FD: Legal Code and Constitution Review; CLO Reference

Felasia

Felasia

TNPer
Proposed by Felasia

Sponsored by Grosseschnauzer and Blackshear

Link to Preliminary Discussions

Amendment of the Consitution, Regional Assembly Procedures, and Legal Code are as shown with (red strikeout indicates deletion; blue boldface indicates addition)

Constitution
Section 3: Miscellany

1. The Legal Code shall consist of Laws passed by the Regional Assembly and carried over by agreement from previous governing documents.
2. The Constitution and Bill of Rights shall share full, constitutional authority with all the rights and privileges that come with that authority. The Legal Code is second only to the previous in legal force. In case of conflict in wording, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights take precedence. Any and all other regulations and guidelines are lower in authority than the Legal Code unless otherwise specified.
3. All Government bodies are allowed to create rules for its own governance.
4. The Speaker of the Assembly, and the Delegate and Vice Delegate shall each be elected to 4-month terms.
5. The members of the Judiciary (including the Chief Justice) shall each be elected to 6-month terms.
6. All elections shall be held on the region's official off-site forum.
7. Candidates for these elected officials must be members of the Assembly for 30 days before nominations begin..
8. Election of the Speaker of the Assembly, CLO, and Judiciary officials shall require a plurality vote of the Assembly,
9. Election of the Delegate and Vice Delegate shall require a majority of the votes cast by the Assembly.
10. If any elected official should fail to check into their account for two weeks without prior notice, the dual consent of either the Speaker, the Delegate, or the Chief Justice will commence the special election of a replacement. This replacement will fulfill the remainder of the term.
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Legal Code

SECTION ONE. General Elections.

1. The election cycle for the 4-month terms of The Delegate, The Vice Delegate, and The Speaker of the Assembly, and CLO members, shall begin on the first day of the months of January, May, and September.
2. The Delegate must select one or more Election Commissioners to oversee the nomination and election processes, at least one week before the month in which the Election Cycle begins. If an appointment of Election Commissioners has not been made by that time, the Chief Justice shall promptly make the appointment within 48 hours.
3. The period for nominations or declarations of candidacy shall last for seven days.
4. Voting shall begin three days after the period for nominations or declarations has closed. Voting shall last for seven days.
5. Non-incumbent candidates for Delegate and Vice Delegate may not obtain an endorsement level during the election cycle greater than the level authorized for members of the Security Council under Law 30.
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Regional Assembly Procedures

Rule 2

Absence of Speaker; Acting Speaker; Speaker Pro Tempore

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).
D. The Speaker (or Acting Speaker) shall take the chair and resume their duties upon their return to the Regional Assembly (or upon posting the oath of office when there has been a vacancy in the Office of Speaker.)
E. After each general, judicial, or special election, (or after the admission or removal of members under Law 28,) the incumbent Speaker shall post an updated list of Regional Assembly members, listed according to their seniority. This list shall determine which member may act as Speaker Pro Tempore when the need arises under this Rule.
F. As used in this Rule:
1. "Absent or unavailable for more than 24 hours" means that the Speaker has not logged onto the forums, or posted in a Regional Assembly thread within the preceding 24 hours; or that some anticipated act by the Speaker within the Regional Assembly is due to be taken, and has not been taken.
2. " Seniority" is determined by the amount of elapsed time since a member's most recent admission to the Regional Assembly without an interruption, but no longer than the amount of time since the adoption of the current Constitution.
3. "Holding an office" refers to the Delegate, the Vice Delegate, the head of a Cabinet office, the Attorney General, and any Court justice, but does not include members of the Council of Legal Oversight or members of the Security Council.
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I'm wondering if we could replace this with a "Reconciliation and Unity" act the would allow for any housekeeping that had escaped notice in the original passage of an act; wherein, if legislation is passed which strikes superseding references or structures, all sub-terms and references to the superseding are also struck. This would eliminate need for individual several pieces of "editing" legislation. Challenges to editing could be reviewed by the judiciary.

Example: The CLO is abolished and therefore all references to the CLO are stricken.
 
It's possible and would save us a lot of time in the future if there is a legislation for this instead of having to do it manually, but to replace this with another legislation for housekeeping now would only waste time.

I would certainly like to encourage RA discussion on this matter.
 
In theory it sounds fine, but in practice some office or other would have to be responsible for identifying the provisions and making the edits.

I would suggest that the Speaker and the Chief Justice be responsible for such a task, and that they would have the authority to submit legislation when a simple edit may prove troublesome. (It does happen in RL, so....)

A good example of this is the bifurication of the emergency powers legislation; Law 31 needed to be cleaned up because of recent amendments to other Laws, and the nature of the clean up for Law 31 required a but more of a rewrite than a housekeeping provision would have likely permitted.

But the current FD draft addresses several recent changes that had not included Law 31 at the time, and the result is that the election provisions have mostly been edited out in favor of the Election Law revisions that were recently adopted.
 
Having an Informal Discussion --> Formal Discussion --> Vote seems like one step too many to me. I guess that's a discussion for another time, another place.

Anyways, not much to discuss here. The changes are obvious and need to be made so I support moving this to a vote.
 
I agree with the Vice Delegate, and I second/third/fourth/twenty-fifth/etc a motion to get this to a vote.
 
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