Link to the original news post
A few days ago, on the 15th of July, the pre-trial for the criminal case “[Muggy] ex parte SD v. Tie” began under the supervision of Judge Ivy. Muggy is seeking to privately prosecute the Ex-Vice President Tie, who has since retired from politics, for the crime of Vote Buying as per Article 41 of the Criminal Code.
Private prosecutions have pretty much always been quite the hot topic of debate within SimDem; but the current legislative provisions specify that anyone may privately prosecute if the Department of Justice refuses to take upon a case, but only if the Attorney General consents. This is further complicated in cases where the Attorney General or another member of the Cabinet is the subject to the potential prosecution, where their consent is not needed.
Going back to the actual case, plaintiff Muggy goes on to present multiple screenshots of Tie saying he will “pay anyone who votes for the Supreme Court Expansion Amendment 50 tau next election”, “give [someone] 100 tau to vote Phobos Gaming as well”, and a lot of other potential criminal things.
The Supreme Court Expansion Amendment was a past Constitutional amendment which would increase the amount of seats on the Supreme Court from three to five. It failed referendum on the 30th of June. Phobos Gaming was a candidate in the 146th Presidential Election (13th July), who lost the race in 5th place to (Now-)President Thyme.
As punishment, the prosecution is seeking a two week ban from SimDemocracy. While it initially also sought out a five month ban from holding elected office, that prayer seems to have been withdrawn since.
After a lot of bickering about the admissibility of certain evidence, a plea of not guilty to all charges, and a request for testimonial by one of the alleged clients of the Vote Buying, the trial has finally left pre-trial and entered trial on the 17th of June. With the prosecution’s evidence being mostly waterproof, there seems to not be much the defence can do anymore. Still, we anticipatingly await the judgement in this matter which will be accommodated by an update news article written by yours truly (hopefully).