The Thaecian SenateBoard

Democratized Peoples wrote:

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This change fixes point 1 and 2, but it does nothing to remedy the most important point. If a case were to involve Public Defenders, then it is highly likely that other non-PD members of the bar have already refused.

"Section I - In the event that a defendant wants legal representation, but can’t find an attorney, the Justice Ministry shall be obliged to provide an attorney, called a Public Defender."

The L.R.015 clearly states that they can't find an attorney, which means over half of the members of the Bar are biased or have conscientious objections to the defense. This means it is highly likely for most of the region, PDs included, to be biased or have "obvious conflicts of interest" towards the case. If we allow PDs to refuse cases, even for obvious conflicts of interest, we create a scenario where it is entirely possible for someone to be unable to receive legal representation, which would be unconstitutional. That is unacceptable. PDs should remain forced to take any case the JM sends their way, and if they can't remain neutral and do the job to the best of their ability, then they shouldn't be Public Defenders. This is precisely why I'm not a Public Defender.

Democratized Peoples wrote:

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I'll quote the relevant section again.

"Section I - In the event that a defendant wants legal representation, but can’t find an attorney, the Justice Ministry shall be obliged to provide an attorney, called a Public Defender."

Public Defenders are already only mandated to take a case when the Justice Ministry assigns them a case. At the moment, the ONLY TIME the Ministry can do that is if, quote, the defendant "can't find an attorney." The only way that can happen is if every attorney is biased or has an objection. Under the scenarios prescribed by L.R. 015, it is not an "unattainably high bar." Furthermore, the constitution doesn't really care if it's an extreme scenario. Take the most recent court case, that you yourself prosecuted! In my understanding, the quorum scenario you laid out has never happened, yet the High Court found the laws unconstitutional. PDs must not be allowed to deny a case.

As for your final comment, the constitution only guarantees representation. It in no way guarantees unbiased representation. While I agree that something needs to be done, in my opinion that isn't unconstitutional.

If, by your own words, there is no IC crime where no non-PD attorneys would take the case, then PDs will never be used, since the defendant will be able to find an attorney. At that point, why not just remove PDs entirely?

Democratized Peoples wrote:

I did not say there is no crime where no attorney wouldn't take a case, I said there is no crime where no attorney would take the case *and* every PD has a conflict of interest.

Furthermore the current Constitution does not provide for a right to representation, but the new one will. Perhaps we can rectify this situation by adding in a provision to the effect of a public defender must take a case where they have a conflict of interest if all public defenders have one.

Let me give you a bit of math. There 6 attorneys and 3 PDs. If every single attorney had a bias, with big names like Prime Minister Xernon, Associate Justice Bannersville, and Electoral Commissioner Mardis, then I would bet serious money that all of the PDs would have a bias too.

As for your comment about the constitution, I am aware. Given the likelihood of passage, I was basing my comments off of that.

As for your solution, that is something I would grudgingly accept. Perhaps a roll of the dice should determine who the unlucky PD would be, given that the current JM happens to be a Public Defender.

However, I am still struck by how incredibly, totally, and completely unnecessary this entire amendment is.

This entire thing would only have an effect if the following sequence of events happened.

A) Someone commits a crime so heinous that no attorney wants to represent them.
B) It then goes to the PDs. Right now the process ends here when one is selected by the JM. With your amendments, it now slowly goes through all the PDs until the JM finds one who is unbiased against this horrible criminal, or the JM determines none of them are unbiased.
C) Once all of the PDs are determined to be biased, the JM then rolls a die, and that PD is forced to take on a case he's biased against.

Your amendments get the same result with more, unnecessary steps. Is it constitutional? Yes. Is it at all something that should be added for no apparent reason? No.

Something you don't seem to be understanding is that there is no protocol yet written for the JM to choose a PD. As such, what would most likely happen without these amendments is as follows.

A) Someone commits a crime so heinous that no attorney wants to represent them.
B) The JM talks to the PDs as a whole, and sees if anyone wants to volunteer.
C) If someone does, they're selected. If not, the JM is forced to pick a biased PD.

It is my firm opinion that even if your amendment is constitutional, which at the moment it isn't, it is useless and a waste of time.

Great to see some discussion! Well, I'll start the vote given that some time has passed, and nobody else seems interested in the bill. I support it because Peeps has made many necessary changes, and I agree with the premise of this bill.

Please cast your votes:

My vote is Aye

Nay

Arf Arf

The bill has passed 3-2-2

Aye: Sevae, The Islamic Country Of Honour, Baobab in Thaecia

Nay: Emazia, Nova Anglicum

Did not vote: Ashlawn, Creckelenney

The next business will be announced shortly

I think you guys all know this but I cannot support this without a citizen's recall clause.

I've reconsidered and will vote Aye to allow the people to decide it via referendum and not in the Senate

"The people may, by a petition signed by a number of Citizens totaling at least 1/3rd the number of votes in the last regularly scheduled House of Commons election or 20, whichever is higher, start a recall referendum on one or more members of either Chamber of Congress."

I have serious concerns about the threshold. To me, the threshold for the recall vote is very high to be even attempted. One of the main reasons we are going to have a recall in place is because if there a significant number of people discontent with a legislator, they should be able to attempt to fix it rather than just criticising, and worth noting, we have at most a highly-active citizen base of 30-35, and 20 among them is quite a high number, and even then, this is just the minimum. What if there is a significant number of votes the previous elections (for example, in the July 2020 elections, we had 85 votes), that means we'll need atleast 28 members to even attempt to do the recall, mind it, just to even attempt it. Given how the threshold is structured, it gives me the feeling that there has to be a concensus among all the voting members that the legislator is indeed bad, and this is not how a recall should work. A recall can also be a way of making the legislators answer to their constitutents the reason behind their continued disappointment in the Congress. They were elected by the people, and should not the people be also given the chance to officially present their concerns with their representative? By removing it from the Constitution and then making the threshold so high that the recall method is bound to fail, and then the opponents to the idea can vouch for the removal of this method, to me, this is more of an attempt to appease the proponents in favour of the recall method while preparing grounds for it to fail, rather than ensuring a method which has the potential to improve our means of accountability, and I want a way that gives the recall method a chance to prove itself as an effective method.

You might argue, “but TCU or TGP has 10-15 members”, I am sorry to say but we must consider these citizens as individuals rather than one single political entity in a Democracy, and if 10-15 citizens are concerned with a particular legislator, I personally have serious misgivings about that legislator and that legislator does need to be held accountable.

I would propose trickling down the threshold to 15 and in order to avoid this way to be abused, I also prefer a cap on it, though the details of which have to be planned and proposed meticulously in order to avoid creating any loopholes and to avoid reducing its effectively.

I would like to speak and discuss with my fellow legislators before proposing an amendment.

Sevae wrote:

I disagree. I think the threshold is fine, you just have to campaign hard for the recall petition. But it's not unreasonable to have it at 20 or so

But, if for say, there's a candidate backed by the largest party, consisting of 15 members, and has fairly good equations with parties consisting of 5-6 members, but their performance raises concern and some concerned non-partisan individuals have legitimate concerns with the person, but the individuals lack something-support from the parties, which is at times, needed to muster up such a high number (20). I am not of the opinion that we have to campaign hard to even attempt a recall. The votes of the people are what got the people into the office in the first place, why should they have to pass some huge odds to hold these same legislators accountable

Closing of the Debate Period on and Starting of the Voting Period on The Fourth Constitution Act

Senators, we are now voting on The Fourth Constitution Act

Be informed that this Act requires a two-thirds majority in order for it to pass the Senate.