Proposed Amendment of Legal Code

To Ammend TNP Law # 1 in the following manner

Section 3: Establishment of external commitments

1 - While in the service and bound by the oath of office, there may arise circumstances in which the real lives of the players will be more important than the game and the North Pacific.  It is the duty and responsibility of players under such circumstances to make the determination if they have the time commitment to carry out the duties of their office

2 - If a player has reached the determination that they cannot fulfill the duties and responsibilities of the office to which they were elected, it should be the immediate priority of the player to resign the post.

Section 34enalties for Violation

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Having seen several of the cabinet officers announce recently that they have had real life commitments hamper their progress and fufillment of their duties I question the lack of a propper step down procedure. I would think that it would be fairly obvious to the individual players when they could not satisfy their duties, but I feel that the enumeration gives a specific reminder of the need to ballance both their own real life and the life that they experience here.

EDIT NOTE: Fixed Spelling

Well, first thing is, that's gotta be hit with a spell checker.

I do feel that this has some very good intentions, but I don't really know why we need to make it into a law. This would probably work better as an activity clause, where if a Minister didn't log into the forums or make some sort of useful contribution to their office within a couple weeks (w/o prior notice), they could be removed. We've already had Ministers resign when they realized life was getting to be too much - Ator did this halfway through his MoCE terms a few months ago, for example. I think adding it into law would simply be redundant.

I agree with Hersfold. I really don't think this would be appropriate as an amendment to TNP Law 1 which deals with an oath of office.
If something were to be adopted, it should deal with the issue of inactivity, not activity, and could defined inactivity without explanation for, say, three weeks, might be a basis for removal from office. Sometimes folks simply are not able to anticipate a problem, or its timing, so one needs to make such a provision if it is ever enacted flexible enough to deal with such situations.

edited to note to Hersfold that maybe its time to update his sig since there are no longer "registered voters."

I'd like to bring in a slightly different point of view.

AH, I admire your intention of adding this in. I'm tempted to concur with Hers and Grosse that these clauses either 1) do not belong as an amendment to TNP 1, and/or 2) do not need to be codified.

HOWEVER, I do favor greater accountability for elected ministers and other positions. In my opinion, it is definitely within the Cabinet's power to poll themselves internally if one of their members does not post/shows no sign of activity for a couple of weeks without prior notice. If they are all in agreement, the Cabinet could informally request a resignation from that member.

After all, each of us takes an oath of office, which contains, amongst other things, promises to use our power responsibly. Disappearing from the forum for 3+ weeks on end without sending a single PM to someone or making a single explanatory post constitutes a failure to use power responsibly.

Grosseschnauzer:

edited to note to Hersfold that maybe its time to update his sig since there are no longer "registered voters."

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Of all people...

*old man with cane walks in* Yesiree! Ever since you liberal hooligans goin' around with yaw hippie routines! Why, I remember when RVs were still around! Why, in my day, they didn't have hippies... or routines! *whacks Hersfold and Gross with cane*

Yes, I would agree with Hers, Grosse, and wizard on this.

Generally the cabinet have always been responsible enough that if they know they will need to take a break or resign, they have been forthcoming in doing so. And in cases when there is an emercengy that can't have been anticipated then it really doesn't matter if the law says they should let us know.

I would agree with wizard on the idea of giving the cabinet responsibility of keeping a check on its members. I seem to remember last term there was an issue with a wayward minister that never really got resolved.