Hey by the way your definition of Cabinet includes staff of the Ministers.
Primarily, to shake things up. I’m aware of the RL connotations of the title, but it was used interchangeably with Prime Minister many years ago, and our Coalition is more than just the region known as the South Pacific. Regardless, the title can remain Prime Minister if that’s the desire of the Great Council.
My particular intent with this amendment is to trim down the law as much as possible, while still fulfilling its original purpose of establishing a government. I have no objections to clarifying additional details in other laws, or adding more to this particular section, but I would rather keep things as slim as possible. To echo Kringle’s earlier post, we have a tendency to not go outside of what the law specifically states. This states nothing for what the government should accomplish, and so it will be on the executive and the Assembly to establish and enforce that culture of governance.
Offices are not a part of the Cabinet, as clarified in the draft at the end of this post, but otherwise, yes. Offices can be created without Assembly approval. My own vision for what we would use offices for include the dispatch system and other related systems from the Ministry of Engagement and World Assembly Legislation.
That is up to the First Minister to decide, and the Assembly to approve. If the First Minister wants to appoint a Minister of Lampshades, with the specified portfolio of promoting lampshade wear and ensuring their proper use, and the Assembly approves it, we now have a Minister of Lampshades. This again ties into building a culture of governance that is not totally reliant on the law.
The Legislative Procedure Act clarifies the “approval by the Assembly” in Section 1, Clauses 2 through 4. We can revise that particular act to add additional clarification, if you want, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary.
I’ll remove the limit on it, since I fell into the trap I mentioned earlier, but the original intent was to avoid having the First Minister appoint a plethora of officials to the Cabinet for extremely minor positions. With Assembly approval, however, the limit doesn’t make sense.
That’s something I would rather not legislate, since as a practical matter I don’t see anyone elected to the position if they are not forthcoming with that information when their opponents will share their proposed roster.
Fixed. See below.
THE EXECUTIVE
- The First Minister is head of government of the Coalition, and chiefly responsible for its operations.
- The First Minister may appoint Ministers to lead specific portfolios, with approval from the Assembly.
- The Cabinet consists of the First Minister and their appointed Ministers, who must be legislators.
That’s your vision, yes. But the system you’ve proposed does nothing to prevent abuse.
Just because the Cabinet is limited to appointed ministers doesn’t mean that access or authority is actually limited. There’s nothing stopping a First Minister from appointing someone who functionally holds all the power and influence of a minister but who holds a different title on paper and thus doesn’t require Assembly approval to appoint.
Is that abuse of power? Does it warrant a recall of the First Minister? If the law allows it, I don’t so — especially if you’re specifically intending to allow the First Minister to create offices without Assembly approval.
A ‘culture of governance’ is all well and good, but that culture is only possible if the tools of governance are there. If the First Minister can create offices that are equivalent to ministers in all but name unilaterally, that culture can’t be built because the Assembly doesn’t have the tools to participate in any such culture. They can voice their discontent, yes, and then… just sit around waiting for the next few months to elect someone different?
I don’t think making these predictions about what kind of culture will develop is always beneficial — for instance, one can argue that the Prime Minister currently has much more de jure power than commonly held conceptions would suggest. I know it’s ironic to suggest that we need to expand our laws because we are reading them too narrowly, but if you are making a specific prediction about how people will respond to an amendment rather than a specific observation about what the text of the law does and does not say, it’s probably best to legislate that prediction.
A healthy, vibrant democracy depends on its citizens feeling that their participation is meaningful and valuable. We’re moving from a system where voters get to voice direct input on each ministry to a system where they might not even know what ministries they’re voting for. That’s not intrinsically a bad thing, but like any other system, it does carry intrinsic costs that we can seek to mitigate.
I think one of the strong suits of our current elected Cabinet system is that it feels very direct. For example, someone who is particularly interested in foreign affairs can vote directly for our region’s lead diplomat. Electing just the head of government, even if appointments require Assembly approval, expand the scope of the election. That certainly has its strengths! But that person who is particularly interested in foreign affairs would likely feel much more engaged with the process and be more likely to participate if they still have the knowledge of who would (likely) be our region’s top diplomat if they voted for a certain candidate.
I don't know how feasible that is. I agree that a candidate should be expected to outline the policies they would favour, but to specifically name prospective appointees might make things too rigid. A candidate may want to outline their vision during the campaign and let potential appointees evaluate it before both sides commit to each other. If the candidate is solid and they present a compelling vision for the region, I'm not sure how much added benefit voters would get from making the candidate go through the hassle of pre-selecting a full slate of ministers before they are even elected.