[2312.AB] Change in the Legislator Status Requirement

Assembly
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1

Hello. 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.
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 Eligibility Committee, which the proposal suggests creating. My first thought was to delegate this to LegComm, but on second thought, I decided to create a new committee.

Amendment(s) to the Charter

Charter of The Coalition of the South Pacific

[…]

VI. The Executive

[…]

(2) The Prime Minister may appoint a Cabinet that consist of ministers under the following provisions:

  1. Appointed members of the Cabinet must receive confirmation from the Assembly Eligibility Committee prior to entering office.
  2. The Prime Minister may relieve a Cabinet member of their position at their discretion.
  3. The Prime Minister will define the role the appointed minister will occupy upon nomination to the Assembly Elegibility Committee.
  4. The Prime Minister may delegate their statutory powers, but not their responsibility, to their appointed deputy as needed.

[…]

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

[…]

Amendment(s) to the Elections Act

Elections Act

[…]

2. Electoral Basics

[…]

(4) To be eligible to vote in, or stand for, a forum-based election, a legislator must have been accepted by the Legislator Committee before the period for nominations began for that particular election.

[…]

(2) On the first of every January and July, the Assembly will convene for the first round of Delegate elections.

  1. Any eligible legislator nation wishing to run for Delegate may declare their candidacy, and the Eligibility Committee will debate the merits of their platform. Any player who has been banned from World Assembly membership will be considered ineligible and any candidate who is later discovered to be banned from World Assembly membership will be immediately disqualified. Legislators Nations wishing to run for Delegate must hold a number of endorsements equal to at least 80% of the existing general endorsement cap at the commencement of the election period.

[…]

Creation of Elegibility Committee Act

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

1. Scope
(1) The Eligibility Committee is responsible for verifying and approving, or refusing, the eligibility of Ministers and Delegate.
(2) The Eligibility 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) The person with the most votes will be elected as the President of the Eligibility Committee and will be responsible for chairing and organizing committee meetings.
(4) A member of the Eligibility Committee is removed only if

  1. the member resigns,
  2. the member loses Legislator eligibility, or
  3. the Assembly decides to remove they from office.
    (5) When a member leaves office or is withdrawn, a new election must be held and the Assembly will choose their replacement with a three-day voting period.
    (6) The Eligibility Committee does not have any executive powers and cannot interfere with the activities of Ministers and Delegates.

2. Check of Ministers
(1) The Ministers will begin their work when the Eligibility Committee deliberates.
(2) After every Prime Minister election, the Eligibility 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 Eligibility Committee, they must verify the new nominee for them replacement.
(3) The Eligibility Committee has a maximum period of three days to verify the eligibility of the appointed Ministers. However, if you do not do so, it will be understood as confirmation in the eligibility analysis and the Minister will be able to take office.

3. Check of Delegate Candidates
(1) Delegate Candidates must have permission from the Eligibility Committee to run.
(2) Every six months, before the elections, the Eligibility 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.
(3) The Eligibility Committee has a maximum period of three days to verify the eligibility of the Delegate candidates. However, if you do not do so, it will be understood as confirmation in the eligibility analysis and the candidate will be able to run for the office.

4. Requirements
(1) These applications are the only means by which someone can be approved or rejected and therefore must be strictly followed by the Eligibility Committee.
(2) To ascend to a Ministry, or become a candidate for Delegate, they must meet requirements already set by law, including having a nation in the TSP.
(3) When a Minister or candidate for Delegate is rejected, they must receive a message through any existing means of communication. The letter will have this format:
“Dear [nation],
We hereby inform you that your application to
[become a candidate for Delegate/become a minister] was refused. The reason for making such a decision was because you [were recognized as a significant risk by the Regional Security Council/do not have a nation on TSP].
Sincerely,
The Eligibility Committee.”
(4) If there are errors, the Eligibility Committee can revoke its previous decisions.

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

Resolution on Voting for the Eligibility Committee

Resolution on Voting for the Elegibility Committee
A resolution to set the voting date for electing the members of the Eligibility Committee, as well as clarifying things about these positions which are implied by the Eligibility Committee Act

Whereas that it was not specified, and could not be, in the Eligibility Committee Act the date of its vote, as this would be a measure that would be taken only once and therefore it would not make sense to put it in the Act;

Whereas it is urgently necessary to set the election dates and clear things up about the positions of the Eligibility Committee members;

Resolved by the Assembly of the South Pacific:

(1) Elections for the three members of the Eligibility Committee will be held five days after the approval of these amendments.
(2) Any legislator may run for office.
(3) The Chair of the Assembly will be responsible for holding the elections and organizing the candidates;
(4) Those interested in running have just two days after the approval of these amendments to express their willingness to run for office.
(5) The positions are for life until the member leaves or is withdrawn for reasons already defined in the Eligibility Committee Act.

1 Like
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.

1 Like
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.

1 Like
21

I motion this bill to vote

22

I support it.

23

If I could motion this bill to vote I would, because my legislator status is pending. None the less I actually like the Idea of the delegacy and minster positions not just being limited to legislators. I would agree that it makes it “more open” in terms of who can hold government positions. Hopefully you can garner enough support.