|
Post by Vista Major, MP on Aug 21, 2017 11:20:20 GMT -5
VOTING ENDS: _____ THE COUNCIL CABINET AMENDMENTParliament Amendment #003
An Amendment to the Constitution Entitled: The Council Cabinet Amendment
19th of August, 2017
Member of Parliament: Vista Major
Parliament Proposal
Resolved by the Confederate Parliament of the Confederacy of Free Nations, that the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution under the jurisdiction of the Confederacy of Free Nations, enforceable by all of its institutions.
Be it enacted prior to the next general election by the MPs of the Confederacy of Free Nations in the Confederate Parliament, that:
Section 1: “Article 2” Amendments
ss.1. Section II of Article 2 of the Constitution shall be amended to state:
“The Executive Veto is to be given to the Council, which may arrive at a ⅘ decision to veto a law recently passed by Parliament. An Executive Veto may be overturned by a vote of the Parliament.”
ss.2. Section III of Article 2 of the Constitution shall be amended to state:
“The Referendum is a public vote for all registered citizens to be able to partake in and shall take place in the form of a regional poll. Referenda shall have a simple two options of yes and no, be open for a minimum of 5 days, and may only be called for by a group of 5 citizens, a Council supermajority of 4/5, or the Chancellor. If the referendum passes with approval ratings above 60%, then the decision must be carried out. If the referendum is between 50-60%, the Council will be called for a deciding vote.” Section 2: “Article 3” Amendments
ss.1. Section IV of Article 3 of the Constitution shall be amended to state:
“The Parliament's check on the power of the Council lies in its ability to remove Council members. A motion of impeachment for the removal of a Council member is required to be introduced to the legislature, voted on for a period of one week, and attain at least a 70% endorsement rating where at least 10 MPs have registered their vote so as to be successful. Any Councillor in the process of undergoing impeachment shall not be allowed to vote within the legislature on matters pertaining to their impeachment.” Section 3: “Article 4” Amendments
ss.1. Article 4 of the Constitution shall be abolished and replaced with the following to state:
“I. The Executive Council is a democratically elected group of leaders who are Members of Parliament. To become a member of the Council, one must be a citizen with a listed WA nation and be voted into the position during a general election.
II. The Council leaders will, alongside the Parliament and the Supreme Court, decide the direction of the Confederacy in all matters pertaining to the region and its citizenry.
III. The members of the Council shall each individually be allowed to appoint a deputy to their seat, and the Council at-large may appoint staff to exercise governmental duties under their authority and oversight. Councillors may appoint and dismiss deputies and staff at will. Deputies may automatically succeed to take on the councillor’s position if that member resigns or falls, but shall be subject to a confidence motion within Parliament to be initiated by the Speaker as soon as possible. Should the confidence motion fail to pass, a by-election for the councillor's position shall be initiated.” Section 4: “Article 5” Amendments
ss.1. Article 5 of the Constitution shall be abolished and replaced with the following to state:
“I. The Executive Council has the primary duty of overseeing the successful operation of the Parliament and the Confederacy at-large, and shall serve as the collective head of state and government. The Council maintains the power to democratically and directly influence any aspect of governmental policy making, but may not, under any circumstances, illegally alter or effect changes within the Confederate government that go against the existing Constitution or Law Code. Furthermore, The Council carries the right to establish and manage embassies and diplomatic relations between the Confederacy and other regions, as well as veto Parliamentary legislature, and carry out military and intelligence queries with Parliamentary ascent. All officer rights are given to Councillors on the Executive Council. The Council shall be composed of five individuals elected to separate seats on the Council, known as Councillors.
II. For the purpose of unity and efficiency, the Council shall elected from amongst itself a Chancellor to chair all meetings of the Executive Council and serve as liaison to the Parliament and Supreme Court. The Chancellor shall be Primus Inter Pares, having no higher standing than the other Councillors, and shall not exercise any powers not granted to the rest of the Council, unless prescribed otherwise by this Constitution or Law Code; however, in times of regional crisis, the Chancellor may be given provisional powers by the Council until such time as the crisis has ended. Only Parliament can declare times of regional crisis, though the Council may call the Parliament to discuss and vote on such a declaration.” Section 5: “Article 6” Amendments
ss.1. Section 2 of Article 6 of the Constitution shall be amended to state:
“The Constabulary is led by the Chief Constable who reports directly to the Council. Their primary role is to organise and manage the Constabulary whilst keeping the government informed of its activities. The Chief Constable shall either by a Councillor or a citizen appointed by the Council, to be decided by the Council.”
ss.2. Section 4 of Article 6 of the Constitution shall be amended to state:
“The Constabulary's primary duty is to uphold and enforce common law within the region. To allow this to occur, the Chief Constable is given the right to establish an alternative region for the purposes of detaining citizens suspected of violating the law or disrupting the peace. Citizens detained under this measure must be charged with a crime publically within 24 hours of their detainment or be released. Detainees also have the right to consult legal counsel, consult a representative of the Supreme Court and/or to file a complaint against the Constabulary to be investigated by the Judiciary.” Section 6: “Article 8” Amendments
ss.1. Article 8 of the Constitution shall be abolished and replaced with the following to state:
“I. Democratic elections are eligible to be voted in by all registered citizens. Positions that are democratically elected are the Chancellor, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court Justices and the Speaker. Elections are to be held on the 1-4th of the month at the ending of an office's term. This election cycle shall not be amended in cases when an election has been delayed.
II. The Chancellor is responsible for recording the candidates for each position in the prelude to an election.
III. To ensure that data collection is provided safely, it will be necessary for the Election Committee of the Confederacy to be established in order to collect votes through telegram. The Committee will be comprised of the current Chancellor and one Justice nominated by the Supreme Court.
IV. In order to vote, a nation must be a registered citizen, with no suspension of citizenship during the election time.
V. The voting system for the Council, Speaker of Parliament, and Supreme Court Justices will be a simple first-past-the-post system performed via telegram, in which every registered citizen may vote for each position with one vote. In the case that a body of government has more than one equal seat, candidates will be divided among separate seats for the purpose of election. Votes may only be cast once and only once.
VI. Election results must be kept secret to all except the Election Committee until the conclusion of the election. All election results shall be announced at the same time and winning candidates shall be granted regional authorities concurrently.
VII. Election ballots will be invalidated if the intentions of the voter are unclear or if the ballot itself has been spoiled; this includes the addition of unauthorised candidates.
VIII. Citizenship may not be granted to or taken away from any individual during the course of an election or referendum unless by order of the Supreme Court.
IX. Citizens have the right to challenge the results of elections if they have a reasonable doubt about its validity, or if a winning candidate did not attain at least 50% of the votes for their office.”
|
|
|
Post by Continental Commonwealths on Aug 21, 2017 11:43:19 GMT -5
My main question: why?
The Chancellor retains executive veto as he/she is the democratically elected chief executive of the region. Cabinet retains the right to overrule this veto, thereby serving as a democratic check on the chief executive's authority. Also, any vetoed legislation could be brought to referendum, serving as an additional democratic check on said authority. We have plenty of safeguards against abuse of the executive veto; there's no need to remove it from the Chancellor.
Regarding the indirect election of the Chancellor from among Cabinet: WHAT?! Why?! Why shouldn't the people writ large select their chief executive? I can't fathom why people would support less democracy, and I can't fathom why you- who maintained that your constitutional proposal was more democratic than Unf's proposal- would champion this initiative for less democracy. Even your proposal had a directly elected Chancellor. What changed? The current Chancellor vetoed your Legislative Review Committee bill because he knew how badly this initiative flopped in our previous regions?
I can't suggest amendments to this proposal. My only advice would be to scrap it entirely. I steadfastly disagree with the content of this proposal.
|
|
|
Post by Anglia Imperium, MP on Aug 21, 2017 11:50:14 GMT -5
WTF?!!!! Sorry about that, OK! As much as all Officer Rights are temptating, I do not like that bill. The Name Council sounds good, I must say, but I think that we are good right now, with the Separation of powers by not giving all Ministers all Officer Rights.
|
|
|
Post by Vista Major, MP on Aug 22, 2017 0:47:04 GMT -5
I wrote this amendment because the Chancellor Baxten expressed interest in seeing an executive council formed to mitigate his inactivity as Chancellor after the Cesorion confusion, admitting that the Chancellor position itself was moot, considering that executive functions are largely exercised by the ministers of the Cabinet. As he presumably hasn't had time to write it himself, I took it upon myself to draft this. Because the Chancellor would be stripped of their head-of-state status (as they would be an elected member of the Council as First Among Equals), there needn't be a need for a separate Chancellor election unless Parliament declares for one (I've no real opposition to such a proposal). And, as all Councillors will share all executive duties democratically amongst themselves and their staff, Councillors will be given all officer powers to match. Officer powers are different from Government powers; separation of powers, as they stand now, would still be ensured. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by Continental Commonwealths on Aug 22, 2017 11:33:58 GMT -5
So, your solution to an elected officer not having enough duties to keep him or her occupied is to then have five people elected to fulfill those duties? In what reality does that seem logical?
I don't even agree with the notion that the Chancellor is "moot" and does not have enough to do as many functions are performed by the Ministers. The Chancellor can direct executive policy and bring unity to Cabinet. But, it is what you make of it. If you're inactive, of course the position will go under-utilized.
If you're active, however, you can encourage regular Cabinet meetings, ensure that Cabinet is united in its understanding of what government policy is, introduce legislation with buy-in from all of Cabinet, and- when necessary- veto harmful legislation. The Chancellor can also encourage stronger diplomatic ties with other regions. These are all duties given to the Chancellor by our current, unamended Constitution.
Reading what Bax wrote, it seemed he wanted all of Cabinet to become the Executive Council, but the way you wrote it there would be an Executive Council and still the individual ministries; you didn't edit out the other offices. He also uses as a justification that the reason for a Council would be to negate the need for a single person's stamp of approval, but this wouldn't have avoided the issues that arose from Cesarion's initiative as this required Parliament's consent. I simply don't agree with Bax's suggestion in the least as it wouldn't correct the problem he's pointed out- which can really be chalked up to his own inactivity- but I disagree with your proposed amendment even more.
The solution to one inactive Chancellor is not to overhaul our Constitution, and it certainly isn't to double the size of our elected executive and expand a single office into five. To call this amendment an unnecessary overcorrection would be a massive understatement.
|
|
|
Post by Anglia Imperium, MP on Aug 22, 2017 16:52:51 GMT -5
I wrote this amendment because the Chancellor Baxten expressed interest in seeing an executive council formed to mitigate his inactivity as Chancellor after the Cesorion confusion, admitting that the Chancellor position itself was moot, considering that executive functions are largely exercised by the ministers of the Cabinet. As he presumably hasn't had time to write it himself, I took it upon myself to draft this. Because the Chancellor would be stripped of their head-of-state status (as they would be an elected member of the Council as First Among Equals), there needn't be a need for a separate Chancellor election unless Parliament declares for one (I've no real opposition to such a proposal). And, as all Councillors will share all executive duties democratically amongst themselves and their staff, Councillors will be given all officer powers to match. Officer powers are different from Government powers; separation of powers, as they stand now, would still be ensured. I suppose that the Cesorion thing is the Embassy Policy he approved in the end??? Also, as Baxten said, he is quite inactive, so please help me, you with appearance authority. The Embassy Policy Factbook, following amendments allowing all ideologies is in the papers. Please ad the following text in the WFE
Foreign Diplomats, please check out our Embassy Policy!
Italics should be linking to the Dispatch. Thank you
|
|
|
Post by Jaslandia on Aug 23, 2017 1:54:04 GMT -5
Denounce. I don't think such an overhaul of our whole government is needed this early on, and I prefer our current system: A democratically-elected Chancellor with more powers than the rest of the Cabinet, rather than an indirectly-elected Chancellor who is merely first-among-equals.
|
|
|
Post by Unfallious on Aug 23, 2017 12:02:15 GMT -5
We absolutely, 100%, completely and totally do not need to restructure the government only a short while after initiating a referendum to completely restructure the region's constitutional document. This is unnecessary, frivolous and quite harmful to the region when we see that this proposes what could be considered the 3rd major restructure of government in the last 3 months. And I say all that without even looking at the content of the amendment. The amendment itself asks us to do away with the division of responsibility we currently now have in the cabinet and instead elect a mass of people with no set roles so that they can all manage it together. We already have trouble getting elected officials to do the jobs they have explicit responsibilities towards, you're proposing we make them have less immediate responsibility?
I can't tell you how foolish the content of this amendment is, but I hope the above has dissuaded enough of you to put this thing in the trash.
|
|
|
Post by Unfallious on Aug 23, 2017 12:05:22 GMT -5
I wrote this amendment because the Chancellor Baxten expressed interest in seeing an executive council formed to mitigate his inactivity as Chancellor after the Cesorion confusion, admitting that the Chancellor position itself was moot, considering that executive functions are largely exercised by the ministers of the Cabinet. As he presumably hasn't had time to write it himself, I took it upon myself to draft this. Because the Chancellor would be stripped of their head-of-state status (as they would be an elected member of the Council as First Among Equals), there needn't be a need for a separate Chancellor election unless Parliament declares for one (I've no real opposition to such a proposal). And, as all Councillors will share all executive duties democratically amongst themselves and their staff, Councillors will be given all officer powers to match. Officer powers are different from Government powers; separation of powers, as they stand now, would still be ensured. Additionally, if the Chancellor has issues with his activity that are so horrendously bad he thinks a restructure of government is necessary to fix them, then perhaps he should have had the forethought not to run or to do the decent thing and resign. We do not need this upheaval right now, and certainly not because of some short term issue like an inactive officeholder who will be ousted in the next election.
|
|
|
Post by Vista Major, MP on Aug 23, 2017 20:05:10 GMT -5
I specifically altered the Cabinet articles to get rid of the ministries, making this Council and their staff the only executive; therefore, it's not much of a doubling of government size. And while I do believe that our current government troubles can be helped by a more active Chancellor, I believe that this is us would be much less of a problem in the future if there wasn't so much division of government preventing a new Chancellor from being chosen on the spot. And, considering the rising interministerial cooperation in many fields anyway, this amendment could be the final step we need.
|
|
|
Post by Continental Commonwealths on Aug 24, 2017 10:34:50 GMT -5
Sections that previously existed within an article must be explicitly stated to be repealed if your are removing them. You cannot just say the article is going to be completely amended with only two of what was previously five sections remaining.
The article already exists, as does its existing sections, and so what you are suggesting is amending the first two sections within this article. If the other subsections no longer exist in your amendment, they must be repealed.
So, for instance, when you state that Sections 1 and 2 of Article 5 will be amended to what you're suggesting, Sections 3 to 5 still exist unless explicitly stated as repealed. You can't amend a section into nonexistence- it must be repealed within the amendment.
|
|
|
Post by Vista Major, MP on Aug 28, 2017 11:06:16 GMT -5
Ahh, okay. I'll take that into account.
|
|