Criminal Justice (Reform) Act

[bore]

It's important to remember that maximum is by no means the same thing as definite. For example, treason currently has a lifetime ban on both voting and officeholding, but that wasn't even on the cards for most of the people tried during the disturbance recently, and even then, we have to remember that the president retains the ability to pardon whoever he wants.

I think we have to accept that a degree of vagueness is unavoidable, as every crime is unique and we simply can not cover all eventualities. That means we have to trust the court (as we do with the current rules) and the president.

When it comes to maximum sentences I'm pretty liberally inclined- I don't think that sentences should be too long in general, and, in pretty much every case which has come up over the last few years I would have preferred a more lenient or similar sentence. That said, when we put them in statute we have to have, as the maximum, the sentence that we would give for the worst variation of that crime. So, for maliciously editing the wiki, we would have the sentence for someone deleting every article on it, for example.

[bore]

Again, it's important that we remember that maximum sentences should be for the very very worst conceivable crimes, and I think it's not at all stretching the imagination to think of crimes that are worthy of more than 1 and 2 years respectively.

[bore]

Posting naughty pictures is also a violation of the TOS. Unless it material affects the gameplay (sock to vote in an election), then there isn't much reason to duplicate the TOS.

Again, it's important that we remember that maximum sentences should be for the very very worst conceivable crimes, and I think it's not at all stretching the imagination to think of crimes that are worthy of more than 1 and 2 years respectively.

What crime in a game is worty of being banned from said game for longer than two years?

A sirnick style deleting everything, vandalising all the important wiki pages, persistent electoral fraud, an especially egregious smearing campaign....

[bore]

I would say, for something as disruptive as deleting months and months of a legislatures work the sentence should be 5 years to life. No one has a right to play atlasia and we're not committing any great sin by depriving them of it. There are plenty of other government and election sims on the internet.

Besides, the president's pardon power means that if someone committing a sirnick crime was to come back and be genuinely repentant and try and undo the damage they did they'd eventually get pardoned.

[bore]

When it comes to sentences, hard as it may be to see from this thread, I'm pretty liberally minded. Most of the time we should punish crimes fairly leniently and in the vast majority of cases the sentence should be under a year or at most 2. That said, I think it's important to have a much longer sentence in our arsenal for the rare cases which merit it.

[bore]

Yeah, apart from the intentional bit I'm struggling to see the point of Yankee's amendment, and I think we should, if at all possible, try to keep the text as short and sharp as possible.

Federal law, as I understand it, is supreme, so if a regional law contradicts it, that region is wrong and should be charged. It seems tautological to be talking about federal law in areas where the federal government has the power to make law. In cases where the senate passes a law on something that is not within the senate's powers then that law is unconstitutional so effectively doesn't exist so no treason would have been committed.

[bore]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

How about this?

As I said here and also in this thread, a federal law about an issue not mentioned under the rights of the senate is unconstitutional, so the first bit is tautological.

[bore]

The Supremacy article of the constitution is as follows:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

On every issue the Constitution delegates to the federal government federal law is supreme, and on every issue not specifically given to the federal government the federal government can not make laws. There is no third category of law that the fededral government can pass but which the regions don't have to accept. Which is why I hope someone objects to the amendment.

[bore]

As the AG has pointed out the sentences in this bill are the same or less than the sentences at the moment, and given the changes in the trial structure they actually represent a liberalisation. For the reasons given earlier I don't really favour reducing the absolute maximum provided but given that the sentences are the same as at the moment I'd hope they don't, by themselves, provide  reason to vote against this.

Anyway this bill has been before the senate for quite a while now so, if this is something that the senate wants I think we should get the amendment out of the way so we can resolve any last disputes and move to a final vote.

[bore]

Was anyone voting against it because of that bit, and if they weren't is it worth wasting time on another vote?

[bore]

For the reasons that NewCanadaland has given, could someone object to the amendment?

[bore]

To be honest I think if we're going to have a terrorism charge it should be one which has a possible life sentence.

[bore]

X bore