[2312.AB] Change in the Legislator Status Requirement

Assembly
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1

It’s me again. Noting my last approved proposal aimed at including people in politics, I noticed something else. Requiring all members of the executive to also be legislators is not appropriate in my view. The Prime Minister must be a Legislator, but the other Ministers must be of them free choice, irrespective of the opinion of the Legislators. And, for political openness, I don’t see why not exclude the Delegate also from the requirement of being a Legislator.

Charter of The Coalition of the South Pacific

[…]

VI. The Executive

[…]

(5) Members of the Executive are The Prime-Minister is required to hold legislator status.

[…]

Noting that, with the abolition of the need for the status of Legislator, someone should be responsible for overseeing the background and behavior of Ministers and the Delegate. This will be carried out by the Inauguration Committee, which the proposal suggests creating.

Inauguration Committee Act
An act to establish a commission to manage the approval of the Ministers to act in the ministries and the eligibility of candidates for Delegate.

1. Scope
(1) The Inauguration Committee is responsible for verifying and approving, or refusing, the eligibility of Ministers and Delegate.
(2) The Inauguration Committee will be composed of three Legislators, elected by the Assembly by simple majority vote. The three with the most votes win the position.
(3) A member of the Inauguration Committee is removed only if
a. the member resigns,
b. the member loses Legislator eligibility, or
c. the Assembly decides to remove they from office.

2. Check of Ministers
(1) The Ministers must have permission from the Inauguration Committee to act.
(2) Every four months, the Inauguration Committee will meet to verify and approve, or not, the nominated ministers. If one of the Ministers receives a vote of no confidence, during them term, or is rejected by the Inauguration Committee, they must verify the new nominee for them replacement.

3. Check of Delegate Candidates
(1) Delegate Candidates must have permission from the Inauguration Committee to run.
(2) Every six months, before the elections, the Inauguration Committee must verify and approve, or not, the applications to run for the position of Delegate, which must be done by the candidates at least one week before the beginning of the elections.

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

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2

I’m not sure if I support this. I think it’a definitely important for the Prime Minister to be a Legislator, but now with the new set of laws regarding executive appointment, I think it’s equally as important for other ministers to hold Legislator status too.

3

I understand, but I disagree. I think that everything is excessively linked to the position of Legislator, which ends up restricting power to a certain group.

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4

I concur with Drei.

A large portion of the GC has been about decoupling running/voting for office from legislators. We managed to do this outside of the GC and in the Assembly.

Though, we will likely need to replace the security checks on citizens rather than legislators if this amendment is to gain enough support for passage.

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6

From political experience in Spiritus, I know they handle security checks for citizens on their forums. It’s not too much of a hassle for them because they’re a smaller region and don’t have a fresh pack of new nations entering the region limits every few minutes. There are a few of us though who do like to welcome new nations when they join the forums!

We would probably need to establish some sort of security committee if this legislation were to be added to the domain of passed bills.

7

A Security Committee can be interesting… Any suggestions about its membership/functioning?

8

We could change it so LegComm has to vet all candidates running for office.

Also curious about your views on requiring legislator status to run for Delegate.

9

Yes. I want the TSP policy to be open and inclusive (I know this speech is generic, but it’s the truth).

Anyway, you have a good idea!

10

I made some changes, what are your opinions?

11

I’m pretty on the fence about this quite frankly. On one hand, I do agree with your general principle about open inclusivity and greater access to being involved. On the other hand however, as someone who has a lot of experience in UCR’s, it is ten times easier to do things like this in those than they would be here. Whereas UCR’s have the benefit(or detriment, depending on your outlook) of a much smaller player base and active citizenry, a GCR, especially a feeder such as ours, has a lot more work to do in the areas regarding security clearances. I think utilizing LegComm is a step in the right direction, but I’m still fairly undecided on how effective this would be in practice, if that makes sense.

I certainly would be interested in seeing how it worked, but without a full level of belief that it would, I don’t believe I could fully get behind this.

12

I understand. But still, I think LegComm could easily take care of that and I think this would be one of the best ways to make politics more open…

13

Understood that it makes it more “open” however LegComm is a tiring job. Now you are doubling their load of work to do along with processing Legislator applications and recommendations by the Office of the Chair in their monthly reports.

I would assume that more people join the forums more often than apply to be Legislator. That’s a lot more work for LegComm if they’re processing security checks for each new forum member.

We would also have to discuss a new name for the body because its duties would no longer be centered around the Assembly.

14

A “Verification Committee” or something like that would be nice? What do you think?

15

The name is not the most important thing to me right now. It’s the load of work for LegComm.

16

I know. I want to create another Committee just for the aforementioned function.

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17

Take a look now :slight_smile:

18

I’m not a fan of this amendment, but that’s more because I preferred a different system entirely, where maintaining citizenship/votership was contingent on voting in PM elections, and not in Assembly votes. Even if that system doesn’t get passed here in the Assembly (and I might bring it up for debate soon), it’s easier to just keep the requirement that Ministers also be legislators.

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20

I actually still prefer my proposal, even if it is most likely not well received…
As they said, separating nations into Citizens and Residents can cause discontent…

21

I motion this bill to vote

22

I support it.