Delegate Recall

Let me just say right off the bat that I do not like doing this. I would rather that this issue never came up, that we had our Delegate on board and working with us. Yet, I am forced to bring a few points of the Constitution to the attention of RA Members.

Firstly, regarding Executive Members in the RA:

Constitution Article 3 Section 1:

3. The Delegate is responsible to ensure the good governance of the Executive Branch of TNP and may appoint and remove at will executive officers from the Assembly to serve at his pleasure. Executive officers must maintain membership in the Assembly.

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Emphasis mine.

As Members know, recently we went through a Roll Call to determine who is active and who is not. After the Roll Call ended, I removed from the RA Members List those who did not sign in, and although he was elected Delegate, I was forced to remove Flemingovia's name from the List. I contacted him several times regarding this, but each time I never received a response. It is my understanding that Flemingovia, as Delegate and head of the Executive Branch, is classified as an Executive officer, and as such is required to be a Member of the RA.

Secondly, regarding Oaths of Office:

TNP Legal Code Law 1 Section 1:

1 - All government officials, including the WA Regional Delegate, all Cabinet members, elected or appointed, shall be required to take the Oath of Office listed in Section 2 of this Act before assuming their elected or appointed role within the government of The North Pacific.

2 - All government officials, as listed in Clause 1 of this Section, shall be required to take the Oath of Office listed in Section 2 of this bill within one week of assuming office. Any government official that fails to do so within the allotted time shall be subject to removal from office following a vote on a motion to recall in accordance with the Constitution of The North Pacific.

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Emphasis mine.

This was never done by Flemingovia. Other individuals who were elected to posts in the last election, such as Blue Wolf and myself, posted our Oaths. I was hoping that Flemingovia would post his Oath on his own accord. However, that never seemed to happen.

Over the past few days, Grosseschnauzer and I have been attempting to officially message Flemingovia regarding this issue. On November 5, I sent the following private message to Flemingovia, and after a few days of non-response, Grosseschnauzer sent a similarly worded message to the Delegate via telegram.

Hi Flemingovia,

I hope things are going well for you. I am messaging you today as there are concerns within the region about activity levels and participation from you. I know you are quite busy in real life, and said in the campaign that we should not expect 24/7 participation (not even I can commit to that, nor would I want to), but there are a few legal issues that need to be addressed, as the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the other assorted documents are still in force.

The first is that I have not received an RA application from you. As you know, after the election campaign I did a roll call in the Assembly in order to see who was active and who was not. Sadly, I did not see a post from you there. So I sent you a message a couple days after the roll call to see if you could quickly re-post your RA application, but I never received a response. As you know, Article III, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution states that "Executive officers must maintain membership in the Assembly".

Secondly, and perhaps a more troubling issue to you, is that I have not seen an Oath of Office from you in the month since you became Delegate. TNP Law 1, Section 1, Clause 2 states that "All government officials, as listed in Clause 1 of this Section, shall be required to take the Oath of Office listed in Section 2 of this bill within one week of assuming office. Any government official that fails to do so within the allotted time shall be subject to removal from office following a vote on a motion to recall in accordance with the Constitution of The North Pacific."

I really do not wish to have to start a recall motion. I would be quite happy if the forum community and the RA could see you when ever you had the chance, and could carry out the governance of the region. That being said, the law is the law.

I do hope to hear from you soon, and I also hope these matters can be addressed promptly. I would imagine simply posting the RA application and the Oath of Office will have you back in legal status again.

Thank you!

Dalimbar,
Speaker of the Regional Assembly of The North Pacific

CC: Grosseschnauzer

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A week has passed, and no response. As such, I am starting a discussion here in the Committee to recall Delegate Flemingovia.

This is most upsetting and disappointing to learn, I understand that the need for active delegate that also understand his duty to the regional assembly and to TNP, but I would still like to see what Flem have to said about this first.

The law regarding the oath of office is our oldest law as well as the first law ever enacted; it was enacted during the era prior to the 2005 Constitutional Convention, and has been continuously in force ever since.
Flem knows of that law, he's posted oaths of office under that law in the past.
While the Constitution and Law 1 provided for a special election to fill a vacancy following recall in the past, the newly amended Law 26 that sets a clear procedure for special elections means that we won't have the confusion that existed during the N.K. Delegacy a few months back.
I hope we see an oath posted, even belatedly, but we need to be prepared to procede if we don't see it.

If the Delegate would like to post in here to make a comment, I certainly will permit that. If he posts his RA Application and his Oath of Office, then we can put this behind us and move on. I am hopeful that the Delegate sees this, and posts a reply. Any reply. Something to let us know what's up. Yet, I'm disappointed at the lack of response to attempts to inform him on this made by myself and Grosseschnauzer in private.

since Blue Wolf II the vice delegate is active can he take over as care taker delegate till next election cycle ? so we can avoid early election

For the benefit of Members, here is the section of the Legal Code regarding "special elections", which was passed by the RA on November 3 of this year.

TNP Law 26:

SECTION THREE, Special Elections

1. A special election shall be held in the event of a vacancy in any elected office or position in accordance with this Law. A special election cycle shall last for no more than fourteen days, which must be completed prior to the beginning of the next election cycle for the vacated office or position.
2. The Delegate, or if the Delegate is not available, the Speaker, or if the Delegate and Speaker are not available, any Court Justice, shall serve as Election Commissioner for the special election.
3. The period for nominations or declarations of candidacy in the special election shall last for five days, beginning within two days after the vacancy occurs or is noticed.
4. Voting shall begin one day after the period for nominations or declarations has closed. Voting shall last for five days.
5. In all instances, a plurality shall determine who is elected to fill a vacancy. In the event of a tie, the Delegate, or if the Delegate is not available, the Speaker, or if the Delegate and Speaker are not available, any Court Justice, shall cast a tie-breaking vote.

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So much for the order of succession.

*sigh* Reminds me how useless my job is when it comes to actual governmental matters.

As there is no precedence for recalling a Delegate for something other than unilaterally ceasing to recognize the Constitutional documents (aka "going rogue"), I'm going to have to be a little bit crafty with the actual recall resolution. I'll present this to the RA to discuss soon when I have a moment away from RL papers. If someone else wants to draft up a resolution, one major detail that should be included is authorizing BW as Vice Delegate and President of the Security Council to overtake Flem in endos and hold the Delegacy until the special election is finished.

This really is dissapointing. The sort of inactivity on the forum and in relation to the community on behalf of the delegate is exactly why I questioned Flem on his potential availability to be active as delegate.

I keep waiting for him to follow through with his campaign statements, and with his intention to reorganize the forum.

While he declared his intention to toss out the Constitution, CLO, Judiciary and Laws, he never followed through. That leaves us with a community government trying to operate without an active regional executive (again), and without a clear path forward.

I was in touch with Flem this past week in regards to an endotarter and provided him with a list of WA nations that he had not yet endorsed. So he isn't completely unavailable.

I've been using the "reports" feature at NS to keep track of Flem's endo activity (and WA voting) and it's been more frequent than weekly, but not daily. He does edit the RMB every week or so, he does post a little bit on the RMB, but responding to TGs doesn't seem to be a priority
I've previously have endo'd virtually WA nation in TNP and all I do now is try to catch the new ones (and I don't have any tools, either.)

That's why I was worried and sent him the endorsement information - 15 others had given out more endorsements than he had, that doesn't make the delegacy terribly secure.

i think the law should be amended so that Vice delegate can take over in such cases till next election cycle

p.s. just saw flemingovia online in the forum the big brother is watching

That wouldn't avoid a special election, it would just shift the special election to the VD position. If we are going to have a special election anyhow, then we might as well deal with where the need is.

Due to the delegates inaction and lack of response to the request for clarification on these issues by the Regional Assembly, I would like to request that this be move to formal discussion.

I'll second that.

Also seconded. Flem has been on the forum several times since 'returning' 5 days ago, and has not addressed these questions.

This is saddening.

I second the motion to move to formal discussion.

I am quite sure I read somewhere that Dali is having trouble with his computer and I firmly believe that this thread should be our first priority due to the severity of the problem it will cause if the delegate continue to ignore the region so I would like to invoke the following clauses of the Regional Assembly Procedures.

A. Whenever the Speaker is absent or unavailable for more than 24 hours (or when there is a vacancy in the office of Speaker), the Regional Assembly member who is available and who (1) is not holding an office and (2) has the longest period of seniority, shall take the chair of the Regional Assembly and preside as Speaker Pro Tempore.
B. In the event the Speaker has designated an Acting Speaker from among the membership of the Regional Assembly, this Rule shall apply with respect to any absence or unavailability of the Acting Speaker that extends beyond 24 hours. The authority of an Acting Speaker shall be stated by the Speaker when the designation is made for a specific absence of the Speaker from the Regional Assembly.
C. The Speaker Pro Tempore (or an Acting Speaker when designated by the Speaker) may perform any act previously noticed by the Speaker within the Regional Assembly, or which is deemed required or necessary for the timely conduct of the business of the Regional Assembly. This authority may extend to the role of chair of the Council of Legal Oversight (but not the Speaker’s vote in the CLO).

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It's my understanding that the designated Acting Speaker is Westwind.

Massively against this.

Flem made it clear as Westwind pointed out he was virtually dispensing with offsite acitivity including the constitution. True he has yet to finish tidying the forum to the extent that was promised.

Maybe you could just consider your form of government under suspension until the next delegate is elected. Flem has never said you can't go on with the constitution when the next term begins.

Leave it be until election time.

(Accepting that if enough peeps here want it - then matters should be taken further - democracy in action etc)

The main concern is not of the forum tidying, but the RA membership and oath of office. It is the duty and responsibility of the RA to ensure that the rules and laws of TNP are followed. I would be satisfy with a simple telegram to Gross or Dali indicating that he is still unavailable, but he had been here and he had seen this thread.

A simple oath repeating and RA application is not a really big thing to ask for.

...and Flem is aware of this, is he not? Why has he failed to address this issue in any fashion whatsoever?

One other point, Flem was elected as Delegate under the constitution, bill of rights and legal code currently in effect. Under the Bill of Rights he does not have authority to change or disregard the constitution or the bill of rights.

Oversight in a busy life*, now rectified. Continue with the recall if you wish, but the oath is now posted.




*despite reminders, yes.

I ask that the Speaker, Deputy Speaker or Speaker Pro Tempore to take notice that Flemingovia has posted his RA Application and his oath of office.

And once his application for the RA has been approved under Law 28, I move that this matter be tabled indefinitely.

I believe the question is now whether if we are required to proceed with the recall vote because of the legal code since it's specifically state that vote on a motion to recall must be conduct if the official fail to post his oath of office within a week.

Flemingovia did break the law, despite valid and reasonable reason to do that. We needs clarification from the court on how to proceed on this matter.

I Said in my election thread that i would not rogue, and so will abide by the decision of the court. If there is a recall vote and it passes, i will step aside in favour of the vice delegate or a replacement delegate should new elections be called.

Grosseschnauzer:

One other point, Flem was elected as Delegate under the constitution, bill of rights and legal code currently in effect. Under the Bill of Rights he does not have authority to change or disregard the constitution or the bill of rights.

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This is all making me suspect that we are caught up in a kind of self-perpetuating catch 22 situation.

As things stand no one person has the power to change anything or amend any rules - unless they are proposed and seconded by members of the RA?

Have I got that right?

It seems difficult to make any changes. Please excuse my ignorance

TNP became a constitutional democracy in 2004.

So, do I needs to make an official request or can we have your opinion on this Gross?

And yeah, I am too lazy to make an official request so please just answer this so I won't needs to draft it up.

Felesia, you are going to have to clarify exactly what you are referring to. Looking at the recent posts in this thread, I'm not sure what you are asking about.


Second, this topic in within the R.A., so we're going to need Dali, Westwind, or Winter Vacationers to take the Speaker's chair and decide on the procedure the RA is going to follow.

The Court can't review an action that hasn't taken place yet. it's a limitation in the constitution in the court's jurisdiction. I might offer my personal opinion (once I know what you are referring to), but it would not be binding when nothing is on the court's docker at the moment.

I was trying to ask whether do we needs to continue with the recall since the law is already broken when Flem failed to post his oath or do we no longer needs to do that because the oath had now been post?

Please note the motion I made in this thread; but the decision at this point has to be made by the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, or the Speaker Pro Tempore.

It's a judgment call in the first instance, and if anyone disagrees with that decision, they can ask the Court to review it.

I would like to formally apologize to the Regional Assembly for my absence over the past few days. I was hoping to contact those who should have taken the Speakers chair in my absence, yet given the technological handicaps and time sensitive projects for university that I had to deal with, contact was not made. I have explained the situation in my latest post in "Note from the Speaker", found in the RA main section.

I am reviewing the comments made in this thread and others regarding this situation and will be making a decision on where to go with this as soon as I am done. Thank you for your patience.

After reviewing various comments about this matter, I would like to provide my own commentary from a personal level prior to providing a ruling from the Speaker's chair.

As most Members remember, I have been involved in several attempts over the years to eliminate the Constitutional framework of this region and in its place provide (in my opinion) different systems of administration. My first attempt was during my own Delegacy after I went "rogue" in July 2007, five months or so after I was already Delegate and after winning two elections by citizens recognized by the official TNP forum. The manner in which I did this was hostile. Indeed, while I wish to not point fingers at anyone, at that time I felt that any attempts of reform I tried to do were met with hostility and condemnation. Thus, in July 2007 I stated, and I refuse to look back on those posts of mine as frankly I feel embarrassed to do so, that I no longer recognized the authority and legitimacy of the constitution and other supporting documents over the Delegate and felt free to institute my own government as I wished. Contrary to the whims of most other "rogue Delegates", I waited several days before instituting my own Delegate-backed government, which in retrospect contributed to the animosity to my position. After roughly a month and a half of essentially me governing myself, as there were only a few people who were interested in assisting my government openly or through espionage on the "constitutionalist camp", I handed the Delegacy to Great Bights Mum and left the region. The Constitution, although changed, survived. This community survived.

Then we come to the next time I was involved in an anti-constitutional regime, that of the Crimson Order, although I was happy to oppose Emperor Matthuis when he went "rogue" around two to three months after I left the region (good ol' personality politics involved there). In my opinion similar concerns to what I had, especially when although I was not the Delegate I was one of the major figures involved. It was the institutional framework which I had problems with. It was the culture of the region that I had issues with. Yet, as most members remember, that attempt only lasted a few months, and again the Constitution survived.

I say this through experience that although one can ignore the constitutional framework as much as one would like when they are Delegate, they must be strong and firm (and have a lot of influence and patience) if they wish to remove the framework through force without consulting the population that is benefited by the framework. If Flem really wants to remove the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the TNP Legal Code, the Courts, the RA, etc, then he must work with us to achieve those goals. It is frankly impossible to remove the Constitution without the consent of the RA otherwise, as my experience has shown. It must be destroyed through the framework it provides, and that is the only way it can be destroyed without it cropping up again like a weed. If one ignores it, then one is deluding oneself and pretending that one killed it. I include myself in this category. You all saw what happened when JAL decided to have his fun. We carried on with the Constitution, and not recognized his delusion. That has happened every time there has been a "rogue Delegate" who has come along to provide his or her utopian vision for the future which, at least for this region but I know many other examples which I could name, has failed to actually eliminate the structure. I know that many Members are willing to achieve reforms for this region so that we can be governed in a better direction, but we as a region need to know that our Delegate is available and working for us.

I thus would like to personally call upon Flemingovia, if he is still wishing to be Delegate, to carry out his campaign promises and work with us to make sure that what you want to do can happen. I am worried that the campaign promises were just an attempt to be a "Nixon in China" without actually having to do the hard work. I encourage him to speak to us in the Regional Assembly as to what he wants to do with this region. I would like to see what he believes he has done, and what he wants to do for the rest of the term provided he is still able to legally carry out the term.

I apologize to the RA for making this post but not making an official ruling, but I feel that I still require more than a few minutes to have, in my opinion, the best ruling possible for this case.

Nicely said Dali.

I am not a fan of inflexible laws and governance structures. They do not serve the well being of a community. While the intentions in forming these laws and structures are good, the unforseen consequences can tie a community in knots and lead to inability to act, and thus lead to inactivity.

I am also not a fan of laws that do not recognize the realities of game mechanics and delegacies. If a community is going to accept an individual as their delegate, they also need to accept the authorities that are naturally granted to that position ingame.

A Delegate that is active ingame and on the community forum is vital to a healthy region, which is why I questioned Flem on that point in his campaign. Since his election, he has been active ingame, and on the NS forums, while failing to respond here. To me, he has done half the job, but not the other half, which is a concern. I'm disappointed, and may have voted differently had I known to expect this inattention to the regional forum community.

Flem may have rejoined the RA and posted his Oath, but he was not a member of the RA when elected. And he failed to post his Oath within the required seven days. So if you want the rule of law, he is in violation and needs to be recalled. His recent posting does not meet the test of the law.

Mind you, I'm not a fan of the 'rule of law', I rather believe the 'spirit of the law' and flexibility to meet the needs of the region and community. From that point of view, a recall isn't necessary, but I look forward to electing a new delegate that will serve both portions of a delegate's role.

However, all of us, as members of the Regional Assembly have taken an Oath that states we "pledge loyalty to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Laws of The North Pacific Region.."

As of the "official ruling", I have not seen a draft resolution that can be presented to a formal discussion and a vote that has been sponsored and seconded on behalf of those who wish to have a recall of the Delegate. If there is a desire to carry on with the recall, then I put it to the Assembly to draft the enabling resolution to permit it. As such, I will allow for further discussion and note that I do recognize Flem as a Member of the Regional Assembly, but will further note that it is up to the RA as a whole to decide if he is fit to be Delegate or not at this point.

How's this look. . .


Resolution to Recall Delegate Flemingovia

The Legal Code of The North Pacific: TNP Law 1, Section 1: Clause 1 states that “All government officials, including the WA Regional Delegate, all Cabinet members, elected or appointed, shall be required to take the Oath of Office listed in Section 2 of this Act before assuming their elected or appointed role within the government of The North Pacific; Clause 2 further states that "All government officials, as listed in Clause 1 of this Section, shall be required to take the Oath of Office listed in Section 2 of this bill within one week of assuming office. Any government official that fails to do so within the allotted time shall be subject to removal from office following a vote on a motion to recall in accordance with the Constitution of The North Pacific."

Delegate Flemingovia posted his Oath of Office November 23, 2010, following his election to office on October 9, 2010. Delegate Flemingovia failed to satisfy the requirements of TNP 1:1:2 and therefore shall be removed from office of Delegate in accordance with the Constitution of The North Pacific.

Blue Wolf II is hereby authorized as Vice Delegate and President of the Security Council to overtake Flemingovia in endorsements and hold the Delegacy until a special election for the office of Delegate is resolved.

Kinky.

I would also like Members to note that the next Delegate and General elections should (unless I am mistaken) be January (as per the usual election schedule, which as of yet has not to my knowledge been amended), so there are practical considerations for Members to consider. I encourage debate on the Resolution Fish posted, but also note that there is a motion without a second for this matter to be withdrawn now that Flem has posted his oaths.

It's TNP. We won't get this through all the required hoops before it's time for the next election campaign. I suggest we table this, learn from it and go into future elections a little wiser.