Constitutional Amendment (Passed)

[windjammer]

Constitutional Amendment

[quote]

7. The President shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons to any individual other than him for offenses against Atlasia, except in cases of impeachment.

Sponsor: Polnut

[Cranberry]

I'm inclined to support this. As many of you know, I am the last to oppose means to reduce Presidential Powers, and especially the right to pardon is one I am not too fond of. So yes, I will support this.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I introduced this of behalf of a constituent... I believe this is just a common sense step.

[TNF]

Could we update the language here? We may one day have a female president, after all. We wouldn't want a court getting fun with the text in the case of that happening and a controversy arising

[Lumine]

As a former President I have to say that this is a pretty sensible step. I've never been a fan of the whole pardon concept considering how it allows a President to simply ignore the Supreme Court, and as past events proved the presidential pardon power is very easy to abuse.

[Lief 🗽]

I oppose this.

[windjammer]

Hmmmm, I will get back to it later.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Could we update the language here? We may one day have a female president, after all. We wouldn't want a court getting fun with the text in the case of that happening and a controversy arising

Very good point.

Constitutional Amendment

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[windjammer]

I know it will be quoted in the Irony Ore Mine because of my flawed english ,
But, there is a problem with grammar, right???
I mean, the president= 1 person. So, themselves isn't correct, right???

[Talleyrand]

Not a big fan of this; if the goal here is to reduce abuses of power, the amendment should strip away the whole right to veto.

I am also no fan of copying RL constitutional stuff into Atlasia, but I don't really see a need to infringe on the right of a president to pardon anyone. It is the duty of the citizenry and other officeholders to pay attention to that and then punish the president at the ballot box if he chooses to not use this power reasonably.

In addition, this could lead to more corruption anyway; you would see Nixon-Ford type deals with resignations in exchange for a pardon.

[Cranberry]

I know it will be quoted in the Irony Ore Mine because of my flawed english ,
But, there is a problem with grammar, right???
I mean, the president= 1 person. So, themselves isn't correct, right???

I thought the same, but you know, we are the pinko Europeans, so.. Better keep that to the native speakers

[windjammer]

So there is a problem with grammar?

Please this is important.

[bore]

I think both themself and themselves work.

[Barnes]

If you really want to get into it, there is a pretty passionate debate over whether "themself" can be used as a neuter singular pro-noun.  "Themselves" is correct as a plural pro-noun.  

Further readings:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/themselves-or-themself
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/he-or-she-versus-they

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think both themself and themselves work.

I agree, themselves is acceptable as a pronoun for a role that multiple people will fill.

[Blair]

so before hand could the President pardon himself?

[Cranberry]

so before hand could the President pardon himself?

Yes, we even have a precedence when this happened - President Tyrion in October 2014

[Senator Cris]

This proposal will have my support.
It looks sensible.

[Blair]

One thing, I know that IRL ford got questioned for his pardon, but is it illegal (or should it bed) to make a nixon-esque deal with a pardon.

I may is there anything we could do to stop this?

[Cranberry]

One thing, I know that IRL ford got questioned for his pardon, but is it illegal (or should it bed) to make a nixon-esque deal with a pardon.

I may is there anything we could do to stop this?

Probably just eliminating the right to grant pardons altogether, which I would not oppose by the way...

[Blair]

One thing, I know that IRL ford got questioned for his pardon, but is it illegal (or should it bed) to make a nixon-esque deal with a pardon.

I may is there anything we could do to stop this?

Probably just eliminating the right to grant pardons altogether, which I would not oppose by the way...

Yeah it seems to be a pretty flawed process, which gives one person simply too much power

[Lief 🗽]

I think pardons are important, especially in Atlasia, where we can often go a little overboard in giving people draconian punishments (like multiyear voting bans, which are ridiculous for a forum election game with elections every two months).

[Oakvale]

Guys this is Atlasia, we will never have a female President so the point is moot.

e: I can only speak for myself but sentences I've imposed have always borne the pardon power in mind. For example, I have no doubt that Snowstalker will be pardoned by someone before the end of natural life.

[bore]

When these sort of things come up it's always important to remember that this is a game, and shouldn't be directly compared to real life. When handing out sentences we can't use physical force and the sentences are often only effective to the extent that the offender accepts them. There is nothing stopping someone voting in election booths repeatedly after being banned or using a torrent of socks or trolling the senate or deleting any threads they started, among other things.

The other principle difference is when someone is pardoned by the president, unlike in RL, no one gets hurt. There is no danger of accidentally releasing a serial killer.

Like in RL though, there does need to be a way of responding to issues as and when they arise. If someone shows genuine contrition then they should be able to have a reduced sentence. If someone starts to contribute to atlasia despite being banned, then it's right that they can have their sentence reduced. Giving the power to the president seems the simplest way to do this.

[Lumine]

I'm usually supportive of giving the President more responsibilities and powers, but is it really good for the game when the President can simply sideline the judicial power without any consecuences? It's one thing for the executive to be able to do more things, but a far different one to meddle in the affairs and decisions of another power.

We have a Supreme Court for a reason, and it's evident by now that the pardons can be easily abused, so there is real merit in the idea of getting rid of that particular power.