Areas of Constitutional concern

Proposed Changes to the Constitution

• Article II, Section 1…
  4) In their request, Nations will be required to post a link to their TNP member Nation and verify that they have taken the following oath:
  
  […]
  
  5) Member nations are encouraged but not required to list the whereabouts of their UN Nation at the time of application.
  
  Remaining subsections renumbered
  
• Article II, Section 3…[bolded section]
  3) No government official shall have the authority to change the designated off-site forum for regional governance without approval of a majority of the members(with a quorum of voters participating) of the Regional Assembly.
  
• Article III, Section 1, Sub C
  […][stike]Any such Nation who is both resident in The North Pacific or are active members of The North Pacific Army or The North Pacific Intelligence Agency, and is also a member of the United Nations may vote in elections for UN Delegate and Vice Delegate.[/strike]
  
• Article III, Section 2
  […]T The Prime Minister and each Cabinet minister shall have a vote on any Cabinet action.
  --Makes the delegate a full voting member of the Cabinet striking, [strike]Except for the UN Delegate of the region, t[/strike]
  
• Article III, Section 2, Sub 1, Part C
  [strike] The Delegate shall be required to post the names of all UN member Nations and their votes the Delegate has received or noted as to each resolution at vote on the floor of the UN. Each such canvass shall be posted on the Regional off-site forum in an appropriate thread, so that the votes of each UN member Nation may be confirmed and verified by the UN member Nations of the Region. [/strike]
  This is just busy work, IMO.
  
• Article IV, Section 3, Sub C
  During the 7 day period following submission[…]within 7 days of submission shall be declared a dead bill.
  21 days is too long in my opinion.
  
• Article IV, Section 7 – STRIKE
  
• Article 5, Section 4, Sub A
  The Court shall adopt [and publish] […]
  PM and Cabinet should not have the ability to revive bills. This authority should rest within the Assembly only.
  
• 
  This next one goes into the: What the heck, is this the NPD? Category
  Article VII, Section 2, Sub 2
  2 – [strike!]Approval by a majority of the Cabinet Ministers. Cabinet Ministers shall have 15 days after the proposed amendment is passed by the Regional Assembly for consideration to endorse approval of the proposal. All actions by Cabinet Ministers in this regard shall be promptly posted with the Regional Assembly.[/strike]!!
  
• Glaring problems within the text that need be addressed:
  1. Speaker’s authority to bring bills to the Assembly floor is way too subjective. I recall the many fights we all had with Poltsamaa regarding the same during the NPD days. How we allowed Article IV, Section 3, Sub B stand for this long is beyond me. The assembly should have the power to bring bills to the floor based upon a number of requisites as in RA members agreeing it should be brought to the floor. Not the speaker.
  Later in this same section is the note: “The Speaker shall not exercise the authority conferred in this provision in an arbitrary or capricious manner.” How can this be enforced? And how can this be prosecuted given it ambiguity?
  2. Trial for Chief Justice – Too much power for the PM and Cabinet
  Article V, Section 7, Sub D
  This trial shall be conducted under the same rules as a criminal trial, except that the Prime Minister shall preside if the Chief Justice is being impeached, and all remaining Cabinet Ministers shall serve as the Jury.
  --What if Cabinet-level officers are material witnesses? Where’s the faith in the RA to serve as Jury members in such a case?
  

Overall Comments
There is too much power given to the Cabinet in our current Constitution. It takes too long to pass a freakin’ bill and the Speaker has too much arbitrary power. We should add subcommittees within the RA that can focus on specific areas of the constitution (i.e. Internal affairs, External affairs, etc.) that would help push legislation through the RA more swiftly. The delegate, as has been noted ad nauseum, is just a figure head and is given busy work to do.

We’ve seen that during the last few weeks while the PM and Delegate engaged in talks we, regular RA members have had no power, incite, influence, or presence at these talks. The Cabinet decided when to hold elections, albeit a bit late. We need to demand more from our government. We must have a responsible government and our current constitution is not well placed to give us that. Don’t get me wrong, we have many good and dedicated Cabinet ministers but in my opinion this Constitution sets itself up for failure and has lasted as long as it has due to its seemingly obtuse nature and, I’m calling you out RA people, the lack of generating real alternatives to the line of thinking contained herein. If we want to change this Constitution we either, start over or hold a convention and discuss areas that need changing. I prefer the former because if you’ve read this far you’ve seen the changes I’m proposing and are probably thinking of many more I didn’t list here. So do we use our time to change a flawed document or start fresh.

My vote – start fresh. If not, then these are my musings on the Constitution with the Legal Code commentary to follow.

Click to expand...

Apollo-Industria:

I do not believe in giving the Delegate any executive power whatsoever. While I believe the majority of your concerns are correct and should be accepted, with a Prime Minister and the Cabinet, the government will work fine.

Click to expand...