Mr. Chair, I present the following act for consideration. The original Proscriptions Act is a bulky beast, and I have trimmed the vast majority of it out into these four clauses. Same with the Coral Guard (although I was debating other names like the Seawall). I did not include a section on States of Emergency, since I feel that the new Charter does a good job of establishing the relevant legislation already.
Regional Security Act An act to provide for the region’s security
1. General Provisions
(1) This law is a constitutional law and has precedence over all general laws and regulations.
(2) Individuals appointed by the Security Council may be recalled by the Assembly as officials of the Coalition.
(3) Acts of hostility are defined as the following actions taken against the legitimate government of the Coalition or her allies, successful or otherwise:
overthrowing the legitimate government,
unlawfully causing a nation to become Delegate,
unlawfully gaining access to, distributing, or publishing privileged or classified information,
exploiting, manipulating, or unduly influencing elections or votes,
acting as an agent on behalf of a foreign region or organization, to the detriment of the legitimate government,
planning, strategizing, or otherwise showing an intent to commit an act of hostility (also known as conspiracy),
promoting, inducing, aiding or abetting an act of hostility, including a conspiracy to commit such an act (also known as complicity).
2. Proscriptions
(1) A proscription is a prohibition on attaining voter status in the Coalition and maintaining residency in regions under the Coalition’s jurisdiction.
(2) The Prime Minister or the Security Council may proscribe any individual or organization, and must publish a publicly available detailed report outlining the reasons for the proscription.
(3) Proscriptions must be based on the affected party presenting a clear threat to the Coalition’s security, the security of allied regions, or performing acts of hostility against the Coalition or her allies.
(4) Proscriptions may be cancelled at any time by the issuing authority after a public declaration to that effect is made.
(5) Proscriptions may undergo a judicial review, if requested by the affected party.
I think Proscriptions and The Security Council/Coral Guard provisions, while being similar on security related matters, do not belong in the same act. I’d rather see them separated.
I’m not sold on this, but — do we need the Coral Guard provisions at all? The new Charter already tasks the Security Council with “establishing, appointing, and directing the operations of a body of trusted nations with high numbers of endorsements,” so I’m not sure if these provisions add that much substance beyond that.
Proscriptions and the Security Council (more specifically the Coral Guard) don’t overlap. So it doesn’t make sense to have them in the same act. It’s kinda like the legislation creating the NSA and state department policies on persona non grata being in the same law.
I agree with this, and have dropped the provisions altogether in favor of one clause stating that actions taken by the Security Council (such as the establishment of a body of trusted nations with high endorsement counts) can be overruled by the Assembly.
They do overlap in the broader context of regional security, which is my primary purpose for including them here in a single act. I did drop the Coral Guard provisions from the act, as well.
I wonder if it might be worth adding further detail to that provision. There are any actions that the Security Council, for example internal processes, could take that shouldn’t necessarily be able to be overturned by the Assembly.
I feel like it’s worth noting the current Proscription Act is clunky for a reason, we can’t just strip out all of its “clunk” without discussing the fact that there’s reasons why that “clunk” was included in the first place.
For starters, the Proscription Act contains judicial review provisions which can be utilized by current members of the Coalition if they are proscribed. As it is right now, your draft of the Proscription Act gives the Cabinet and the Security Council a route to extrajudicially ban people on fairly vague grounds (“hostile acts against the Coalition and her allies”). I am concerned that, as it is right now, if I went on the GP forum and criticized an ally (i.e. “I mean, Ally A is being absurd here”), that could be interpreted as a “hostile act” against an ally and would give a Cabinet with whom I’d had political quarrels grounds to extrajudicially remove me from the region and give me no recourse to that. I’d honestly be okay with expanding and/or loosening the definition of “hostile acts” as it is in the current Proscription Act, but I do think it needs to be defined in some way.
Your language for what a proscription is is also overly broad. I’m OK with a proscription being a total prohibition on obtaining citizenship/legislator status, residency, and being on TSP off-site property (and I think the current two-tired regional vs full proscription system is silly), but including “interacting with the Coalition and its government” is too broad and could prevent the PM/MoFA from conducting foreign affairs with individuals who are (rightfully) proscribed from TSP for past acts that make them untrustworthy as a citizen of the Coalition but who have positions of leadership in other regions we want to work with (or even are just citizens of allied regions who we interact with culturally). Examples of issues this creates in real terms are the citizens of The Rejected Realms that are members of The Black Hawks, who this would prohibit the government from interacting with in cultural contexts, or the time in which we conducted FA and military cooperation with Tim who was First Warden of TGW while also being proscribed for his role in the 2019 coup of TEP.
I’m confused why the Cabinet is considered an agent able to issue proscriptions per 2(2) when the new Charter moves to a Prime Minister-as-head of government model rather than the Cabinet collectively as one.
Also, I echo Kris’ concern that giving the Assembly a blank check to override SC decisions is a vague, difficult to enforce, loaded gun provision.
I think we can cut that out of this act and place it in a potential Judicial Act. I will include a clause to that end, but I’m not well enough informed on the procedure to write up said provisions here.
I’m toying with this one right now, because I do think the current definition is excessively verbose. I’m not too sure on how best to shorten it, so I’ve just re-factored the existing definitions into a single block. I welcome alternative text to that end.
(1) Acts of hostility are defined as the following actions taken against the legitimate government of the Coalition or her allies, successful or otherwise:
overthrowing the legitimate government,
unlawfully causing a nation to become Delegate,
unlawfully gaining access to, distributing, or publishing privileged or classified information,
exploiting, manipulating, or unduly influencing elections or votes,
acting as an agent on behalf of a foreign region or organization, to the detriment of the legitimate government,
planning, strategizing, or otherwise showing an intent to commit an act of hostility (also known as conspiracy),
promoting, inducing, aiding or abetting an act of hostility, including a conspiracy to commit such an act (also known as complicity),
A fair point, and I will adjust the definition accordingly to fit.
This one comes from my personal desire to have the Cabinet be involved in any proscription discussions the Prime Minister wants to bring up, as opposed to the Prime Minister being able to unilaterally issue a proscription. I am still considering adding in a clause to allow for some measure of appeal, whether it’s to the Assembly or the issuing authority, but I’m not at present convinced of the need.
My original intent was to give the Assembly some measure of a check on the Security Council’s management of the Coral Guard or its replacement, but without explicitly defining the latter’s role or organization in legislation when security concerns might warrant a larger shift. I think having the Assembly potentially check items like adding members to the Coral Guard, or changing the endorsement cap is a good idea, but I would also like to see (separate from this act) some more accountability or transparency in the CRS/SC’s operations.
I’d be oppossed to granting the Cabinet proscription powers under the current post-GC arrangements, as it’s just the elected PM and X number of their cronies. Under the existing system it’s a majority of five independently elected officials but it would now really just be the PM.
That’s just silly though because all authority stems from the Prime Minister. That said…
I disagree rather strongly with this. The elected Executive is the most accountable entity in the entire government and also the most active and responsive. This is exactly the kind of decision where we benefit from bold direct actions by the Prime Minister and then equally from the ability of the Assembly (or voting public) to hold the Prime Minister accountable for actions the PM cannot effectively justify. If a proscription is baseless, it can either be overturned by judicial review or in response to public pressure/backlash, but the ability for the Executive to respond to acts of hostility and threats is, for me, non-negotiable.
