Housekeeping Legislation

Felasia

Felasia

TNPer
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Fishalamode:
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.
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I think this would save us a lot of time in the future if there is a legislation for this kind of situation instead of having to do it manually. I will work on some draft for this and will present it to the Assembly later.
 
If we can make this work, it has my support. Streamlining and efficiency =
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I completely agree with this. I don't believe that it is wise that the Regional Assembly has to, at present, go back and vote on house cleaning bills due to clerical error in a previous bill. Naturally, I would expect that the official making the updates to TNP Constitution, Bill of Rights, Laws, or other documents notify the Regional Assembly regarding the need to use the Housecleaning legislation in order to eliminate discrepancies due to clerical error in the bill writing stage, but that shouldn't be a problem.
 
As I mentioned in the other thread, I think the task for housecleaning should go to the Speaker and Chief Justice, and that if they come across something that's more than "housekeeping," that they can bring a bill directly to the RA for a vote.
 
I would just like to let everyone know that I didn't forget about this, but with exams and projects, I'm afraid I will have to postpone for a while.
 
We still have some time before the next general elections (in May) to work this legislation out, and maybe we can get more input from the RA membership in the form of ideas for possible ways to make this work before drafting a bill.
 
A rip-off of something that was written for the same purpose in Equilism long before this....

The Legislative Corrections Act

Article I. General

1. Any typographical or orthographical error noticed in any piece of legislation that is in the drafting process, being voted upon, or has already passed may be corrected without requiring a vote.
a. Errors where two or more different corrections would be plausible and the choice between them would affect the interpretation of the clause are not included.
b. Discrepancies between correct dialects of English may be resolved at the discretion of the Speaker of the Regional Assembly.
c. If the legislation is not in the preliminary process, the approval of the Chief Justice must be obtained before any change may be made. A public statement detailing exactly the nature of the change must then be made by the editor.
d. If the legislation is up for vote and the change in wording occurs less than 3 days before the end of the vote, the Speaker of the Regional Assembly must extend the voting time to a minimum of 3 days to allow points of order to be voiced.

2. Other changes to legislation, including errors of the type specified in 1.a. shall be handled as follows:
a. If the legislation is in the drafting process, it shall be amended as desired by the drafters.
b. If the legislation is being voted upon, it cannot be amended, but may be withdrawn from voting at the discretion of the Speaker of the Regional Assembly. Should the legislation be withdrawn, a new vote must be held on any subsequent draft.
c. If the legislation has already been enacted, the proposed change shall be put before the Assembly for discussion and a vote.

3. Should a member of the Assembly feel that an error has been incorrectly classified as qualifying under Article I, Section 1, a point of order may be raised, and must be resolved by the Chief Justice.
a. If such a point of order is raised about a piece of legislation in the voting process, the voting shall be temporarily suspended until the matter can be resolved.
b. If such a point of order is raised about a piece of legislation that is existing law, the previous language shall remain in effect until the matter can be resolved.
c. Following the resolution of a point of order, voting must be extended for 3 days to allow all voting members to review the bill and change their vote if desired.
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In short, Grammar and Typos can be corrected, but change in position name need a vote.
 
Some of that is probably not needed, as one would hope that in the drafting (preliminary) or even in the formal debate stage, everyone would be a proofreader and help polish the actual texts of bills.

The issue I think we're trying to address are the non-substantive changes required when something is passed; what I have in mind (if I can get the time to write it up) is to allow the Speaker and the Chief Justice to assemble a list of items related to approved legislation that were overlooked and not included; and those that do not create a substantive change from the adopted legislation could be posted, and if there were no objections from the RA membership, those could be edited in without a formal vote.

We've done this on one occasion -- when the forums migrated from Invisionfree to Zetaboards, which created a change in the forums' URL. We do need to come up with an agreed process, though, because we do have changes from time to time that can involve more than one of our governing documents, and sometimes necessary incidental changes are overlooked.
 
It's been two days since the last post in this thread and I feel that everyone who would want to offer their opinion on Felasia's draft has had ample opportunity to do so.

I see no reason why this draft of useful, efficient and necessary legislation should stagnate in the Committee any longer. As such, I move that this draft be transferred to the Main Public Hall and that formal debate begin. It is my hope that a vote on this draft will occur sooner, rather than later.

tl;dr: Motion to move this to formal discussion so we can vote on it soon.
 
As I noted before, I think this draft is far broader than is necessary to address the problem that was actually raised. The issue before wasn't raised as to corrections in draft legislation as the custom in the RA has always been to alert sponsors or drafters of typographic or grammatical issues; and to scan through current laws to pick up cross references that needed to be changed or added. The issue that led to this discussion was that the leguslation that abolished the CLO overlooked some references and a second bill was required to fix them.
Any proposal that goes beyond that is too broad and excessive. This proposal, therefore, needs to be scaled back. Second, even if something is needed for corrections and additions during the drafting phase, that also can be addressed by adopting an RA rule.
I don't think this is quite ready from prime time., and therefore I object to moving it to formal discussion.
 
It's seem to be a different in opinion on this legislation. I'm going to wait to see an alternative from Gross first.
 
Here is my alternative, which I see being enacted as a Regional Assembly Rule, and applied prospectively to any future enactment by the Regional Assembly:
After the date of adoption of this Rule, whenever legislation is enacted by the Regional Assembly, and due to possible oversight, that legislation fails to include a co-ordinated change in the legal documents governing The North Pacific, the following procedure may be used to incorporate any insubstantial change consistent with the enacted legislation:
A. Any member of the Regional Assembly may notify the Speaker and the Chief Justice of the need for making an change in the governing documents of The North Pacific to reflect the enacted legislation, which was not included in such legislation prior to enactment.
B. Within three days after notification of an oversight error, the Speaker and the the Chief Justice shall compile a list of such items related to a specific enactment that are identified as co-ordinated changes that were not included in the text of the enactment.
C. That list shall be posted in the Regional Assembly, and unless a Regional Assembly member makes an objection within 72 hours thereafter as to a specific item, the Speaker and Chief Justice shall authorize the corrections for which no objection is given to be made to the official text of the legal documents governing The North Pacific.
D. Any item on the correction list to which an objection is made shall thereafter be treated as legislation to make such change under normal legislative procedures.
E. As used in this Rule:
1. “Legal documents governing The North Pacific” refers to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Legal Code, or any rules adopted by any entity as provided under the Constitution or Legal Code, including but not limited to the Delegate, the Regional Assembly, the Court of the North Pacific, and the Security Council.
2. A “co-ordinated change” that may be included on the correction list include grammatical errors, typographical errors, cross-references, or omitted changes that should have been included in the enacted legislation.
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Felasia's version is more concise and less confusing. Grosseschnauzer, what makes your version better than Felasia's?
 
My suggestion doesn't include things we do not need to address. We have had a practice in the RA of authors or sponsors accepting amendments to fix errors in draft resolutions; and we don't need to add something broad to the Legal Code or the Constitution that can just as easily be accomplished by adoption of a focused rule within the RA.
 
This work for me as well, I was not comfortable at first with allowing only the judiciary and speaker to make an adjustment to the error, but allowing RA oversight seems like a good compromise.

This will have to wait after the election though.
 
After consideration about this, I think that this will be more appropriate as a part of a legal code then as RA procedure because of it's involvement with the judiciary.

So here is what I propose.

TNP Law 32, Legislation Correction Act

Upon the passage of this law, whenever legislation is enacted by the Regional Assembly, and due to possible oversight, that legislation fails to include a co-ordinated change in the legal documents governing The North Pacific, the following procedure may be used to incorporate any insubstantial change consistent with the enacted legislation:

A. Any member of the Regional Assembly may notify the Speaker and the Chief Justice of the need for making an change in the governing documents of The North Pacific to reflect the enacted legislation, which was not included in such legislation prior to enactment.
B. Within three days after notification of an oversight error, the Speaker and the Chief Justice shall compile a list of such items related to a specific enactment that are identified as co-ordinated changes that were not included in the text of the enactment.
C. That list shall be presented to the Regional Assembly, and unless a Regional Assembly member makes an objection within 72 hours thereafter as to a specific item, the Speaker and Chief Justice shall authorize the corrections for which no objection is given to be made to the official text of the legal documents governing The North Pacific.
D. Any item on the correction list to which an objection is made shall thereafter be treated as legislation to make such change under normal legislative procedures.
E. As used in this Rule:
1. “Legal documents governing The North Pacific” refers to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Legal Code, or any rules adopted by any entity as provided under the Constitution or Legal Code, including but not limited to the Delegate, the Regional Assembly, the Court of the North Pacific, and the Security Council.
2. A “co-ordinated change” that may be included on the correction list include grammatical errors, typographical errors, cross-references, or omitted changes that should have been included in the enacted legislation.
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