18-07-2002 07:48									#1
	OFFICIAL ammendment poll: Ratification of the Apolytonian Court Increase Your PM Length

Here is the ammendment proposed

quote: This amendment hereby creates an official Apolytonian Court (hereafter refered to as "The Court") 1. Purpose: The Court is constituted to rule upon: contested disputes involving legal interpretation, validity of polls, violations of the Constitution, or any other legal dispute of national importance. 2. Construct of the Court: a. Size of Court: The Court is composed of Five Justices. Each Justice is to be appointed by the President, and each must be approved by a simple majority of the populace in an Approval Vote. b. Installing the First Court: The First Court appointed, upon ratification of this amendment, are to be chosen to staggering terms. One member will serve for one month, two will serve for two months and the remaining two will serve for three months. These first Justices of the Court will be appointed in the following manner: President selects 2 (3 month terms), Vice President selects 1 (two month term), Minister of Imperial Expansion(two month term) selects 1 and Econimics Minister selects 1 (one month term). All appointments must be approved by a majority vote of the public. c. Terms in office: There is no limit to the number of terms a Justice may serve. Each Justice serves a term of three months in length, except as indicated above in 2b. All appointments and re-appointments must be approved by a majority vote of the public. d. Senior Justice: The Court is to select a 'Senior Justice', who will be responsible for ensuring that a timely report is published for each decision made by the court that communicates the rationale behind the decision; and make sure that the decision is stored and archived. Failure to provide the report is grounds for an appeal. The Senior Justice will also preside over any hearings before The Court. e. Other Governmental Posts: A Justice may not serve in any other governmental post. f. Reappointment: At the end of that term a Justice may be reappointed by the President. In cases where a Justice is not being re-appointed by the decision of the President, the President may be bypassed in this process if 75% of the populace re-approve the Justice in a vote. Any citizen may create such a poll. Such a poll would have to conclude before the term is completed. 3. Case Structure: a. Quorum: A quorum of at least 3 Justices must be involved in any ruling that is made. Should The Court be tied about how to rule on an issue, any non-voting justice is to then review the case and vote. b. Rulings: All rulings are immediately official and final except where appeals are granted. c. Appeals: Appeals will be granted if there are grounds to believe that an error in the application of the law has been made. Any citizen directly involved in the case may make an application for an appeal. If 3 or more of the 5 judges decide to grant the appeal, a new trial will be created to examine the case. In that case, the current verdict is placed on hold until after the appeal process. d. Injunctions: The Court cannot halt the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people. In case of an emergency due to timing of a turnchat and poll of the populace, the Court may halt the game for 72 hours, but only by unanimous vote of the Court and only if a specific case has been presented to them that must be decided prior to the turnchat. In the emergency case, the Court would immediately have to present a 72 hour poll to the people for their approval of the Injunction. If not approved by the time of the poll's closure, the game immediately resumes where it was before. e. Case Presentation: The Court cannot act on any issue until a non-judicial citizen of the nation brings forth an Issue to The Court. Issues to The Court should be posted publicly and must involve a dispute that The Court is empowered to rule upon.

Simple vote: Shall this Ammendment be ratified?
1: Yes
2: No

5 day voting period

Should end 23/7/2002 at 03:48 GMT time

	18-07-2002 07:53									#2
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Im obviously denying you the option of a no vote
i already PM'ed Ming on it.

	18-07-2002 07:58									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

I vote yea. This may not suit everybody perfectly, but it's high time to get something along these lines up and running.

	18-07-2002 07:58									#4
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

The project has matured enough to be good. While I'm still uncomfortable with the impeachment thing, I think the project is good overall.
I'd like to thank everybody who worked on this, esp. Trip, Captain and Aggie who seemed to be the most involved in the debate

	18-07-2002 08:03									#5
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

We're getting more organized every day. This is one step in the right direction.

	18-07-2002 08:03									#6
	Inflate your Upload Space

Yes. We need a court now.

	18-07-2002 08:06									#7
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Sure, why not. And it opens up positions for 5 more people.

	18-07-2002 08:14									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Damn it! I'm gone 5 seconds to get some Hagendaise (the ice cream... I dont know how to friggin spell it...), all hopefull that Im gonna be the first one to post on this poll, next thing I know its like yesterday's news. Son of a *****.... I guess I didn't reall yhave anything important to post anyway, just that everybody worked hard and compromised graciously to bring one hell of a bill, if i may say so myself.

Kman

	18-07-2002 08:17									#9
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: While I'm still uncomfortable with the impeachment thing

I thought we took out the entire impeachment process, and said we would make it into its own ammendment.... Yeah, I don't see anything about impeachment in this bill. You probably weren't there when we made this change...

Kman

	18-07-2002 08:18									#10
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by Spiffor The project has matured enough to be good. While I'm still uncomfortable with the impeachment thing, I think the project is good overall. I'd like to thank everybody who worked on this, esp. Trip, Captain and Aggie who seemed to be the most involved in the debate

and many others too! including but not limited to: jdjdjd, GodKing, Togas, wervdon, Kramerman, sheik, Plaguerat, ...

I'm also uncomfortable with the power to stop the game by injunction, but overall, I think this is a good start. We can refine some more later but we should get this going.

Assuming this passes, Ninot, get ready to assemble your selection committee.

	18-07-2002 08:20									#11
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Obviously, there is need for a court. I'm glad we've finally gotten to it. Furthermore, there is nothing strikingly wrong with this amendment, and i'm not one of the picky ones anyway.

I'm innocent I tell ya! Innocent!!!

	18-07-2002 08:22									#12
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Assuming this passes, Ninot, get ready to assemble your selection committee.

I think thats a safe assumption. So far the vote is 10, zip, unanimously in favor of the bill. I think the Presidential election lit a fire under the citizenrys' ass as far as making the realize the necessity of a court system for legal matters.

	18-07-2002 08:37									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

We need a court. And this is definatley the best of the proposals. Some people might not like all the compromises, but I can say I actually do

	18-07-2002 08:40									#14
	Get a bigger avatar today!

I think that all of us who worked on the amendment proposal feel very pleased with the end result. There was a lot of debate and a lot of compromise but in the end, a positive consensus.

I feel that adding this to our Constitution will be a step in the right direction for our Democracy.

--Togas

	18-07-2002 08:44									#15
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by Captain and many others too! including but not limited to: jdjdjd, GodKing, Togas, wervdon, Kramerman, sheik, Plaguerat, ... I'm also uncomfortable with the power to stop the game by injunction, but overall, I think this is a good start. We can refine some more later but we should get this going. Assuming this passes, Ninot, get ready to assemble your selection committee.

An easy task, but also not an easy task

I would love to pick many of you for the comitee.. but I want many of you to be judges too, if youd accept.

	18-07-2002 08:58									#16
	Got spare money?

This seems like a very solid amendment, and I am glad to support it. I am glad to see that impeachment was taken out. It was a good idea to do that, since now there is no danger of a good amendment being shot down over one issue. and we can always try a seperate amendment later.
Aggie

	18-07-2002 09:00									#17
	list Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Ninot, here's a list of people willing to be judges. it's a bit old, buired on page 3, but still fairly up to date I think.

list of judges who indicated interest in the positions

	18-07-2002 09:11									#18
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

It is great to see this amendment finally coming up for vote. This is a well written amendment and it took a lot of work to create. I urge all citizens to vote YES. This was a heavily debated issue and we now have an amendment that will benefit all citizens of Apolyton.

	18-07-2002 09:59									#19
	Full PM-box? Change here!

2 c is in direct violation of the Constitution, both on term limits and the length of office.

We would need to modify that amendment to change the term limit and length since it doesn't specify any exclusions to the word office:

quote: Length of Office Terms: All office terms shall last one month. A member can run for a different office at the end of his term, but he cannot change offices during it. If a member is elected three times into the same office, that member must run for a different office in his fourth term, or not run at all.

We would have to exclude justices in the language. Or, we could limit justices as we limit other officials.

	18-07-2002 10:07									#20
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Yes this court could only help to solve our future disputes.

	18-07-2002 10:18									#21
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: 2 c is in direct violation of the Constitution, both on term limits and the length of office.

That is ok, because this is an ammendment that will ammend the constitution. So when you vote for this ammendment, andit is past, whats in the constitution will apply to all jobs but the justices, whos terms will be controled by this ammendment .

No problem
Kman

	18-07-2002 10:20									#22
	Get a bigger avatar today!

If this succer passes unaimously *bitting my tongue*, anybody and everybody who worked on its developement should give themselves a gold star.

Kman

	18-07-2002 11:52									#23
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

So who voted against it?

	18-07-2002 11:57									#24
	Increase the size of your Attachments

YES, YES, BY THE GREAT BANANA YES!!!

This system is mostly perfect, and we need SOMEthing going now. We can always tinker with it later, at the moment starting it up is paramount. Thankyouthankyouthankyou Ninot for polling this!!!

WHEN this passes, all of us Apolytonians owe everyone who contributed to the debate and its final form a great debt of gratitude for bludgeoning the issue into the great shape it is now in.

	18-07-2002 12:17									#25
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Looks pretty good to me, I'm just wondering why the Minister of Economy and Minster of Imperial Expansion choose the one month judges. I'm sure they'd make ood decisions, but I'm just wondering how you came up with those ministries.

	18-07-2002 17:48									#26
	Increase the size of your Attachments

! Pretty much everything i didnt like was removed or weakened.

	18-07-2002 18:09									#27
	Increase the size of your Attachments

If you are one of the two people who voted against, and if you are comfortable posting, could you please explain your reservations. Mostly I am just curious, but a lot of us worked hard on comming up with this. If there are any flaws, please speak up. Thanks.

Capt'n, I think you could of left the word impeachment in the top, as all it was doing was stating that the courts need/should be involved, not how it was to work. IMO. No big thing either way.

	18-07-2002 18:42									#28
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: f. Reappointment: At the end of that term a Justice may be reappointed by the President. In cases where a Justice is not being re-appointed by the decision of the President, the President may be bypassed in this process if 75% of the populace re-approve the Justice in a vote. Any citizen may create such a poll. Such a poll would have to conclude before the term is completed.

I voted yes, but there is one small thing that needs adding at some point (sorry ).

We need to specify how long before the end of a term the pres has to post the nominations, say a week. If he is not re-appointing, there needs to be time for the citizens poll to be over before the term ends. It's not a loophole i think anyone would exploit, and is easily fixed at a later date, if that's deemed necessary.

Otherwise

like MWIA said, vote yes to this, and then we can iron out any minor quibbles

	18-07-2002 18:49									#29
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

We would decide a specific day of the month for reapointment as soon as we appoint the first court. So if we pickem a week from now, then the 25th of every 3rd month (for each justice, cept for the first court) would be the date.

	18-07-2002 18:51									#30
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by GoodFella Looks pretty good to me, I'm just wondering why the Minister of Economy and Minster of Imperial Expansion choose the one month judges. I'm sure they'd make ood decisions, but I'm just wondering how you came up with those ministries.

damn... I knew I missed something...

I suppose that was in there to prevent the President from being the only one able to appoint. some people thought that was too much power to one person. So we changed it, but why Minister of Economy and Imp Exp? I don't know. Seems rather arbitrary, why not a different minister? but perhaps we should have written

quote: These first Justices of the Court will be appointed in the following manner: The President forms a committee with all other willing official ministers including VP. The committee nominates candidates and the Presidents appoints from that list. All appointments must then be approved by a majority vote of the public

but it doesn't matter that much, this was only for the set up of the FIRST court. after that, it's up to the President's discretion and re-approval.

also, out of curiosity, those who voted no, what is it about the document you object to?