As a lot of you know, the Criminal Code is outdated and poorly written, with a lot of poor definitions for crimes that leave plenty of loopholes and broad interpretations. This amendment tries to fix those by making the definitions to crimes stronger, as well as remove the organised crime section, which was made obsolete by the addition of accomplice liability to the Criminal Code.
2. Crimes
(5) Blackmail shall be defined as the threatening of criminal accusation or the release of compromising or injurious information from a player in order to obtain additional services from the recipient demanding private gains from a player in return for not revealing compromising or injurious information.
(6) Contempt of Court shall be defined as a deliberate perversion of the justice system with the intent of - conduct which preventings the Judiciary from reaching a true and just result.
(7) Organised crime shall be defined as involvement in a group or association with the intent of committing an unlawful act in the South Pacific.
(78) Corruption shall be defined as the illicit misuse of public power office for private or personal advantage.
(89)
(910) Extortion shall be defined as the threatening of any individual with harm in order to obtain additional services from the recipient influence behavior that the recipient would otherwise not alter.
(1011)
(1112) Bribery shall be defined as the receiving or offering of undue support by or to any individual in order to obtain additional services from the recipient influence behavior that the recipient would otherwise not alter.
While I agree that the Criminal Code would benefit from modernization and clearer writing, I do not believe this amendment accomplishes either goal. Rather than clarifying the existing offenses, several provisions replace broad, well-understood concepts with the new phrase “additional services.” That phrase is left undefined, yet it becomes the operative element in three separate offenses: blackmail, extortion, and bribery. Instead of strengthening the Criminal Code, this standardization introduces ambiguity where little previously existed and blurs the distinctions between offenses that protect against different forms of misconduct.
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Blackmail: Replacing “private gains” with “additional services” narrows the offense while introducing uncertainty. “Private gains” clearly encompasses a broad range of in-game benefits, whereas “additional services” is undefined. It is no longer clear whether compelling someone to endorse a candidate, resign from office, withdraw a complaint, cast a vote, or take another action would fall within the definition.
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Contempt of Court: This change appears largely stylistic. Adding “with the intent of” does not meaningfully strengthen the definition, as intent is already implied by a “deliberate perversion of the justice system.”
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Organised Crime: If accomplice liability has rendered this offense redundant, then its repeal may be appropriate. That is a separate policy question from the drafting changes elsewhere in the bill.
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Corruption: This is the strongest revision in the bill. Replacing “public office” with “public power” arguably better reflects the conduct the offense is intended to prohibit by encompassing the exercise of governmental authority rather than limiting the offense to holders of a particular office.
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Extortion: The current definition focuses on coercing someone to alter their behavior. The proposed definition instead requires obtaining “additional services.” Those are not equivalent concepts. Someone can be threatened into changing their conduct without providing a “service,” and because that term is undefined, it is unclear where the line is drawn.
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Bribery: The same issue exists here. Bribery has traditionally been about corruptly influencing another person’s decisions or actions. Replacing that concept with obtaining “additional services” introduces the same ambiguity while making the offense resemble extortion and blackmail. If all three offenses hinge on the same undefined concept, the distinctions between them become less clear rather than more precise.
For those reasons, I believe the amendment weakens several existing offenses rather than strengthening them. I support modernizing the Criminal Code, but modernization should improve clarity, not replace established concepts with a single undefined term that is applied across multiple distinct crimes.
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