[Speech] Judiciary of the Union of Democratic States

  • This is to clarify that items inside the Grand Libary are sorted alphabetically. The Clerks are encouraged to take this into account on thread creations.

Thatcher

Well-known member
Citizen
Dec 18, 2015
237
124
Awards
7
a44Ovct.png

Judiciary of the Union of Democratic States
By Kron


Formally unchanged since 2017, the Supreme Court is, at this point, the oldest continuously lasting institution in the region without a large scale change. Assemblies have come and gone, the Senate has been both a Unicameral legislature and the upper House of a bicameral one, and the Chancellery and Presidency are brand new. Three changes of note accompany the Supreme Court since January 2018: The reduction in membership from a maximum of five to three; the official redesignation of the Attorney General as an element of the Executive Branch, which reflected the realities of our legal structure; and the ending of Judicial elections in favour of Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation. Outside of this, minor tweaks have been made here and there, with the power of Legal Precedents converted to Legal Questions under the domain of the entire Court instead of just the Chief Justice, among other minor ones.

Prior to 2018, however, the Supreme Court was a very much different entity. With our region having a looser understanding of the OOC/IC divide the Supreme Court would often investigate members of the region and compile Supreme Court reports on them, which would be used as justification for varying punishments. For the older members of the region this is the starkest difference between the institution as it is now and how it used to be; even though a few reports were compiled in 2018 it was a marked difference between then and before. Now, however, the Court’s primary job is to provide interpretations for law, this is done in two ways. The first and most common are through Legal Questions which provide for unbinding interpretations and the more rare is Judicial Review, used to find governmental actions or law as unconstitutional, thereby interpreting law. Therefore, the Supreme Court - the Judiciary - conforms perfectly into the well established place all Judiciaries are in NationStates, not as an enforcer of nebulous rights, nor a place for thinly veiled insults to be thrown at prosecution and defence. No, we exist to interpret law, our word (sometimes) is law and whilst we do not make law, we decide what law is and what it means.

There is no golden point in the Judiciary, no perfect time, all we have are those willing to take no work for months and then a year’s worth given to us in a single month. The Court exists and will continue to exist to do our one task, to be there when everyone else needs us to be, even if our response to the rest of you is slow. In return? Well we’re treated like a proper branch of government, somehow!