A question was asked which requires the CRS, as a collective, to respond. A discussion where individual members of the CRS give their opinion can be helpful, but that doesn’t fulfill the requirement listed in the Charter where the CRS as an institution gives input on a decision. That doesn’t even require something on letterhead, but it does require an internal discussion, some kind of test of majority/consensus to occur, and then for a decision to be communicated to the relevant other entities in the Charter (in this case, the PM and the Delegate).
You’re right—this isn’t immediately urgent. But it is a part of basic upkeep related to the Delegacy and its secure and lawful transfer. It’s such a basic question that it’s spelled out in the Charter that there should be an answer to it! (Actually, it doesn’t say there should be an answer, it says there will be a Line of Succession…) I expected the answer would be either “we have a line of succession, here’s what it is, does it need an update?” or “good point–let’s discuss that” and then some kind of result a week or two later.
For a non-urgent question, if it took a week or two (or even three) for the CRS to reach a position, I wouldn’t complain, I think that’s pretty reasonable. Five weeks, going on six, is seriously pushing it, especially when it’s not clear any internal discussion is occurring, and (more importantly) that any internal discussion is likely to lead to some kind of collective decision. It raises serious questions about how the CRS does things—not even in terms of activity, but in terms of reaching and communicating with other branches of government and the public, which does matter for institutional effectiveness, decision-making, and credibility.
To clarify from my earlier remark, it was an observation that Penguin and myself were in very frequent commentary about the present discussions and not a note of the general deliberations of the body in any substantial detail.
Regarding @HumanSanity’s comment of a ‘level of inaction and lack of engagement’ on the part of the Council, I respectfully point out that the Council has ‘formally’ deliberated on the assessment of candidates for different postings and this has been communicated in a timely manner in the secure channels. The displeasure relating to a very specific discussion does not and should not cloud the perception of the Council’s movements as a whole.
On this matter, it was not evident to the Council that the Prime Minister desired a formal response from the collective institution until later postings in this thread — and not to divulge the contents of a secure communication space but that intent of a collective formal response was not clear and so members did indeed respond in their individual capacity short of a letterhead.
This is a regrettable miscommunication by all parties. I expect going forward with the appreciation of this intent that this matter will be resolved in a manner appropriate, the specifics of which is being communicated in the relevant secure channels.
The CRS, to my knowledge, has never issued a permanent line of succession. It’s not a benchmark of institutional function. Any memo released is going to be irrelevant, because who gets chosen as the Delegate during counter-coup operations will be context-dependent.
The only way to actually implement an always-ready line of succession is to strictly ensure each individual in it maintains endorsements in a way that the line of succession is respected. Which just isn’t going to happen in reality.
The realistic way to treat a line of succession is not to define it with individuals, but with guidelines. In any coup or invasion situation, the CRS would implement martial law and decide on whoever makes most sense at the time. Somebody that fulfills the goals of being trustworthy and having enough endorsements at the time to feasibly be pushed into the position.
After renewed discussion, the Delegate, Prime Minister, and Council on Regional Security have reached a consensus on the Line of Succession to the Delegacy.
The line of succession is as follows:
The Delegate, Prime Minister, and Council on Regional Security are standing by to answer any questions that may arise.
I can’t speak for my colleagues, but just as I said in #joint-security-room, I will not be violating the secrecy of the committee’s internal deliberations.
What does the CRS consider to be a “lawful succession trigger”? Apologies if this term is already defined in law; I was unable to find it on a quick search.
There is no evasion of accountability. There was a requirement in the Charter that the Delegate, the Prime Minister, and the CSS jointly determine a line of succession to the delegacy, so a discussion to that effect took place in #joint-security-room that resulted in the line of succession that Griffindor posted. Criticisms about "five week delays" miss the mark because no actual "decision" needed to be made by the CSS: we participated at all times in the discussion that was being had, provided our input when necessary, and were there when the joint decision was made, as required by the Charter.
You are free to ask other members if they wish to provide the information you want, and whether they provide it is entirely up to them. I will not because I consider it inappropriate to disclose information about private deliberations.
This is being asked because of the perception that the CSS took unreasonable time in providing its decision on the line of succession, except this is a mistaken view of the situation because no decision was actually needed. We were required to discuss jointly with the Delegate and the Prime Minister and that is precisely what we did. If a whole month passed without a joint decision then that is a clear and unfortunate case of miscommunication, and we can certainly work on that, but if the implication is that we (the CSS) should have decided sooner then I will have to vehemently disagree because there was nothing for us (the CSS) to decide separate from the joint discussion that was already taking place in #joint-security-room.
That’s absolutely not the impression that the Delegate and I had when we had poked the CRS multiple times to ask if they had come to a final, collective decision on the line of succession proposal that we put forth. No member of the CRS that participated in the discussion in #joint-security-room spoke on behalf of the CRS, until yesterday, which is what we were waiting for, and would fulfill the requirement that the CRS, the Delegate, and the Prime Minister decide on a line of succession, not “some members of the CRS speaking for themselves.”
Then that was, as I already said, an unfortunate miscommunication. That being said, it’s misleading to claim that the CSS did not make its views heard when its members actively contributed to the discussion being had in #joint-security-room. Those members were there by virtue of the office they held, not because they were nice to the server mods.
The colour would have been a more pleasant one had the dark mode not made that a more visually challenging issue haha. I think at one point we tried something like salmon but it looked ehhhhh >.>
On the matter at hand, I note that by and large, the CRS has not had the occasion where an individual has to speak for the collective in such settings; that is to say that I have to deliver an overall consensus. All the decisions in the past, including the two recent ones, have taken place by way of official statements where we all vote on a decision and one of us them communicates that statement whether it be by public forum or in secure channels. It was, as Kringle rightly notes, a miscommunication of intent, and one that is duly observed for future proceedings.
Regardless of what miscommunications took place, I remain curious about how many CRS members actually discussed this matter in the past five weeks, who those members were, and when they discussed it.
I know that there were concerns raised about preserving the secrecy of internal discussions, and I understand them to an extent, but… we’re already talking about what miscommunications took place and which channel this was discussed in… not to mention, apparently, how the CRS typically makes decisions. Speaking of which…
Interesting. Was there a conscious decision in this case to wait for a consensus among all CRS members? Because that’s what Griffindor referenced in their official statement (emphasis mine):
I don’t believe it is appropriate for me to divulge the timestamps of members’ feedback as well as what was said.
I can, however, say that the discussion generally centred on whether to list members and which members to list (i.e. what order they were to come in) or whether to state the general ‘at the time of the need, it will be a nation who is closest in terms of endorsements.’ This went back and forth until we reached a final conclusion that it would be more timeless to state the latter. To your specific question, yes, ideally, we would have a consensus amongst members before moving to advance a decision. This timeframe is, importantly, in cases of non-emergencies. We would move instantly in cases of a security matter such as a coup, as I believe history (thankfully very long away history has shown).
If there is anyone here who believes that the CRS is required to answer who did or did not participate in the line of succession discussion and to what extent, you are more than welcome to submit a Legal Question to the High Court.