Quote:as you claim it, an entirely different entity separate from the Assembly that is tasked with legislating and is compromised of all legislators but for some reason is not part of the Assembly.

It's in the literal Charter, my dude;

The Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific Wrote: XIV. GREAT COUNCILS

Setting a procedure for constitutional conventions.

It says there "constitutional convention". Not the "the Assembly of the South Pacific". Two wildly different things, with wildly different expectations and goals placed upon them. The Charter itself clearly lays out that the Great Council is a separate entity created with the Assembly's and the gameside's approval, reserved for the most extreme circumstances. Unlike the Assembly, where we deal with normal amendments, appointments and recalls. The Assembly isn't meant to rewrite all of our laws, a Great Council is supposed to do that. Otherwise, I would've just asked the Assembly to do so without going through all of these hassles.

Quote:What happens if Chair of the Great Council Kris'es decision is taken to Chief Justice Kris'es High Court for a reason or another, either as a legal question or for review? What happens if the Court finds the filing not justiciable? Or judgement goes in favor of Kris. Or the decision needs to be appealed?

Funny you mention that, we've got an entire act dedicated to resolving this type of quandries! It's called the Judicial Act and I think you're going to find that it's a wonderful read.

Particularly, allow me to divert your attention to Section 1(3) and the entirety of Section 7;

The Judicial Act Wrote: The Chief Justice may order the recusal of any associate justice on a specific issue. The Associate Justices may collectively force the recusal of the Chief Justice on a specific issue.

The Judicial Act Wrote: 7. Appeals

(1) An appeal is a case for which the petitioner seeks to reverse or reevaluate a case. An appeal may only be filed if there is no other open appeal for that case, and must be filed against the most recently adjudicated appeal, if one exists.

(2) An appeal may be filed by any member of the South Pacific or by any non-member with a vested interest in the case, for at least one of the reasons described in this article.

(3) Appeals may be submitted on grounds of process violations, contradictions of law, or judicial misconduct. For such an appeal, the assigned justice of the case being appealed is automatically recused from the appeal case.

(4) Appeals may be submitted upon submission of new evidence that a reasonable person considers grounds for reviewing the original opinion.

Now, the current sitting members of the High Court are Kris (serving as the Chief Justice), Belschaft and Griffindor. If there is contention about one of Kris' decisions in the Great Council and that ends up going to the court, both Belschaft and Griffindor have the collective ability to recuse him from that specific issue and make determinations on their own, with one of them taking over as the assigned justice for that. If that decision ends up being in Kris' favor and it ends up being appealed, then the assigned justice to that case ends up being recused from that appeal and it falls upon the other justice left to rule on it.

Sounds to me that we've already figured out what exactly is going to happen if Kris ends up getting taken to the High Court over something.

However, at the end of the day, if other people have concerns over Kris not being able to perform the duties inscribed in the draft resolution in an impartial manner, I don't have any problem changing it. I'm interested in hearing everyone else's thoughts about this too.

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Quote:What if we were to, instead of doing a complete re-write of the laws, put in this resolution what we wanted to remain the same beforehand, that way we are only trying to fix what is truly in need of fixing rather than get sidetracked reinventing something that works well. I would be more inclined to support that version of a resolution, over a blanket reset.

Is that even legally possible? Genuine question, and Roavin brought this up in Discord too, but our current legal approach to Great Councils is an all-or-nothing one that either makes us rewrite everything or abolish the Coalition for a new state.

Quote:One last thing, one large aspect of the GC resolution is the noted issues with the LC. Would it not be prudent to give the LC a chance to address its own issues that we compelled them to do not even five days ago. If the solution does not manifest, then we give the GC a harder look?

Like I said, I didn't have the LC in my mind when I drafted this. I personally wouldn't be supportive of any measures to abolish the LC just yet, not until their current term ends and we take another good look at their work according to the resolution we passed a couple of days ago.

Quote:A brief note but if we're going to go through with this, "those holding valid legislator status on April 26, 2022" should probably be changed to the start or the end of the day, considering we now have these two applications accepted today.

'Tis done, along with some minor changes to the draft.

(04-28-2022, 06:28 AM)LFP Wrote: What happens if Chair of the Great Council Kris'es decision is taken to Chief Justice Kris'es High Court for a reason or another, either as a legal question or for review? What happens if the Court finds the filing not justiciable? Or judgement goes in favor of Kris. Or the decision needs to be appealed?

If I can chime in with one thought (I have several, sometimes more than one at the same time, but I'll stick to this one for now).

If the concern is around a lack of engagement, and particularly a lack of emerging leadership talent, why are we restricting membership of the proposed Great Council to people who are already legislators? Surely if we are serious about reshaping the regional government into something people feel motivated to participate in, we need to seek views outside the ones we already hear. Otherwise we are just talking among ourselves, and potentially missing out on some fresh ideas to drive engagement.

I understand the security concerns outlined in the draft resolution but I think this is too blunt an instrument. There must be some way of involving those who are not currently legislators, but are nonetheless committed members of the region (e.g. on the gameside).

Although the Charter requires that the Assembly approve any constitutional changes that come out of a Great Council, there is nothing that prevents the Great Council itself from being composed of non-legislators. If we are going to do this, then I suggest we hear from some alternative voices.

(04-28-2022, 08:46 AM)Moon Wrote: Is that even legally possible? Genuine question, and Roavin brought this up in Discord too, but our current legal approach to Great Councils is an all-or-nothing one that either makes us rewrite everything or abolish the Coalition for a new state.

And even if we could, it would be quite silly to do so because we can just decide to preserve the existing institutions that we like... in the Great Council.

(04-28-2022, 01:02 PM)Bleakfoot Wrote: Although the Charter requires that the Assembly approve any constitutional changes that come out of a Great Council, there is nothing that prevents the Great Council itself from being composed of non-legislators. If we are going to do this, then I suggest we hear from some alternative voices.

I would imagine that a GC would be on a publically open thread, where anyone can participate and debate. However, the ultimate final vote to approve the results of the GC would be locked to those members who were legislators prior to the GC beginning.

If I recall correctly, I do believe that the 2016 GC took place as I described it above.

(04-29-2022, 02:49 PM)Griffindor Wrote:

(04-28-2022, 01:02 PM)Bleakfoot Wrote: Although the Charter requires that the Assembly approve any constitutional changes that come out of a Great Council, there is nothing that prevents the Great Council itself from being composed of non-legislators. If we are going to do this, then I suggest we hear from some alternative voices.

I would imagine that a GC would be on a publically open thread, where anyone can participate and debate. However, the ultimate final vote to approve the results of the GC would be locked to those members who were legislators prior to the GC beginning.

If I recall correctly, I do believe that the 2016 GC took place as I described it above.

It looks to me like the 2016 Great Council got a whole forum, but that could just be the way they archived it.

Great Councils do get their own subforums.

This thread's discussion seems to have been so far mostly limited to the technicalities of how this Great Council will work - things like who gets to be in it and whom shall run it (or rather who can run it) - most of which seem to have been sufficiently answered. While these are perfectly acceptable discussions to be having on such a proposal, I am interested in hearing if there is any opposition to holding a great council, rather than issues with the details of it.

I, personally, am mostly neutral on the issue, though I am leaning for purely for the entertainment that such a massive debate will no doubt bring.

I find it awfully convenient that Roavin won't be eligible to vote if we proceed with a Great Council, even if it wasn't the intent of the prime minister.

(04-29-2022, 08:45 PM)Jay Coop Wrote: I find it awfully convenient that Roavin won't be eligible to vote if we proceed with a Great Council, even if it wasn't the intent of the prime minister.

Article 4 would give Kringle the power to let people in even if they didn't have legislator status before the deadline, and I imagine he'd be happy to let Roavin in.

And Roavin as a legislator will be able to vote on holding a Great Council as long as he's a legislator when a vote is held.