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Bill: Fair Justice Bill
Details
Submitted by[?]: Pacifist Socialist League
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: November 2208
Description[?]:
| This bill will make sure that everyone can be represented fairly in court, regardless of income, and will also mean that all are safe from the barbaric practice of the death penalty. I |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Government policy with respect to the death penalty.
Old value:: The death penalty is not applied, except for terrorism, treason and crimes against mankind.
Current: The death penalty is applied for capital crimes.
Proposed: The death penalty is illegal and is never to be applied.
Article 2
Proposal[?] to change Government provision of legal aid to the accused.
Old value:: Legal representation is never paid for by the state.
Current: Legal representation for defendants in criminal trials is paid for by the state for defendants with low incomes.
Proposed: Legal representation for defendants in criminal trials is paid for by the state for defendants with low incomes.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 01:54:04, March 31, 2006 CET | From |  Pacifist Socialist League | To | Debating the Fair Justice Bill |
| Message | This bill will make sure that everyone can be represented fairly in court, regardless of income, and will also mean that all are safe from the barbaric practice of the death penalty. It will also reduce the us of miklitary weapons by the police, except in special cases. |
| Date | 08:19:31, March 31, 2006 CET | From | Jakania Republican Party | To | Debating the Fair Justice Bill |
| Message | People who commit mass murders deserve to die, they did it for a reason and cannot be reformed. if people go to trial, they should be able to pay it themselves, besides a majority of people going to trial are poor in the first place. This will strand government funds and the government will have to increase taxes to meet the new proposal. In this country, the police need to carry military-grade equipment because all guns are legal, including the automatic ones. Those are the three reasons why we are against your bill, one for each proposal. |
| Date | 10:41:09, March 31, 2006 CET | From | Libertarian-Socialist Coalition | To | Debating the Fair Justice Bill |
| Message | What a sensible bill that's about to be shot down. Consider the "logic" of our current arrangement. Somebody is accused of murder. This person happens to be innocent. Moreover, he's too poor to afford a lawyer (as there's no minimum wage and he's surviving on peanuts) and also does not have a good educational background. Option 1: The man cannot pay for a lawyer and has to defend himself in court. As he cannot mount a serious defense on his own, the federal prosecutor handily convinces the jury that he is the murderer. They sentence an innocent man to death. Option 2: The man is given a lawyer who points out that the man was out of town during the murder and, moreover, supplies ticket stubs and witnesses to confirm this. The case is dismissed. Pinching pennies is no excuse to impede justice. The argument that "if people go to trial, they should be able to pay for it themselves" is immediately contradicted in the same sentence by "a majority of people going to trial are poor anyway." Meaning, poor people deserve to go to jail, whether or not they commit a crime? In any case, lawyer fees probably cost just as much as keeping people in jail. |
| Date | 13:36:16, March 31, 2006 CET | From | Pacifist Socialist League | To | Debating the Fair Justice Bill |
| Message | We thanks the LSC for pointing out exactly why this bill is needed. For now we will withdraw clause 3, and add it to a bill restricting gun use. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||
| yes | Total Seats: 87 | |||
| no | Total Seats: 102 | |||
| abstain | Total Seats: 61 |
| Random fact: In cases where a party has no seat, the default presumption should be that the party is able to contribute to debates in the legislature due to one of its members winning a seat at a by-election. However, players may collectively improvise arrangements of their own to provide a satisfying explanation for how parties with no seats in the legislature can speak and vote there. |
| Random quote: "John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?" - Emma Goldman |