I’m proposing that we eliminate the ability to serve in multiple Branches of the Coalition government, but labeling this as a discussion to receive further advice before drafting anything.
When I first thought of this idea, my initial thoughts were that the ability for someone to serve in multiple branches would lend itself to abuses of power, but I think that the selection process for any important positions is thorough enough to prevent that from the get-go.
My reasoning now, though, is that it would help prevent multi-tasking. Any officer splitting their attention between multiple responsibilities (not to mention life outside of NS) will be more prone towards potential mistakes or errors in judgement. So, I hope to change this, as officers more solely focused on their respective jobs will likely be more efficient than those with responsibilities in many other areas.
If this passes, I recommend allowing officers currently in multiple branches to serve their full term until the next retention votes, so as to prevent emergency votes for the opened positions.
Anyways, that’s all I have to say, but if you need clarification, i’ll try to respond as quickly as possible.
So, what do y’all think?
I was thinking along the lines of legislative, judicial, and executive. But if there are other main branches that I’m unaware of, this would apply to them too.
No, I didn’t, but that subsequently makes it another goal of this proposal to strengthen those provisions.
Evidently, the charter doesn’t seem to cover people like Griffindor or pronoun, who currently serve in at least 4 positions. Not to say that they haven’t done well in there, but my point was that multitasking has a habit of reducing a person’s efficiency and effectiveness, so I would like to eliminate that factor entirely from the government.
I am pleased that @pyrocxrals has raised this issue, as I too have been reflecting on this provision in the Charter and how it might be strengthened. One aspect that I find particularly peculiar is that Article VIII addresses only the Chief Justice, excluding the Associate Justices of the High Court. While there may be a valid rationale for this distinction, of which I am not aware, I would generally be supportive of an amendment that would also include the Associate Justices.
In addition to the points you raised regarding efficiency and effectiveness, I believe it would also be beneficial from an integration standpoint to prevent the same nations from holding positions in multiple branches simultaneously. If this were prohibited, it could lead to higher turnover, thereby providing opportunities for newcomers, or individuals who have only previously served in another branch, to gain experience in different roles.
I’ve had similar thoughts in the past, though my concerns were more about the risks inherent in concentrating the three powers of government in a single set of hands, rather than optimizing governmental efficiency. And there are still aspects of our separation of powers rules that baffle me, particularly the “appointed deputies” limitation. Why, for example, is one prohibited from simultaneously serving as Clerk of the Assembly (an “appointed deputy” of the Chair) and Deputy Minister for Trading Cards (an “appointed deputy” of the Minister for Trading Cards), but it is perfectly fine to serve as both Prime Minister or Delegate and Associate Justice of the High Court? (No offense intended Pronoun or Griff). As a former Clerk of the Assembly, I certainly don’t mean to diminish that position, but it does not strike me as one where the concerns about abuse of concentrated power and/ or overwork are as substantial as Justice or PM.
That said, I’ve ultimately come around to the conclusion that our community is just too small for us to insist on as sharp a separation of personnel as we do between the actual powers / branches of government. We only have so many people willing to take on these roles. And our small size also makes it easier to identify and check any abuses of power that might result from this setup, which seem quite rare in any event.
So I certainly would be interested in seeing some tweaks to the Separation of Powers provision in the Charter, I’m not sure that a wholesale overhaul is needed.
Personally, I feel that a well implemented overhaul could solve both problems. If we overhauled the system with intuitive changes,a more streamlined system could potentially draw more people to fill those positions.
I don’t think turnover is a good thing. We want people to actually care about the roles they hold, and artificially removing them doesn’t actually accomplish that.
For instance, part of the reason we don’t firewall Associate Justices is because, before that, nobody wanted to be on the Court. We don’t receive that many cases. Each individual justice hears even fewer. I think a firewall would just lead people to treat their position on the Court like a ‘side job’ and I do not think “I’m on the Court because I didn’t get any better job” is the standard we should aspire towards. And yet, if the goal is to create turnover… that naturally implies that anybody who isn’t turned over is just there because they didn’t get anything better.
As Welly noted, we’re a small community. We don’t have that many people. If we followed the principle of separating our different branches to its fullest conclusion… would we really prohibit justices or ministers from being legislators? Or should we recognize, as we’ve always recognized, that in a small community whose purpose is to simulate a government, there will be people who are interested in different parts of that small government?
If the Assembly feels someone isn’t ‘multitasking’ effectively, they have multiple tools at their disposal to handle that situation, up to and including recall. It can probably handle that for a lot of “appointed deputies” as well. But I don’t think that a strict firewall would meaningfully accomplish what it’s meant to accomplish. It’s not like there is an upper limit on the number of justices or like we’ve hit the maximum number of CitComm members. Those are not any less ‘vacant’ than they would be with a stricter firewall; they’d just limit our options on who’s available.
I propose the following amendments to the Charter and the Judicial Act.
Be it enacted by the Assembly of the Coalition of the South Pacific
EXPLANATORY NOTE
Purpose
Associate Justices of the High Court
The Assembly finds that the separation of powers is a fundamental principle in our system of government, ensuring that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches each remain distinct and independent. This division is not merely a matter of structure, but serves to safeguard each branch and the integrity of our democratic institutions. The judiciary, tasked with interpreting the law, must do so free from undue influence by either the executive or the legislature. Allowing Associate Justices to hold offices in other branches of the Coalition undermines this independence, blurs the lines between the branches, and invites potential conflicts of interest that could diminish the Court’s ability to function as an impartial arbiter of the law. Moreover, it threatens the proper balance of power and risks eroding public trust in the High Court’s decisions. The Charter rightly recognizes the Chief Justice as an Office of the Coalition and prohibits the individual holding that office from simultaneously holding another Office of the Coalition. For these reasons, the Assembly deems it both prudent and necessary to extend this restriction to include the Associate Justices of the High Court.
Appointed Deputies
With regard to appointed deputies, the Assembly holds the view that it is unnecessary to designate such positions as Offices of the Coalition. Unlike the Offices of Delegate, Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers, the Chair of the Assembly, the Chief Justice, or Associate Justices, appointed deputies do not pose the same risks of power concentration or potential conflicts of interest. Consequently, appointed deputies should no longer be treated as Offices of the Coalition.
Article VIII, Section 1 of the Charter
The proposal designates Associate Justices as Offices of the Coalition. The Assembly finds this designation necessary to safeguard the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and preserve the integrity of our democratic system of government. Under the proposal, Associate Justices would be prohibited from simultaneously holding the Offices of Delegate, Prime Minister, appointed Cabinet Minister, or Chair of the Assembly
Furthermore, the proposal deletes the provision that included appointed deputies as Offices of the Coalition, as the Assembly finds that these roles do not present the same risks of power concentration or potential conflicts of interest.
Article VIII, Section 3 of the Charter
This section is new and aims to clarify that the Chief Justice is not ineligible to also serve as an Associate Justice. The Assembly deems this clarification necessary, as the Judicial Act, in its current form, is silent on whether the Chief Justice relinquishes their office as an Associate Justice upon assuming the office of Chief Justice. This provision seeks to prevent a situation in which the Chief Justice, upon stepping down from the position of Chief Justice, is deemed to have automatically relinquished their office as an Associate Justice by virtue of Article VIII of the Charter.
Article VIII, Section 4, 5, and 6 of the Charter
This is solely a renumbering of the previous Sections 3, 4, and 5, resulting from the introduction of the newly proposed Section 3.
Article 2, Section 2 and 3 of the Judicial Act
Due to the inclusion of Associate Justices as Offices of the Coalition in the Charter, it is necessary to amend the corresponding provisions in the Judicial Act to reflect this change. The Chief Justice is now included in Section 2, and the previous provision in Section 3, which stated that the Chief Justice “may not serve as the Prime Minister, an appointed Cabinet Minister, Chair of the Assembly, their Deputy, or as Delegate,” is moved to Section 2 to also apply to the Associate Justices. Section 3 is hereby deleted in its entirety.
This is the first time I am proposing a bill to the Assembly, and I apologize in advance for any errors in formatting.
I assumed that being a legislator is a job that involves legislating. Legislators are part of our legislature. And so if we were to say…
…that does actually suggest being a legislator should be exclusive with serving in the executive or judiciary. Separation of powers sounds great in the real world, but clearly doesn’t translate perfectly to our community. (Unless anybody is actually advocating that none of our ministers or justices should be legislators?)
Instead, we have a flexible set of justices and provisions for recusal so that justices who are in the Cabinet won’t hear a case about the extent of the Cabinet’s authority or justices who are in the Office of the Chair won’t hear a case about what the law requires the Chair to do. I don’t mind strengthening our recusal provisions, but in the absence of anything more specific than general Montesquieu-esque concerns, it’s really easy to wax poetic about problems that sound terrible but haven’t actually presented themselves in our community.
As a general matter, I am inclined to agree that legislators should not serve simultaneously as High Court justices. That said, I too recognize the practical challenges posed by the size of our community, and thus, I believe it is a reasonable compromise to limit this restriction to the Chair. I would like to note, however, that Kringle generally abstains from voting, which, it seems to me, reflects a recognition of the need to maintain the separation of powers (though, Kringle, if I am mistaken in this assumption, I invite correction).
I respectfully disagree with your interpretation that the sentence implies a legislator’s role should be incompatible with serving in the executive. What it actually conveys is that one should not hold simultaneous positions in both the executive and the judiciary (and the legislative branch). The issue of separation of powers between the legislature and the executive is certainly an interesting topic, but it is not the primary focus of the proposed bill.
While I do abstain from most votes, that is a personal preference of mine arising from a liking for certain kinds of behaviour (similar to how I opted not to run for a third consecutive term as Delegate) rather than any principle rooted in South Pacifican history.
What is rooted in South Pacifican history is the fact that legislator status is the core of our regional political experience as a semi-direct democracy so I would be hesitant to see us remove from the Assembly certain people simply because they chose to participate in other branches of government.
I realize that I made a slight mistake by including deputies in the amendment to the Judicial Act, and I have updated it accordingly.
That’s an interesting point, that our system is a semi-direct democracy. I think it’s an important factor to consider when discussing the separation of powers in relation to the legislative branch. With that in mind, I believe it makes more sense to limit the restriction to the Chair, particularly when factoring in the number of nations actively involved in our government.
Considering that the Chair is already listed under the Charter, this doesn’t actually change much.
Let me stress that I am not attempting to make a bigger deal out of this than necessary. I respect your point, and it is very true - for the moment. I think that it’s important to note that TSP is an actively growing community; sure, it’s not as big as it may have been at one point, but I believe that there will likely be a time when a reform on these provisions will be necessary. I think it’s safer to make them sooner rather than later, when it affects us little.
This is what I’m worried about with my proposal. I certainly believe that reform must be made in this regard, but I can’t for the life of me think of a safe way to implement it in regards to legislators.
If there are any suggestions, I’m completely open to them.
I think you should view legislators less as members of a branch on the same footing as Ministers or Associate Justices and more as citizens who have acquired full voice and vote in the affairs of the region. Legislators do not hold a particular office, they simply get full rights of participation.