Link to the original news post
The SimDemocracy Bar Association has seen a significant amount of drama and heated debate recently, following multiple new petitions to award certain Bar Members with the Senior Counsel, a commendation given out to distinguished jurists.
An a few days old amendment to the Honour and Commendations Act has opened up the possibility for Bar Members to be nominated for the Senior Counsel by a petition supported by at least 1/5th of the Bar Association, instead of the old, much more convoluted, process. The amendment aimed to increase the number of Senior Counsels, as only two had been made per the old process in the whole two years the commendation had existed.
So far, only two persons-sitting Supreme Court Justice Ivy and former Justice Halfcat- have received the Senior Counsel through this new procedure, but many petitions to award the commendation to other people have also been submitted.
These include Judge Terak, Bar Director Palmer, Judge Mrgamerboy, and former Chief Justice Literal, all distinguished jurists who had a notable (positive) impact on SimDemocracy law or the legal system. So far, all these petitions rest at an amount of signatures of about ten, which is below the requirement of 1/5th of the Bar Association, which in this case is equal to 14.
Notably though, Judge Ppatpat, who had a petition nominating him for the Senior Counsel, refused the nomination, instead requesting it be taken back, citing that he didn’t want the award to turn into a popularity contest as reason.
This actually is the main reason for the “drama” mentioned in paragraph one: Many Bar Members expressing discontent with the recent reform of the Senior Counsel system turning the commendation into one awarded to popular people, rather than actually competent people. This was also demonstrated by the petition to give the award to Notcom (which has since been rescinded) facing heavy public backlash, with many Bar Members arguing that she has not done anything of note to distinguish herself as a competent jurist, and that the petition was simply raised due to her popularity.
Following this, Bar Director Palmer has since per administrative decree decided that the Bar Association would only accept new petitions for Senior Counsel after the already existing ones had been cleared up. Furthermore, some Bar Members have discussed potentially amending the Honour and Commendations Act a second time in order to fix the problems caused by the first amendment, although no concrete bill has been written yet.