system, and if necessary to have constitutional laws governing the judicial system enforced by Moderation under the terms set out in section 22 of the Game Rules.

Generally speaking, it is probably fair to say section 22 could probably be improved/made clearer in some ways, so I'm open to feedback/suggestions about that. Perhaps there are reassurances/clarifications about judicial role-play which could be provided, and would be helpful. So feel free to put forward suggestions.
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Re: Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby Doc » Sat Sep 17, 2016 6:58 pm

Aquinas wrote:It is possible to role-play the judicial system, and if necessary to have constitutional laws governing the judicial system enforced by Moderation under the terms set out in section 22 of the Game Rules.

Generally speaking, it is probably fair to say section 22 could probably be improved/made clearer in some ways, so I'm open to feedback/suggestions about that. Perhaps there are reassurances/clarifications about judicial role-play which could be provided, and would be helpful. So feel free to put forward suggestions.


Our Constitutional Court is used only rarely. I think this recent case was the first one in several hundred IG years. We empower the President to call, and then seat the Court, but the nominations are put up by the Parties according to a formula which rewards the Party of the President, the Party of the Justice Ministry, and the Largest Party that is neither of those two. All Parties with seats in the Assembly also get to name one justice. This way, the court is tied to the election mechanism, but the most active players (assumed, though not guaranteed) are the ones with the most votes on the court.

The reason we ran this through the Court was because the RP rule was unclear as to whether the RP rule or the statue attached to the RP rule takes precedence. Our problem is that a National Service Program is an RP rule predicated on mandatory national service, and people kept changing the mandatory national service statute, while leaving the NSP in place, because they didn't actually RL grow up in Kalistan, and therefore RP their Parties as if their Parties discovered a totalitarian law which needed to be changed, rather than RPing that all of their members went through NSP the same way everyone else did, if they went to college in Kalistan. Basically, they were getting an ephemeral majority together, outlawing National Service, but leaving the gutted NSP bill in place. Then, when they (as they did) lose their majority, the mandatory service law was repassed, and the RP rule was back on. What the Court simply did was say that the proposals attached to RP rules must remain in effect until the RP rule is (by Rule 22) repealed. Then, the statutory proposal can be changed. Essentially it makes the RP rule more like a treaty, but one which is easier to pass and only creates a soft-lock on the statutory proposals.

I would actually hope that the Rule 22 left this question opened, but stated the options clearer. For example: I think it would be up to the country is they think the RP rule would take precedence over a change in legislation. In Kalistan, we did what was right, I think, for the country, with a volume of RP laws attached to it. But I would hope that the Rule 22 would make it clear that soft-locking proposals through RP rules was a realistic possibility.

As for Courts, that itself is an RP thing, and I would say, if a country has established a judicial system which deals with systemic questions (the questions of how the game is played in the country itself) I think a statement that explicitly acknowledges Judicial systems and explicitly states that a RP-rule created judicial system will be enforced by moderation. Perhaps there can be a kind of comment about the official constitution of the judiciary, its role in determining laws, its composition, and so forth. The judiciary in Kalistan is older than the SP, and it is used from time to time, and I would think that a lot of issues within countries that moderation has to deal with now, concerning game play within a country, would be better dealt with by the players themselves using a fair and rigorously constituted judiciary, and that would fall under 22.6.

I am sure others have a judiciary too... I wonder how Kalistan's differs from other countries'.
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Re: Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby mpog » Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:25 pm

If I am understanding this correctly the issue is whether it is allowed to create an exception to the game-mechanics come first rule? Everything else should be backed up by the existing rules. Personally I would be fine with this as long as two conditions are fulfilled:
1. The RP-laws are not harder to change than the affected GM-laws.
2. The rules for the Supreme Court must prevent legislature minorities from abusing a Court majority. In your system this is a theoretical but remote possibility. So as long as the appointment of judges is tied to the electoral result and terms for judges end with new elections I think this is fine. A system based on the US Supreme Court on the other hand would be very problematic.
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Re: Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby Reddy » Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:39 pm

I never got around to fleshing out Jelbania's judicial system but we had a "Judicial Committee of the Kurultai" which was based on the old Appellate Committee of the British House of Lords. It was basically a Committee of the legislature, the Kurultai. It operated based on a very rigid form of judicial precedent (not unlike the House of Lords one) A notable case was one on the eligibility of women's candidacy for clan chieftainships.
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Re: Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby Govenor12 » Mon Sep 19, 2016 10:29 am

The rules for the Supreme Court must prevent legislature minorities from abusing a Court majority. In your system this is a theoretical but remote possibility. So as long as the appointment of judges is tied to the electoral result and terms for judges end with new elections I think this is fine. A system based on the US Supreme Court on the other hand would be very problematic.


Would that be illegal under the game rules.
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Re: Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby Doc » Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:07 am

mpog wrote:If I am understanding this correctly the issue is whether it is allowed to create an exception to the game-mechanics come first rule? Everything else should be backed up by the existing rules. Personally I would be fine with this as long as two conditions are fulfilled:
1. The RP-laws are not harder to change than the affected GM-laws.
2. The rules for the Supreme Court must prevent legislature minorities from abusing a Court majority. In your system this is a theoretical but remote possibility. So as long as the appointment of judges is tied to the electoral result and terms for judges end with new elections I think this is fine. A system based on the US Supreme Court on the other hand would be very problematic.


1) The RP laws are indeed not harder to change. A simple majority is all that is ever necessary to abolish the RP law. And then any constitutional changes through statute would occur by the normal 2/3rds requirement of the game mechanic, while all statutory changes would happen with a simple majority. This is why I called it a soft-lock. It acts like a treaty in every way, but just defines RP aspects within a state rather than between states, and soft-locks the law until the RP rule is overturned.

2) A legislative minority would never be able to obtain a majority on the court by our system. The President's Party gets two, but never more than 3 votes on the court. To accomplish this AND be a minority Party, they have to be helped into office by other Parties, and then they have to pass a cabinet bill with them in Justice Minister with a majority. So at some point, even if they have a minority of seats, they have to have achieved a majority somehow. Otherwise, any other Party in the Justice Ministry also gets two votes, to balance the two the President gets, and then a third actor, the largest non President, Non JM Party also gets two. So, in a 2 Party states, there will always be at most 4 justices. In a 3 Party state, there will always be 6 justices on the court, in a 4 Party State, there will be 7 justices and etc. A coalition can work together to defeat the position of the Big Parties if they work together, but then they will have accomplished a majority on the court to do so... The Biggest Parties with the msot institutional power always have the most individual power on the court.
Primary: Institutionalist Party of Kalistan (IPoK), 5146-

Inactive:
Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK), 2591-
Hizb Al'Sultan حزب السلطان 4543-4551
Parti des Frères Lourenne, 4109-4132
Gaduri Brethrenist Movement (MHdG), 4481-4485
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Re: Decisions of a "Supreme Court"

Postby mpog » Thu Sep 29, 2016 8:50 pm

Doc wrote:
mpog wrote:If I am understanding this correctly the issue is whether it is allowed to create an exception to the game-mechanics come first rule? Everything else should be backed up by the existing rules. Personally I would be fine with this as long as two conditions are fulfilled:
1. The RP-laws are not harder to change than the affected GM-laws.
2. The rules for the Supreme Court must prevent legislature minorities from abusing a Court majority. In your system this is a theoretical but remote possibility. So as long as the appointment of judges is tied to the electoral result and terms for judges end with new elections I think this is fine. A system based on the US Supreme Court on the other hand would be very problematic.


1) The RP laws are indeed not harder to change. A simple majority is all that is ever necessary to abolish the RP law. And then any constitutional changes through statute would occur by the normal 2/3rds requirement of the game mechanic, while all statutory changes would happen with a simple majority. This is why I called it a soft-lock. It acts like a treaty in every way, but just defines RP aspects within a state rather than between states, and soft-locks the law until the RP rule is overturned.

2) A legislative minority would never be able to obtain a majority on the court by our system. The President's Party gets two, but never more than 3 votes on the court. To accomplish this AND be a minority Party, they have to be helped into office by other Parties, and then they have to pass a cabinet bill with them in Justice Minister with a majority. So at some point, even if they have a minority of seats, they have to have achieved a majority somehow. Otherwise, any other Party in the Justice Ministry also gets two votes, to balance the two the President gets, and then a third actor, the largest non President, Non JM Party also gets two. So, in a 2 Party states, there will always be at most 4 justices. In a 3 Party state, there will always be 6 justices on the court, in a 4 Party State, there will be 7 justices and etc. A coalition can work together to defeat the position of the Big Parties if they work together, but then they will have accomplished a majority on the court to do so... The Biggest Parties with the msot institutional power always have the most individual power on the court.


My remarks were aimed at the question of how this could be implemented in the rules. I think your system is perfectly fine with the additional advantage that at least some government positions get actual relevance this way. The big question is how to formulate a rule that isn't too restrictive - as e.g. allowing only one system of determining justices - but isn't too liberal either - allowing abuse by minorities.
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