More broadly I wonder whether this is an appropriate task for the Assembly at all, or whether it is a project the Court would be better undertaking on its own initiative.

If you consult the High Court's Standards for Opinions, Verdicts and Sentences, you will see that the issue is considered:

Does the Sentence consider the context of the case, including aggravating and mitigating factors that have been brought to the attention of the Court?
Sentences should be the culmination of a reasonable consideration of the context of the case, including aggravating and mitigating factors that may have been brought to the attention of the Court during the whole process. Sentences should briefly explain within them the factors that led the Court to determine that the penalty being given is appropriate and proportional to the crime that was committed and the circumstances in which it was committed.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

(This post was last modified: 01-26-2021, 05:16 PM by Kris Kringle.)

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Thanks Kris. I guess I was envisaging something more proscriptive, though I also recognise the need for the Court to have sufficient flexibility to sentence appropriately.

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I understand why someone would want something more proscriptive, but other than banning wildly exaggerated sentences I think the variables are too many to properly codify. A guilty party could have only barely committed the offence instead, they could've shown repentance, they could've made an honest mistake instead of having a guilty mind, they could've been accessories instead of primary instigators, or maybe the crime didn't have much of an effort or damage anyone. And just like that any number of factors could affect how a sentence is determined.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

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What Kris said. All this is for is to ensure that the sentences aren't too long and that things cannot be taken into account when determining a sentence to ensure fairness.

Local Councilroar.

Selfie

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It is very easy for the criminal code to be taken in bad faith as no sentence recommendations exist! Therefore I am drafting this to fix that. So, here it is!

Criminal Code

...

2. Punishments
...

(3) If found guilty of any other crime listed above, the Judiciary will determine a sentence. The sentence must be proportionate to the offense., and if it involves a ban, the ban must be shorter than:

a. 2 years for Identity fraud, Blackmail, Extortion and Defamation
b. 1 year for Espionage and Electoral Fraud
c. 6 months for Contempt of court, Corruption, Bribery and Whistleblower Outing
d. 3 months for Vexatious Charges

(4) The Judiciary cannot take these things into consideration when determining a sentence:
a. Out-of-character posts or actions
b. Other crimes that the defendant has been convicted of - these must be dealt with separately
c. Crimes in regions other than the South Pacific

Things that the Judiciary may take into consideration include but are not limited to:
d. The severity of the actions of the defendant
e. Whether or not the defendant admits to the crimes they have been convicted of

As a tl;dr, this draft imposes the maximum sentences on crimes and things that the Judiciary is not allowed to consider when determining a sentence to ensure fairness.

There are a quite a few problems I see with article 4... article 3 is a good base for a... possibly bad (or at least cumbersome - I'll get to that at the end) law, but the rest...
 

a. Out-of-character posts or actions

I don't think you understand what "Out-of-character" means in the south pacific. Out of character means discussion outside your character in the roleplaying category of this forum. Pretty much every single crime in the history of the south pacific (except maybe extreme actions in the roleplay, I don't think those have been actual crimes before) has happened out of character. You can't do electoral fraud (the crime in this law, not a roleplay version) in the roleplay, because the entire political system happens outside of the roleplay and laws we make here do not affect it.

(I understand this is confusing, because it is, so my tip would be to just pretend the roleplay doesn't exist and don't use terms such as "out of character". The roleplay matters as much to our laws as a random person playing a board game with friends in the off-topic section of the forum. It matters to a lot of people a lot more than that, but not to the laws.)
 

b. Other crimes that the defendant has been convicted of - these must be dealt with separately

This... well it applies in a multitude of ways, good and bad:

• Sentencing someone off of a previous crime that they've already been tried for is obviously terrible (and illegal!).
  
• Giving people higher sentences because they're a recurring offender is perfectly fine, and this would stop that.
  
• Giving people sentences for multiple crimes would be more confusing and unfair if the Judiciary were forced to consider them separately without context of the others.
  

As Kringle said, it's impossible to legislate the specifics of how sentences are formed because they depend on a huge number of factors - so this should go.
 

c. Crimes in regions other than the South Pacific

This should be discussed a bit more. Do we claim extraterritorial jurisdiction on certain crimes in certain circumstances?

For example, if a member of our ministry of foreign affairs or our military commits a crime in another region, shouldn't we prosecute them ourselves?

This is especially important in nationstates where these officials (especially the military) can't be prosecuted by those other regions. This isn't like real life where if you commit a crime in the UK or Mali or Japan or Argentina (shout out to economic nerds who get that - I'm not that much of a nerd though, for the record) the police there can arrest you just as well as a police in your home country can arrest you. The only thing that region can do is ban you, which will rarely affect you since the chance you're going to be in an operation in that region (if it's small) again is pretty small. 

In this situation, which isn't too fanciful (the scope of "one of our officials doing something illegal somewhere else" is pretty wide), we wouldn't be able to prosecute them under this situation, which is bad since we're the only ones who can do that to our own officials and the regions who are subject to this won't be happy that those people might not even be fired.
 

Things that the Judiciary may take into consideration include but are not limited to:
d. The severity of the actions of the defendant
e. Whether or not the defendant admits to the crimes they have been convicted of

This is a bit of a half arsed list, though I understand if you didn't have much time to make it. I'd say "go full out with this or bust" but honestly this kind of thing is best set by court precedent and guidelines formed by previous court cases, for reasons mentioned above.

All of this text wall is to say (sorry): Article 4 here isn't really a good base for a law (I define that as being made to solve a problem - as long as there is an idea in the article which is trying to solve a relatively important problem in a feasible way, there is a base upon which, with some tweaking, a good law can be built). 

I'd also like to add that while Article 3 is perhaps a good idea, I'm thinking that even the simplified version probably isn't:

• These maximum sentences are a bit arbitrary and everyone has their idea on a reasonable upper limit
  
• Even if a reasonable upper limit is established, it sets up a frame of reference for these sentences which may bias them towards being higher.
  

While it makes sense to have it in real life, since there's a lot less accountability in real judiciary systems so it makes sense to limit the power of (especially smaller) judiciaries to give out extreme sentences (that's why special courts exist to handle large cases like terrorism - and also why there are so many appeal courts in real life). Meanwhile, in TSP, we only have one Judiciary and it's extremely accountable and easy to find information from and contribute to - so this isn't even really needed.

(This post was last modified: 01-28-2021, 07:19 PM by Jebediah.)

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These maximum sentences are a bit arbitrary and everyone has their idea on a reasonable upper limit

I...agree. It'd be good to at least know how those maximum sentences were found to be appropriate.

(4) The Judiciary cannot take these things into consideration when determining a sentence:
a. Out-of-character posts or actions
b. Other crimes that the defendant has been convicted of - these must be dealt with separately
c. Crimes in regions other than the South Pacific

Things that the Judiciary may take into consideration include but are not limited to:
d. The severity of the actions of the defendant
e. Whether or not the defendant admits to the crimes they have been convicted of

I'm not sure where this is coming from, particularly since none of us Justices seem to have been consulted on what goes into our sentence deliberations? The Court should have full rights to consider all relevant aggravating and mitigating factors when assigning a sentence.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

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These maximum sentences are a bit arbitrary and everyone has their idea on a reasonable upper limit

I...agree. It'd be good to at least know how those maximum sentences were found to be appropriate.

I'll run polls in this thread each week (starting today) to vote for sentences so that it is what other legislators feel it should be

I'm not sure where this is coming from, particularly since none of us Justices seem to have been consulted on what goes into our sentence deliberations? The Court should have full rights to consider all relevant aggravating and mitigating factors when assigning a sentence.

Ight ight I'll get rid of that.

Local Councilroar.

Selfie

(This post was last modified: 02-04-2021, 09:31 PM by Apatosaurus.)

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New poll which lasts 10 days for both 6 month maximum and 3 month maximum, this is the final vote before I choose the sentences.

Local Councilroar.

Selfie

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I have chosen sentences according to the votes on the polls.

*motions this to vote*

Local Councilroar.

Selfie

(This post was last modified: 03-08-2021, 05:50 PM by Apatosaurus.)

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I'll second this if you change one thing. Rather than it being "less than" a certain period of time, make it "less than, or equal to" just to give a little variance for the court, if they want to impose the maximum sentence. Because in its current state, the maximum sentence, for example, for Espionnage is 1 Year and 364 Days.

swifty
Nation: Imperial Dodo
Discord Tag: swiftygamer#1448

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(This post was last modified: 03-08-2021, 06:38 PM by Swifty.)

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