(09-01-2016, 12:06 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote: *suddenly comes into the Private Hall, walking casually while looking around, carrying a big brown box*

*puts it on the ground and points to the label on the box, which says "Immediate and pressing issues for all occasions. For more information call 1-800-LAMPSHADE" and calmly walks away*

It should be 0118 999 881 999 119 7253.


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(09-01-2016, 12:55 PM)Cathalea Wrote:

(09-01-2016, 12:06 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote: *suddenly comes into the Private Hall, walking casually while looking around, carrying a big brown box*

*puts it on the ground and points to the label on the box, which says "Immediate and pressing issues for all occasions. For more information call 1-800-LAMPSHADE" and calmly walks away*

It should be 0118 999 881 999 119 7253.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Or rather it shouldn't be here at all since it doesn't contribute to the discussion.

(09-01-2016, 11:13 AM)Belschaft Wrote: Whilst supporting legislation to return such a prohibition into regional law, I have a number of issues with this specific method;

1. Seeing how there is nothing in the Charter that states that CRS members are "explicitly allowed" to hold other offices, have Tsu and DM resigned from it?

2. Why has the Local Council, which is a political representative role, been included with government roles? The Local Council is not a branch of government. To be entirely frank, the wording of this EO and the additional information attached to - notably the fact that the Cabinet wishes to include the LC in this - seems a political attempt to prevent Seraph and myself from holding the office of CoA.

3. Why has this been persuaded via Executive Order, rather than ordinary legislation? To be frank again, this simply reinforces my view that this is a political attempt to eliminate Seraph and myself from the CoA election. I struggle to see an immediate and pressing issue outside of the current CoA election.

To take these in order:

1. The CRS is not an elected position nor is it an appointed position. It's self-appointed with approval from the current board and Assembly. It's also not explicitly part of the government.

2. The local council is a representative role and member of the government, despite arguments to the contrary.

3. While I have not communicated with the Cabinet, I imagine they view your open attempt to hole multiple offices at once as a pressing issue of security. It is, in my humble opinion, a galling and offensive power move and one that I am glad the Cabinet dealt with promptly. It both flies in the face of everything TSP has done and stood for, and exploits an overlooked loophole for personal gain. Further, since you are attempting to solidify your legislative power (as both CoA and vote caster from the LC), I think we all understand the immediate and pressing nature here, since, if elected, you'd have significant power to kill legislation.

(09-01-2016, 11:13 AM)Belschaft Wrote: Whilst supporting legislation to return such a prohibition into regional law, I have a number of issues with this specific method;

1. Seeing how there is nothing in the Charter that states that CRS members are "explicitly allowed" to hold other offices, have Tsu and DM resigned from it?

2. Why has the Local Council, which is a political representative role, been included with government roles? The Local Council is not a branch of government. To be entirely frank, the wording of this EO and the additional information attached to - notably the fact that the Cabinet wishes to include the LC in this - seems a political attempt to prevent Seraph and myself from holding the office of CoA.

3. Why has this been persuaded via Executive Order, rather than ordinary legislation? To be frank again, this simply reinforces my view that this is a political attempt to eliminate Seraph and myself from the CoA election. I struggle to see an immediate and pressing issue outside of the current CoA election.

Really?

(09-01-2016, 12:20 PM)Resentine Wrote: @sandaoguo Are we deliberately not including military positions(General) on that list of yours or is that an accident?

I think that was deliberate, and I wouldn't include Generals in the list either. There's a limited number of experienced military gameplayers to hold those roles, their roles aren't political - merely administrative over the military.

(08-31-2016, 07:56 PM)Drugged Monkeys Wrote: Our Charter creates a system of checks and balances, envisioning multiple co-equal branches of government that cannot dominate each other. Central to these tenets is the inability of one person to hold positions of power in branches that are meant to provide checks or balances to each other. The Cabinet is faced with the prospect of this tenet being violated, through holes in our constitutional electoral laws. Because this is such an important part of our democratic system, and we believe our system risks instability without it, we must take the step of invoking our executive authority power to remedy this hole in our laws. This authority is vested in us by Article VI, Section 11 of the Charter: "11. The executive may exercise the collective authority of executive orders, by unanimous consent among the Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers. Executive orders may only be issued to address an immediate and pressing issue created by ambiguity or holes in a particular law, which will immediately have the effect of law."

We are unanimous in the following:

No person may hold more than one elected or appointed position, or positions in two or more branches of government, except when explicitly allowed for in the Charter and laws passed by the Assembly.

With this executive order, nobody currently holding a position in the Cabinet, the High Court, or the Local Council may be elected for the open position of Chair of the Assembly, being the leader of the legislative branch of our government, unless a tentative resignation from the current position in case of victory is given. We want to stress that we are not acting as a court interpreting the language of the Charter to somehow find this requirement within it all along, but rather using our executive order authority to address an immediate and pressing issue created by a hole in our electoral laws that allows a basic tenet of separation of powers to go violated.

Pursuant to Article VI, Section 12 of the Charter, this executive order is immediately put on the floor of the Assembly for three days of debate. If the Assembly fails to incorporate this order into law under regular order, then it will expire. To expedite debate and drafting of an incorporating law, the Cabinet recommends amending the Elections Act with the following article:

Quote:...
6. Separation of Powers
(1) No person may hold more than one elected or appointed position, or positions in two or more branches of government, except when explicitly allowed for in the Charter and laws passed by the Assembly.

7. Constitutional Law
(1) The Election Act is a constitutional law, and further amendments to it must meet constitutional amendment requirements.

I'd like to propose an amendment to the above to remove ambiguity. I am questioning whether to include Deputy Ministers, Deputy Chairs and Local Councillors in this as referenced here.

My thought processes are as follows:

1. The local council is a gameside role charged with bridging the game community with the forum community, it has no independent authority of its own, and is not able to act without consent of the gameside community (legislative opinions) and the Delegate/Prime Minister/Cabinet. I do not see this as a role which should be limited, given its already restricted portfolio.

2. Deputy Ministers/Deputy Chairs are not full ministers. In cabinet, Deputy Ministers do not have voting rights, and thus are not full members of cabinet - I see no issues with allowing Deputy Ministers the ability to hold positions elsewhere. Deputy Chairs at the same time have no true authority unless acting in place of the Chair. I don't feel appointed roles need to be subject to the same restrictions as elected offices given the limitations inherent in the positions themselves - their authority isn't based on their positions and is entirely derived from the official who appointed them (or confirmed them, aka the Assembly but that's not applicable here).

3. I'm in favour of, and have edited below, explicit requirements on assuming offices, vacating offices at the end of an election/confirmation vote for elected and confirmed offices where noted, such as Permanent Justice.

4. I see no reason to limit purely gameside roles from occupying other offices, such as the CRS and LC, unlike the Delegate who serves as head of state, their functions are either representative or short of a security issue, advisory.

I would further suggest amending the Elections Act to include the Chair of Assembly election, to centralise the purpose of this Act. Due to the change from the CoA being part of the cabinet to its own independent role, and noting that the Chair of the Assembly is not covered by The Elections Act given that at the time of its ratification and amendments, it was still a Cabinet Ministry, §3a is no longer valid when considering limitations on the office of Delegate and Chair given the altered election cycles. It remains valid in prohibiting a Legislator from seeking office to multiple cabinet ministries and/or the Prime Ministership.

Given that the Chair of the Assembly is now elected separately with elections commencing every four months if we go by the current election information thread by outgoing Justice Feirmont on the 28th of August, December, March it is currently not bound by the same rules that govern the election for the offices of Prime Minister and Cabinet, I would suggest a second amendment to clarify the limitations per each election or to clean the language up.

There is also nothing prohibiting the EC from running for election as Chair.

EDIT: After a discussion with DM, I've added a clause to explicitly allow members of the CRS to occupy other positions providing that they do not infringe on the Separation of Powers limitation. I've also included the restriction for LC members, notes on my reasoning are at the bottom.

1.3 is amended to read:

1. Electoral Commission
(3) No member of the Election Commission may run for office or hold the office of Delegate, Prime Minister, Chair of the Assembly or Cabinet Minister, during their tenure on the commission.
a. This does not prohibit a member resigning to seek office via an election or finding an accepted surrogate to oversee the election in their place.

Article 4 is amended to reflect the Chair of the Assembly:

4. The Chair of the Assembly
(1) The Chair of the Assembly shall be elected on a four month term, on the first day of August, December and March.
a. There will be a (3) three day nominations period where Legislators may signal their intent to seek office.
b. Following the nominations period, there will be a (7) seven day campaigning period.
c. There will be (3) days of voting. Legislators will cast their ballots for each position, listing their preferred candidate or choosing to abstain.

(2) The candidate with the most votes will be declared the Chair-elect by the Election Commission.

(3) The terms for the incoming Chair of the Assembly will begin seven days after the election results are posted, during which any and all election-related disputes must be settled. The outgoing Chair of the Assembly will maintain their office until then.

The Local Council is renumbered as 5. Vacancies is renumbered as 6. Separation of Powers is added as 7. A clause regarding Constitutional law is added as 8.

7. Separation of Powers
(1) It is not permitted for one person to serve as Delegate, Prime Minister, Chair of the Assembly, Permanent Justice, Local Council Member, or Cabinet Minister (as Defined by Article VI of the Charter) while occupying any other role in this clause, including any combination of said roles at the same time.
(2) It is permitted to seek election to Delegate, Prime Minister, Chair of the Assembly or Cabinet Minister while occupying an existing role mentioned above.
a. However, should the candidate successfully seek office then they must resign from their prior office before being allowed to assume responsibility for their newly elected office.
b. If they have not assumed the office within 3 days of the election results/confirmation vote, then they are considered to have forfeited the office and a special election should be called.
c. Where necessary, an announcement of resignation from their prior office will constitute a candidate assuming the office they have been duly elected to/confirmed for.
(3) Members of the Committee for Regional Security are permitted to occupy other roles so long as they do not violate the restriction in 7.1.
(4) Unless otherwise stated, Article 7 is considered to apply to all explicitly named elected and confirmed offices as detailed in this 7.1.

8. Constitutional Law
(1) The Election Act is a constitutional law, and further amendments to it must meet constitutional amendment requirements.

After a discussion with DM, we've agreed on two things:

One is that CRS members should not be limited providing that they do not violate the separation of powers above, and that it needs to be explicitly mentioned.

The second was that the definition of the local council's powers - "to provide home rule" is too broad and vague to be effective, and is thus counter-productive. We've agreed to work together on an amendment to the Article in question to try and clarify that ambiguity, however, while it is ambiguous, the power it has in-game still stands so I've included it in the restriction as a gesture of good faith. Should we not be able to institute some amendments in a reasonable timeframe, I will motion to remove the restriction instituted by this draft.

There's no reason for 1.3(a), given that we already have a process for selecting ECs when they no longer qualify or want to serve, and I think that wording would actually contradict the other language in the law.

As for resignations... I would actually propose requiring a resignation in order to run, rather than the promise of a resignation. If you want to office-hop, then imo you shouldn't get to have your current position as a backup if you lose the election. That would be different from the way we've done things before, of course.

As for the LC, it is 100% a political position. It's not just some clerical or administrative role to "bridge the gap." It's literally a devolved home-rule government. They should be under the same separation of powers rules that all other political officials are under. The LC doesn't have a "restricted portfolio"-- the current councilors simply aren't doing anything with it. The LC is whatever it wants to be, as that's what home rule means. It's a community unto itself, separate but connected to the forum government.

With deputies, the issue here is that you shouldn't have multiple positions in different branches of government. Deputy MoRA should not also be Deputy Chair or the actual Chair, as they're crossing branches and become privy to private executive and legislative branch information. It's really not much to ask that our branches of government remain as separate as possible.

After discussing this draft with with Raven, we were able to agree that the CRS should not be restricted by this amendment and Clause 7.3 has been added.
On the subject of the LC restriction, we have agreed that it needs to be added during this amendment until such time as clarification on the powers of the LC can be clarified.

We have agreed to work together on the LC ambiguity, and hope that this gesture of good faith will help show that we are sincere in this act.

just that the LC is not a part of the actual government. technically speaking, its main function is to collect the opinion of the nasses and transmit it to the acting government (away from other minor things). in that way it eaquels more a workers-union instead of a givernmental institution.

I wish people would stop throwing around the phrase "home-rule" like it actually means something. It's a meaningless buzz-word, and has no relation to the actual powers and responsibilities of the Local Council. Let's look at what the Charter actually says;

Quote:1. The Local Council will be a body of three residents of The South Pacific elected by the region as a whole every four months, who will represent the interests of all players in the region, moderate the Regional Message Board, and encourage activity on the game-side.

2. The content of the World Factbook Entry and Dispatches will be managed by the Local Council, in cooperation with the Delegate, and must contain at least a link to the Official Regional Forums and a notice to endorse members of the Council on Regional Security.

3. The Local Council will have the authority to run regional polls, create and pin Dispatches, and to suppress messages on the Regional Message Board according to a standard moderation policy. It may not alter the regional flag or tags, and may not send out mass telegrams, without the approval of the Delegate.

4. The Local Council is responsible for sending a representative to the Assembly, whose term must not exceed the Local Council’s. The method of selection will be decided by the Local Council, along with how the representative casts their votes in the Assembly.

You'll note two uses of the word moderate/moderation, and two uses of the word represent/representative. In terms of actual powers; the Local Council manages the WFE and pinned dispatches along with the Delegate; the Local Council runs regional polls; the local council moderates the RMB; the Local Council sends a representative to the Assembly.

That is the summary of what the Local Council does; it moderates the RMB, helps administer/manage the WFE and dispatches, and represents in game nations (I use the formulation regional WA members, as that's the only way to ID someone as a unique player). Nothing else. It's not a governing body, or a lawmaking body, or a judicial body. The LC Assembly Rep is barely even a legislative role, as it's duty is to cast the regional block vote - that's a political duty, not an administrative one.

Local Councillors are moderators and representatives. That's what we're empowered to be. Glen can keep saying "home-rule" as many times as he likes, but the LC does not represent such a thing. Now, the Assembly could grant the LC more powers and move towards "home-rule" being something other than a buzzword, but that would be a mistake - creating two competing governments for TSP would be absurd, and lead to inevitable conflict between the two. TSP doesn't need "home-rule" - it already has it, in the form of this Assembly. What TSP needs is better integration of regional WA members into the government it already has.

Regional WA members do not want complete control of their own, separate, powerless little pretend government. They want a larger say and a larger stake in the government TSP already has.

Now, can we stop pretending that the LC is something it isn't, acknowledge that it's a group of political representatives with moderation duties in the region, and treat it as such?