Court Case and Cafe

So I made an error of judgement. I forgot about the Improper Use of Jmails Act (IJA) and kind of slated Brynjulf in public after a minor disagreement in Jmail, publishing his mail in the process. Oops!

So, he sued, as is his right… But he asked for 6 Base Amounts as compensation… A Base Amount (BA) is 10% of the average player assets… i.e. {total player assets/number of players}/10. Great if you’re rich, a BA is nothing compared to your assets, but when you’re poor, (like me) a BA is huge! Why we have a BA based court system I have no idea. When I was Judge Lazaru5 (way back when Jottonia was fun to play) I always based my fines/compensation amounts on percentage of assets. Government imposed fines are based on percentage of assets; Court imposed fines/compensation are BA based… UNFAIR!!!

However, I asked for more time to counter the prosecution’s claim of 6BA and was refused! The prosecution Lawyer, Bill Guajardo, has asked for (and been granted) extensions in all 3 of his current cases… I ask as a 9 day old player and am refused, point blank! Not only that, but the Court failed to see the excessive nature of the Prosecution’s claim…

So consider this, at the time of the offence my total assets were less than 2 BA and dropping, yet the prosecution have asked for more than 3 times that as compensation. Also consider the fact that, at the time of the offence, my assets were around 85million $penn; 6 BA at this time is equal to around 1Billion $penn… Again, I scream UNFAIR!!!

I’ve posted my argument, albeit with less than an hour to spare before my ‘deadline’ for posting following the Court’s refusal to grant me an extension. I’ve also protested at the lack of understanding although I doubt it will make much difference. So, what to do? If I scream unfair in public, (i.e. not in the court arena), then I’m likely to be accused of slating the game, bringing the game into disrepute and all manner of other allegations (and most likely they will come direct from the President himself!!). But… there’s an election due to start, which brings me to the Cafe!

The Politica Cafe in Also is where to find all the political activity outside of the Parliament building. On my return to Jottonia a little over 10 days ago there was nil activity in either the Cafe or Parliament. in those 10 days, 2 new MoDA’s have been introduced, first Gras who has decided not to take on the role at this time and then Rodklieven. Rod has called an election and that’s a good thing, in my opinion.

The calling of an election has certainly fired up Captain Griffen, though, as he felt that he should have been invited to join Parliament as a replacement MP. He seems to be failing to take into account that NONE of the current MP’s were active, so even if he and Skoen (the only other candidate in the last election) had been made MP’s, there would still be a massive shortfall in the number of active MP’s. I’m actually with Rod on his decision to call an election even though I kind of understand Griffen’s point.

But I can use this, I think… There is an election due to start next week and I’m a voter (well I am once I hit 14 days). Once the outcome of my Court Case is known I am then in a position to cry foul, perhaps. One way or another, however, I can ask the candidates privately (i.e. via jmail) their views on the current Court system and it’s BA based fines which are unfair to the poor. Obviously I will make it clear that I am intending to vote for the person who is prepared to ‘fight for the little guys’. We have a good number of candidates at the moment, surprisingly, so we’ll see if any of them actually have a campaign up their sleeves. The only person active in the Cafe besides the MoDA is Griffen, and he has yet to register as a candidate… nothing new there then.

One way or another I shall find the person most likely to ‘fight the system’ as it were and try to change the Court fines/compensation to percentage rather than BA based. If nobody will, then I guess I’m stuck as I have no intention of giving the President or anybody else a reason to make yet more false allegations against me… I even found a ‘zing’ by the President that was aimed at me from November last year, when I wasn’t even in Jottonia!! But it’s allegedly ME that causes the ‘mayhem’… of course it is.

As far as the investing goes… well I’m up to 3 billion now and hovering between 13th and 20th depending on market forces at any given time. I think I’m actually 14th richest but those around me are close to me (within a few hundred million or so) so that’s why it keeps changing. Besides that, of course, I still have the Court’s judgement to hit my assets and that could be massive or it could be reasonable, if the former then I have no idea where I’ll be…

I’ll keep you updated on progress, especially on the outcome of the Court case. I’ve asked that compensation be limited to 1BA but we’ll see… until the next time

Hira (AKA -Devil’s Advocate-/Lazaru5)