Earlier today, the Court ruled that since the Legislator Committee Act was not constitutional, it could not be allowed to stand with its current powers as they over-reach what a general law can do. The South Pacific is now left without legal procedures to admit legislators. The Cabinet is empowered to resolve ambiguities or holes in law, and we consider this a rather glaring hole.

The Cabinet will reinstate the Act with the following changes.

A clause has been added to make the Legislator Committee Act constitutional. This is the most vital part of the Executive Order.

The continuing resolution clause has been removed, as it read:

4. Continuing resolution

(1) Upon passage of this bill, the sitting Chair of the Assembly shall automatically become the initial member of the Legislator Committee.

Not only is this no longer relevant, but the bill is about to pass back into law, so if this clause remained, the sitting CoA would need to be on the Legislator Committee again.


We hope that the Assembly is sympathetic to the Cabinet's haste - without an Executive Order, over ten days could pass without resolution to this issue. The Cabinet therefore enacts the following Order:


1. The following Act shall be considered law.

Legislator Committee Act
An act to establish a commission to manage legislators
1. Scope

(1) The Legislator Committee is the commission responsible for granting and revoking legislator status to members.

(2) The Legislator Committee comprises three legislators that have each been appointed by the cabinet and approved by the assembly via a simple majority vote.

(3) A member of the Legislator Committee is removed from the committee if
a. a reconfirmation vote held every four months does not achieve a simple majority, or
b. the member resigns, or
c. the member loses legislator eligibility, or
d. the member is recalled by the Assembly through regular order.

(4) If there is no member of the Legislator Committee available due to vacancy or leave, and there are outstanding duties to be performed, the Cabinet may appoint an emergency member to handle any urgent matters of the committee. The Council on Regional Security may, on security grounds only, rescind the Cabinet's appointment. The emergency member's tenure will last until the Cabinet rescinds the appointment or until one week after a regular committee member is available, whichever happens sooner.

2. Legislator Applications

(1) Any member of the Coalition is eligible to attain legislator status if
a. the Legislator Committee does not opine that they are seeking membership in bad faith,
b. they have a nation in the South Pacific,
c. are not attempting to join with multiple nations or identities, and
d. are not considered by the Council on Regional Security to be a significant risk to regional security.

(2) A member of the Coalition may attain legislator status through an application with the Legislator Committee. The Committee shall confirm the reception of an application within 48 hours. The Committee will determine the eligibility of the applicant, consulting any other institutions of the Coalition as needed to inform its decision, and shall strive to accept or deny each applicant within a week.

(3) An application for legislator status must include at least
a. the current nation in the South Pacific,
b. any colloquial aliases of the individual in use within the last year, or in prominent use longer than a year ago,
c. the current World Assembly nation of the individual (in case of a floating World Assembly membership, the applicant may list multiple nations such that World Assembly membership can be traced throughout the application process), and
d. a pledge to uphold the laws of the Coalition of the South Pacific.

(4) The Legislator Committee may request additional legitimation steps from applicants, such as requesting a telegram from a World Assembly nation. An applicant may choose to publicly withhold some information and only disclose it to the Council on Regional Security in case of reasonable concerns of confidentiality.

(5) Upon acceptance or denial of an application, the Legislator Committee shall post the result (including a sufficient reason in case of a denial) both in response to the application as well as per telegram to the applicant nation.

(6) Anyone admitted to legislator status during a forum election in which only legislators may vote, from the time nominations begin until the conclusion of forum voting, may not stand for election nor vote in that forum election.

3. Legislator Checks

(1) Continued legislator status requires active membership and good behaviour.

(2) Within the first week of each calendar month, the Legislator Committee will remove legislator status from a legislator if they failed the voting requirement in the past month, if applicable, or otherwise no longer meet the eligibility requirements as described herein. The Legislator Committee may exercise discretion and not remove legislators under reasonable extenuating circumstances.

(3) A legislator fails the voting requirement if they are absent for more than half of all votes finished in the previous calendar month, if a minimum of two votes occurred. Legislators who have an approved leave of absence from the Chair shall not be considered absent for votes in the given time frame.

(4) The Chair of the Assembly may order the Legislator Committee to suspend legislator privileges for disruptive members. Frequent suspensions may be grounds for ineligibility, if found appropriate in a fair trial by the High Court.

4. Constitutional Law

(1) The Legislator Committee Act is a constitutional law, and further amendments to it must meet constitutional amendment requirements.

Signed,

Farengeto, Prime Minister
Nakari, Minister of Regional Affairs
Somyrion, Minister of Military Affairs
Resentine, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Reply

Speaking as the Justice who wrote the opinion, the statement that “The South Pacific is now left without legal procedures to admit legislators” is a plain misreading of the opinion. The Court recognized that the commission had a Charter-granted authority to handle legislator applications, and thus said that the commission could continue application procedures so long as they were publicly published. The Court did not rule that the region was now without any means of admitting new legislators.

Reply

As it has now been three days, and we will have no Chair for another more than half a week, I am invoking Article 2.1 of the Legislative Procedure Act to bring this Executive Order to vote.

As a reminder voting for this does not exclude additional proposals, such as those proposed by Beepee. Such proposals will simply be passed as an amendment to this law (which varies from the previous Legislator Committee Act only by the substitution of Article 4).

Reply

Dear PM and Honorable LC committee,

I have sent an formal application to get involved in the regional affairs. I hope that the committee will take my application under kind consideration. I thank the Senior members of the government and the PM for their hard work to make our region great.

Reply