Members of the Appeals Panel generally serve for a period of six months. I've chosen to ignore that term limit for this group of Appeals Panel members because I truly enjoyed working with each of them and did not want to lose their contributions to my team. As a result, the current Appeals Panel members have served for over a year.

There is a misconception that the Appeals Panel is simply an "on call" position. That is, people think that this is a position that people sit in and don't have to do anything unless there is an actual appeal. That perception is incorrect, at least during my time as Justicar. I have endeavored to use the members of the Appeals Panel more as magistrates that assist me with the ongoing development of the Chamber of Justice. To that end, the Appeals Panel members have helped me with projects, given me important feedback, and been part of a team effort over the last year.

Dek, in particular, has taken over as the CoJ's Wikimaster. He was eager to volunteer to pick up the task of updating all of the CoJ Wiki case files. The Wiki had been outdated for some time and we had fallen behind on case files due to the sheer amount of cases we were dealing with. Dek completed the important task of turning the Justicar opinions into public records of the trials. Most impressive was that, after the first round of Wiki work, Dek took the initiative to wikify any additional cases that were published. Initiative is so hard to find in the DB, and I truly appreciated his taking the task in hand and getting it done without my prompting. To be specific, Dek has completed the "Case History" page for the most recent four trials. He has taken those case decisions and converted them to the wiki for preservation, He also picked out several "points of interest" that make the individual cases unique and important to the DB.

In addition, Dek has been ever helpful in the Covenant revision process. He had questions in particular about the Appeals panel process, who is included in that process, when an appeal can be taken from an executive penalty, and the nature of dossier notes on restarted dossiers. His comments helped to clarify and make the Covenant that much better.

I have been grateful to have Dek on my staff and can only thank him through this small effect. I hope to work with him again in the future.

Thank you,

Jac

Jac Cotelin, 2016-10-25 02:27:50 UTC