Greetings. I’ve come to propose a change to the executive. This is not necessarily a great piece of legal writing, but it encapsulates the ideas I wanted to implement for the executive.
THE EXECUTIVE
The First Minister is head of government of the Coalition, and chiefly responsible for its operations.
The First Minister leads the Cabinet, whose primary purpose is to promote the regional community and culture, integrate new players, maintain the Coalition’s foreign policy and relations, and coordinate military activities.
The First Minister may appoint no more than 6 Ministers, defined as leaders of Ministries, to accomplish a major task set forth by this Charter.
The appointment of Ministers shall be immediately followed by a day of debate, and three days of voting. A majority is required to confirm the Minister in their position. They shall not take office until conclusion of the vote.
This particular proposal would follow suit on the third item in HumanSanity’s list, but give greater discretion in how to tackle the specific portfolio assigned to the Cabinet. There’s no specific Ministry that’s being mandated, only the portfolio. The intention is that the culture of the current Ministries would effectively continue, just with greater flexibility in how the First Minister would run the government.
I like that you chose “First Minister” as the title indicating that you know what they’re supposed to be - first among equals. The “promotion of regional community” being mentioned is welcomed (personally speaking, an issue that is desperately needing of being addressed).
However I recommend you read the entire thread linked by Pronoun to see differing opinions/options/counter-arguments.
I’ll take another look at it, but this hasn’t really been brought up yet on the new forums, so I decided to bring it back. I’ve been weighing it in my head back and forth for weeks now.
Enough to set up a government while still setting a limit to the number of high-level executive positions.
One day of voting is too short for anything in this government. Our minimum time for voting is 3 days and I see no good reason beyond impatience that we should shorten that time frame.
My reservations about an appointed cabinet have weakened, but I don’t particularly see the advantages to the system you’re proposing. It feels, to be blunt, like a confused combination of different ideas for how to implement an appointed Cabinet.
We could try to focus authority squarely around just the head of government, but this amendment doesn’t do that, because it still offers a defined list of executive responsibilities. Ministries would just be organized around permutations of that. Ministries beyond that scope are not allowed even if the Cabinet feels them to be necessary.
We could, alternatively, have Cabinet ministers appointed to fill specific positions, with less authority vested in a head of government and more written into law, but this amendment doesn’t do that either. There are no specific positions established, just a list of ‘major tasks.’
Also, I’d still favor a system where candidates list who they intend to appoint to which offices in their campaigns.
I don’t mean to single you out, but this speaks to a larger issue that we tend to have in this region. Just because the law doesn’t explicitly allow something doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.
We fell into this trap when we tried to draft a resolution to regulate how the Assembly could commend citizens, not because we should have a definite structure but rather because we didn’t know if the Assembly had the inherent authority to commend citizens.
We fell again into this trap when we claimed that the Prime Minister didn’t have the authority to set and properly enforce a common Cabinet agenda, even though we could collectively decide otherwise. After all, why even have a Prime Minister if not to have them lead the Cabinet?
We risk falling into that trap again if we think that just because the draft specifically lists certain government functions, that others can’t also be covered. If the law doesn’t expressly forbid something, and that something isn’t unreasonable, why wouldn’t it be allowed?
The list is almost entirely taken from your post on cutting down the executive. It is included here to ensure that the executive continues to be legally responsible for elements of the game that everyone else is playing (as opposed to appointing Ministers solely responsible for joke Ministries), but I don’t have a big issue with removing it altogether in favor of an unofficial culture of maintaining a few Ministries. Assembly confirmation is still included in the process.
Additional Ministries and other methods of organizations (like Offices) are allowed, as the Cabinet’s primary purpose is defined, not their sole purpose. Maintenance of the dispatch system, for instance, can be handled with appointing a Director.
This is another system I could support, but with the total abolition of directly electing the head of government and instead electing members of an executive council that would then elect a First Minister, their first among equals. That is outside the scope of this thread, however, and one I have not yet drafted language for.
I’m unwilling to part ways with the 3-day vote, if the debate period is not also extended to cover that lost time. 4 days of debate and voting total is as short a time I can support to cover the majority of minor hang-ups in participating in our democracy.
The problem isn’t the list, it’s the fact that ministries are limited to the purpose of accomplishing ‘a major task set forth by this Charter.’ I’m not trying to limit anything to what’s listed in the law, but in this case, the amendment itself seeks to impose that limit.
In that thread, I sought to identify the primary goal of each of our current ministries. Simply combining them into a longer list doesn’t actually identify the primary goal of the executive.
How could additional ministries serve a purpose ‘to accomplish a major task set forth by this Charter’ if they are established with a goal in mind that is not listed in the Charter? Of course, we can just create offices, and admittedly I’m not seeing that much functional difference between the two in your amendment, but at that point I’m not sure what the point of limiting ministries is.
Why’s that the only alternative in your mind? What would your objection be to, say, a system where an elected head of government appoints ministers to lead ministries established by law?
What is the primary goal of the executive if not a combination of the primary goals of the Ministries?
Offices were deliberately excluded as I did not see a need to enshrine something that might only be used sparingly, if at all. OWL is currently in existence, but it is defined by law. I will write up changes to better fit this, however, as you have a point in “major tasks as set forth by the Charter.”
I would rather see the First Minister have a greater degree of flexibility in the execution of their duties, and defining the specific portfolios of Ministries, as opposed to more general goals, is constrictive in that matter. The First Minister is charged with leading the Cabinet. The Cabinet has the responsibility to execute its duties by law. The First Minister can then appoint Ministers, and additional staff like Directors or Advisors, and their own staffers, to help them fulfill this mission.
Below is the edited draft, although I might toy with this a little more in a day or two.
THE EXECUTIVE
The First Minister is head of government of the Coalition, and chiefly responsible for its operations.
The First Minister leads the Cabinet, whose primary purpose is to promote the regional community and culture, integrate new players, maintain the Coalition’s foreign policy and relations, and coordinate military activities.
The First Minister may appoint no more than 6 Ministers, defined as leaders of Ministries, as well as additional staff to accomplish the Cabinet’s responsibilities.
The appointment of Ministers shall be immediately followed by a day of debate, and three days of voting. A majority is required to confirm the Minister in their position. They shall not take office until conclusion of the vote.`
Shouldn’t the idea be, the charter is there to restrict the assembly from running amok, and if it’s not specifically enumerated, then the assembly has the ability to legislate on the idea?
There is no need for this restriction. I can think of, offhand, many regions which have more that six ministers or minister-equivalents. This is an arbitrary regulation.
Overall I like the idea but I think this draft implements it poorly.
Beyond what other regions perform, what government do you envision for the South Pacific that would require more than 6 Ministers? In recent memory, the most we’ve had was 5 and not all of them were worth their own Ministries.
After giving it some greater though, I submit the following draft to the Great Council. It drops portfolios altogether and simply mandates that the First Minister justify their Ministers’ appointment to the Assembly.
THE EXECUTIVE
The First Minister is head of government of the Coalition, and chiefly responsible for its operations.
The First Minister leads the Cabinet, comprised of no more than 6 Ministers and their staff.
The First Minister may appoint Ministers to lead specific portfolios, with approval from the Assembly.
I’m still not too sure what the reasoning behind the name ‘First Minister’ is beyond the fact that it might sound cool to some of us? But it carries connotations that I don’t think fit the role of the head of government of the Coalition — it suggests a primus inter pares relationship with the rest of the Cabinet (it is the ‘first’ minister among equals), and it’s often used in real life for a devolved government. Just because ‘Prime Minister’ doesn’t sound glamorous doesn’t mean it doesn’t get the job done. And in fact, titles should be intuitive first and foremost.
I think this amendment would need further detail, perhaps in other laws. In particular:
Can the First Minister can just create offices to bypass Assembly approval? What constitutes a role important enough for a ministry, and what doesn’t? Who draws the line?
Perhaps this should be paired with an amendment to the Elections Act (or maybe a new Appointments Act, not really sure) that details the appointment process.
I don’t get why we’d grant the First Minister such broad authority over ministries just to limit the number. It also seems trivial anyway under this amendment to just create an office instead of an additional ministry, but treat it like a ministry anyway, so I’m not sure what purpose the limit serves.
Also, on a broader note, I still think it would be beneficial for candidates to who they intend to appoint to which offices in their campaigns.