A tribunal is a court. But it is not an ordinary court. In this discussion, a Tribunal is a powerful court designed to handle extraordinary situations.
Our American Tribunal will face many problems. Among these are its foundation of authority, its limits, its procedures, and its powers to impose corrective, remedial, or punitive measures.
Human history is filled with different systems to evaluate accusations, weigh evidence, and make judgments.
Many of these systems, such as trial by ordeal, have disappeared. (No one shed tears over their extinction.)
On the other hand, other judicial systems have become the norm. These are usually systems in which a panel of disinterested people evaluate and weigh facts within a procedural context overseen by a disinterested judge (or panel of judges.)
Such is a tribunal.
It is traditional in common law countries (and the United States) for the judges, during a trial, to act largely as referees rather than being actively engaged in examination of witnesses. In other countries, judges are more active, more inquisitorial, directly examining (and cross-examining) witnesses. That latter form tends to reveal to the public a more complete picture of events than the typical United States procedure, which is more subject to information-limiting agreements between prosecutors and defendants.
The American Tribunal proposed here is a larger conception. Yes, the proposed tribunal is intended to investigate and reveal. But the goals are larger: punitive, remedial, compensatory, and to dissuade future ill acts.
The Plaintiffs And The Defendants
This Tribunal is an action by The People of the United States against malfeasors who are accused of harming the United States and its People.
The defendants may be:
Any person who holds, or who has held, public office (at any level, local, state, Federal, or administrative)
Any person, corporation, or organization that has been directly involved in any relationship with, or any transaction with, anyone in the first category.
Any person, corporation, or organization that has been indirectly involved in any relationship with, or any transaction with, any person, corporation, or organization that falls into one of the prior two categories.
Does This Tribunal Encompass Federal Law, State Law, "Natural Law", or Other Legal Foundations?
This writer proposes and suggests that this American Tribunal be able to exercise authority based on both Federal and State law. The reason for this is that the crimes and harms of the Trump/MAGA era are often broad and not clearly or easily wrapped and limited under the headings of "Federal" or "State".
Many of the crimes of the Trump/MAGA administration are novel (at least novel to US experience within the last century). Consequently, based on a notion that "laws should not be made about things that rarely occur", many acts that we, in our ethical and moral frameworks, perceive as clearly wrong and blameworthy are not covered by explicit Federal or State laws.
Therefore, it may well be necessary for this American Tribunal to adopt a limited form of the common law practice of courts creating law.
This writer utterly rejects the concept of "Natural Law".
To this writer, "natural law" is a pretty-painted way of saying "I just make it up."
There is no doubt that cultures around the world have ethical and moral frameworks that inform and shape their laws. But those frameworks are best viewed as merely explanatory and as collections of historical and experience-based wisdom rather than as actual laws.
TODO - Mention truth and reconciliation commissions from S. Africa and elsewhere TODO
