Currently the Legislator Act has a provision to deem a legislator ineligible for status if frequently suspended and so ordered by the High Court in a “fair trial”. I don’t believe there is any crime currently codified in the Criminal Code that relates to frequent suspensions from the Assembly, so I would like to hear input on how relevant this provision is and, if we deem it necessary, how to make it more actionable.
My thinking is that the easiest solution is to allow the Chair to determine if an applicant is ineligible due to frequent disruptive behaviour (which may already be the case given how we interpret “good faith” eligibility conditions) and, for legislators who are already in the Assembly and have frequent suspensions, to allow the Assembly to vote on expulsion.
I think this has the potential to turn the Chair into a dictator. Even before a list of approved crimes makes it into future legislation, I am against this change. If there is someone misbehaving, it is a moderation issue, as far as I am concerned, not an issue for the Chair to determine. If the Chair has a grudge against someone for their own personal reasons and it doesn’t really stand up in any court of law, what is to stop the Chair just removing people they don’t like just because there is a disagreement there?
I don’t believe there is any crime currently codified in the Criminal Code that relates to frequent suspensions from the Assembly, so I would like to hear input on how relevant this provision is and, if we deem it necessary, how to make it more actionable.
I’m interested in seeing how this could work out and what grounds would constitute it being used. I’m not necessarily opposed as long as we have concrete guidelines I think.
Just want to briefly reiterate — can’t tell if it’s clear to everyone from current conversation — that the quote in Kris’ first post is the current text of the law, not a new proposal.
I concur that this is an improvement over current law. I think it’s unclear at best how the High Court would hold a ‘trial’ for an unspecified crime.
I understand that you believe you clarified, but from my perspective, what you said came across as snarky rather than as a genuine clarification. I’m not saying you weren’t entitled to explain your position; I’m saying that the way you chose to respond made the conversation unnecessarily hostile. If we’re going to discuss what happened, I’m happy to do that, but I don’t think accusing me of being the problem helps move the conversation forward.
If people are still confused about what you were supposedly clarifying, then I don’t think it was actually clarified particularly well. That’s my point. I’m not trying to fight with you, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that I was simply being snarky when the underlying issue still appears to be unclear to other people as well. People are still referring to this as a proposal. It is my current understanding that this is not a proposal.
I agree with this proposal with one caveat. To avoid the possibility of political bias, the Assembly should be able to overturn the Chair’s determination that an applicant is ineligible on these grounds.
I would like to clarify, not as an argument for or against your point but simply for contextual reasons, that the Chair can already reject legislator applications if they consider the application to be submitted in bad faith. In that sense, no new powers would be given to the Chair as a result of this discussion.
Yeah, I mean, we did have a controversy relatively recently, didn’t we, where someone got back in in bad faith but it wasn’t detected until after Legislator status had been granted, so if there was a confirmation of the High Court some time afterwards, would the time in between be pending and would it be used to run checks on the integrity of the application being made?
I do not think the assembly should be able to vote to expel someone. There is a reason trial by juries are not found in NS, and there is a reason moderation is not performed by majority vote. While this does require the chair to have suspended the person with frequency, I think this still holds true. The Assembly should not be the authority that expels people.
I would much prefer the authority to expel legislators rest with the Chair, the CRS, or the HC, with appropriate checks on that power.
I agree. The Chair should hold the power of expulsion rather than the Assembly. However, as for “appropriate checks”, maybe the Assembly would be able to overturn expulsions if brought to a vote as Welly said.
I absolutely disagree with these. Having the Chair unilaterally expel someone from the Assembly feels way too authoritarian for my taste and the CSS deals with security issues, not disruptive behaviour. Ultimately the Assembly is the body that should be responsible for having the final say on its own membership, as the supreme legislative authority of the region.