| Unibot |
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Broadly speaking, I am a textualist, I believe in strict interpretation of the written law. Power resides in the Assembly - the Judiciary serves to interpret the law plainly and adjudicate.
In the past I have served as Minister of Justice for three terms in The South Pacific. The best qualities a justice can have are independent thought, a keen mind, open ears, good sense and better judgement. As justice I would be active, serviceable, fair and pursue jurisprudence above all else. Quote:COI
You mention your CoI that you serve in several governmental positions across NS, including a possible delegacy. You have also been known to ofter get into very heated arguments against several major TSPers. do you feel either of these may cause a conflict of interest?
So far, most of the nominees have stated that they subscribe to some form of textualism or strict constructionism. The Assembly makes mistakes, though, and it does so a lot. Textualism doesn't allow for a judge to consider the intent of a law, even if legislative history shows clearly what the intent is. That would come up a lot in criminal cases. Do you really think it's possible for the court to apply our criminal law in a textualist or strict constructionist manner? For instance, the explicit text of our definition of defamation would allow somebody to 'sue' for defamation over the slightest of accusations anywhere on the internet. But I think that the purpose of the law is to deter from and punish for serious false statements that actually do significant damage to somebody's reputation, when those statements are said on TSP 'territory.'
I would argue that textualism isn't really useful for TSP. Instead, a purposive approach is what our judges should be using. I think it's what we will end up using anyways. In my experience, NS judiciaries use purposive approaches, even if they can't describe what judicial philosophy they're trying to uphold. Quote:You mention your CoI that you serve in several governmental positions across NS, including a possible delegacy. You have also been known to ofter get into very heated arguments against several major TSPers. do you feel either of these may cause a conflict of interest? I get in heated arguments with several major TSPers because I seek the truth and do not back down because of the status of the individual involved. Quote:I would argue that textualism isn't really useful for TSP. Instead, a purposive approach is what our judges should be using. I think it's what we will end up using anyways. In my experience, NS judiciaries use purposive approaches, even if they can't describe what judicial philosophy they're trying to uphold. No, the purposive approach in NS context is terribly ignorant of the written word and I would not use it if I were a Justice. When I've seen it used in NS Courts, it's often some of the worst adjudications I've seen. You need to interpret the law as it is written even with the flaws you perceive.
The issue is that people generally suck at writing laws. See my example of our own defamation law. Our court shouldn't be so dumb as to interpret the law as applying everywhere on the internet, and for any slight insulting lie. Rather, they should look at the purpose of the defamation law, and come to an interpretation that is reasonable in light of that purpose.
I don't agree that the above approach is bad. I think it's the best approach we have, when none of us are really legal scholars or expert legislative craftsmen. Sometimes the law is written terribly and will lead to an outcome not intended by the legislature.
Looking for the intention of the legislature is a slippery slope that I have seen gone wrong too many times. However, I do think you ought to pursue a rewording of the defamation law, Glen.
(04-19-2014, 04:58 PM)Unibot Wrote:Quote:You mention your CoI that you serve in several governmental positions across NS, including a possible delegacy. You have also been known to ofter get into very heated arguments against several major TSPers. do you feel either of these may cause a conflict of interest? But what about your foreign involvements? Do you believe they may cause a CoI? Quote:But what about your foreign involvements? Do you believe they may cause a CoI? Given the nature of The South Pacific's law (with its generally speaking libertarian, domestic focus), I don't believe there will be a lot of room for Conflict of Interests. However, you should know that I am also fairly liberal about recusing myself if I think there's the potential for concern. I've recused myself once in the past, although I can't remember what case it was about. I think it was because I had spoken in the Assembly about my interpretation of a law or something. Been a few years! EDIT: Actually, it might have been Frak/Haxstree's initial session, because I was involved in the investigation: it was my suggestion to have AMOM pretend to be Mahaj and borrow his MSN Account. 
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