HONORS AND CEREMONIES ACT An act to define customs and ceremonies in the Coalition’s government.
1. General Provisions
(1) This law is a general law.
2. Honors
(1) The standard honorific to be used in the Coalition should be “The Honorable”.
(2) While in the Assembly:
The Chair should be addressed in all posts.
The Prime Minister should be indirectly addressed.
The Delegate should be prefaced with the standard honorific.
Justices should be prefaced with the standard honorific.
(3) Justices should be addressed as “Your Honor” in the High Court.
3. Ceremonies
(1) The Chair of the Assembly should, upon the proclamation of results of the Prime Minister election, invite the Prime Minister-elect to give a speech to the Assembly outlining their plans for the upcoming term and introduce their government for approval by the Assembly.
(2) Upon the proclamation of results of the Delegate election, the Delegate-elect should give an inaugural speech to the region.
(3) Upon the start of their terms:
The Prime Minister-elect should take the oath of office, administered by the Delegate.
The Chair of the Assembly-elect should take the oath of office, administered by the Delegate.
The Delegate-elect should take the oath of office, administered by the outgoing Delegate.
All Justices should take the oath of office administered by the Chair of the Assembly.
(4) The administering of the oath shall take place in a public setting.
(5) Foreign ambassadors should present their letters of credential to the Delegate in a public setting.
4. Oath of Office
(1) The oath of office reads:
“I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”
To give more pomp and circumstance to the process. We shouldn’t force these, which is why they wouldn’t be required, but the hope is that people would eventually buy into and integrate it into the regional culture.
I’m opposed to oaths being required. They add pomp and circumstance, but they don’t do anything and aren’t meaningfully binding. The idea your oath must be administered by someone specific is also its own needlessly complicating factor, even if we wanted people to post publicly taken oaths.
The Delegate is the head of state but they don’t have foreign affairs involvement, so I don’t see why they’d be involved in presenting letters of credential. Plus, most regions don’t actually create or provide letters of credential for their ambassadors to give to us (I mean, we don’t…).
I do like the idea of the Chair inviting a newly elected Prime Minister and a newly elected Delegate to give an inaugural address. I think both of these things both could add some positive ceremonial elements and would actually offer a platform for our government officials to potentially express important ideas for regional growth and improvement.
I will say that oaths are probably the weakest factor in this act, and the one that I would say would happen the least often. A conversation I had about the idea in VC last night was about how exactly one would administer an oath, and where, whether it be public or private, and whether it was a good idea at all. It got included here as a potential means of adding a little ceremony but I don’t think it would get used much, if at all. (A source of agreement was on the cool factor™️ of doing the oath in a voice chat, but that’s a very small subset of people.)
I misremembered, the exact RL comparison is termed a Letter of credence, but they are presented to the head of state of the receiving country in a formal ceremony, usually with the foreign minister present. That’s why it’s the Delegate.
This will probably be the best takeaway, regardless if this act passes or not, simply due to the necessity of the Prime Minister presenting their proposed Cabinet to the Assembly for approval. Outlining the term’s goals and how they plan to execute them is an added bonus. Having the Delegate give their speech is also an option, but not one that I foresaw as being particularly political.
I like the intentions here, but I think these honorifics and ceremonies would carry more weight if they felt more grounded in something tangible. For instance:
I like the ‘inauguration speech’ since it’s also something already in our political culture in a different form, as past Prime Ministers have sought in the past to present a unified Cabinet agenda at the start of their term.
The Delegate appoints the Prime Minister and the Cabinet as Regional Officers. That’s a physical action they have to take with tangible results, but we can also tie it to a ceremonial aspect.
Delegates ought to ‘pass the torch’ to their elected successors anyway, and we should play up that aspect as well. The Delegate is arguably the most visible nation in the region and the most influential voice in ensuring a fast and secure transition to their successor.
I don’t think oaths that don’t do anything are that useful, to be honest. They could be a kind of ‘rite of passage,’ because holding political office should hold meaningful and oaths of office could capitalize on that. But that only really works if the oath of office is actually the point in time when people are ‘sworn in’ and officially take office. Otherwise, if it’s not even required, it just feels like busywork.
Regardless of the exact name, no other region gives their ambassador a Letter of credence in order to present. Similarly, we don’t write them for our ambassadors. It’s just not a thing.
It doesn’t have to be political. The Delegate would have a tough job: give a speech that inspires the region to move forward and strive for more while also avoiding thorny political questions that are inappropriate for the head of state. At the same time, I think the Delegate could do a lot in that space to truly embody the inspirational and ceremonial role of the head of state, or to honor and acknowledge the progress the region has already experienced.
Doesn’t the outgoing Delegate already send out a region-wide telegram to ask WA nations to endorse the incoming Delegate?
I recognize that, but I think it’s a shame we don’t do something like it. It could be a really neat way to showcase our regional culture to our allies and friends, and add a little pizzazz to our political simulation. But, if it doesn’t catch, that’s okay. This act is essentially an “opt-in” for us.
I will add another clause, but I do want this speech to be distributed either on the RMB or through region-wide telegram as well.
I am confused why this is garnering so many votes when the author has insisted on continuing with provisions that they were forced to admit are effectively unenforceable and don’t actually add anything of value beyond a veneer of ceremony.
Sure, there’s some ideas in this proposal that are good, but since the author effectively rejected feedback, the proposal can be voted down and the author forced to strip out some of the narishkeit (i.e. non-existent letters of credence for ambassadors received by an entirely irrelevant official for the administration of foreign affairs, oaths of office that are non-binding and needlessly burdensome) and then a version of the proposal with actually effective or purposeful ceremonies can be included.
I get we want more role play in our government simulation to provide pizazz and activity, but extra hoops to jump through that provide zero actual nutritional value are a waste of time and energy.
CEREMONIES ACT An act to define customs and ceremonies in the Coalition’s government.
1. General Provisions
(1) This law is a general law.
2. Ceremonies
(1) The Chair of the Assembly should, upon the proclamation of results of the Prime Minister election, invite the Prime Minister-elect to give a speech to the Assembly outlining their plans for the upcoming term and introduce their government for approval by the Assembly.
(2) Upon the proclamation of results of the Delegate election, the Delegate-elect should give an inaugural speech to the region.
Surely any newly elected leader would want to do that anyway? This would be a bit like having a law saying “upon appointment as official woodchuck the official woodchuck shall chuck wood”.