Chief Justice Election (Further Amendment) Bill

r3naissanc3r

r3naissanc3r

TNPer
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Chief Justice Election (Further Amendment) Bill

1. Chapter 4, Section 4.5, Clause 17 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific is hereby amended to read as follows,

17. In the event that seven days after the conclusion of a Judicial election, including the conclusion of any required run-off votes, a Chief Justice has not been elected, the Justice that received the highest number of votes in said election, and in the event of a tie for highest number of votes the Justice among those tied with the largest amount of elapsed time since that Justice's most recent admission to the Regional Assembly without an interruption, shall become Chief Justice.
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For reference, I highlight below the changes to the Legal Code effected by this bill, using BBcode annotation:
Chapter 4 Section 4.5 Clause 17 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific:
17. In the event that seven days after the conclusion of a Judicial election, including the conclusion of any required run-off votes, a Chief Justice has not been elected, the Justice that received the highest number of votes in said election, and in the event of a tie for highest number of votes the Justice among those tied who has at that point been a Regional Assembly member continuously the longest with the largest amount of elapsed time since that Justice's most recent admission to the Regional Assembly without an interruption, shall become Chief Justice.
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The purpose of this bill is to address a problem in the recently enacted Chief Justice Election (Amendment) Act 2013 that was identified by Chasmanthe here, and which I had pledged to prioritize fixing here. The problem is with the definition of seniority employed in clause 17, which takes into account periods of continuous RA membership prior to the current one.

As suggested by Chas, the new wording is adapted from the seniority definition found in the RA procedures, Rule 2 (bold mine, see below):
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.
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Note that I have dropped the part in bold from the amendment wording, to allow for further resolution of ties (tied Justices all of whom were RA members at the time of the adoption of the current Constitution).
 
I thought the current constitution was an simply amendment to the old one that just happened to re-write the whole thing?

Are you saying the August 2012 Omnibus counts as the adoption of the current constitution date? It has not been used as a cut-off date so I did not think it was.
 
A motion to vote doesn't mean that it must be brought to vote instantly - and that motion has to be seconded anyway.

Another common sense change which improves the way our courts will operate :)

And also, Chas - the answer to that question is that its irelevant to this bill. r3n was quoting another part of the law - the part that determines RA seniority. It was included in his post for reference, as a comparison to his definition of seniority.
 
Abbey Anumia:
A motion to vote doesn't mean that it must be brought to vote instantly - and that motion has to be seconded anyway.

Another common sense change which improves the way our courts will operate :)

And also, Chas - the answer to that question is that its irelevant to this bill. r3n was quoting another part of the law - the part that determines RA seniority. It was included in his post for reference, as a comparison to his definition of seniority.
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Thank you responding (to say it's irrelevant) rather than simply ignoring what I said.

The Chief Justice Bill introduced a new definition of seniority and the point I raised with that one was that it's a different definition to what stands in the law for RA seniority. What I did not anticipate was that there is potentially (as I'm not entirely sure) a difference between how RA seniority is decided in practice and how it is stated in the law. It is in fact relevant because the current amendment is drawing on those definitions and usages, and the aim of this amendment, I thought, was to achieve a satisfactory level of consistency throughout
 
Chas, if you are correct that the "new" constitution is an amendment of the old one (which I believe you are) that makes the date of the adoption of the current constitution December 2, 2007. As no RA members were members of the RA on that date, r3n's definition works out to the exact same as the RA rule in fewer words, unless/until a new constitution is adopted. If such a constitution were adopted, I would want to change the definition of seniority in the RA rules anyway, to get rid of that clause, because it's preposterous to have everyone in the RA tied for seniority.
 
Chasmanthe:
I thought the current constitution was an simply amendment to the old one that just happened to re-write the whole thing?

Are you saying the August 2012 Omnibus counts as the adoption of the current constitution date? It has not been used as a cut-off date so I did not think it was.
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Chasmanthe:
Thank you responding (to say it's irrelevant) rather than simply ignoring what I said.

The Chief Justice Bill introduced a new definition of seniority and the point I raised with that one was that it's a different definition to what stands in the law for RA seniority. What I did not anticipate was that there is potentially (as I'm not entirely sure) a difference between how RA seniority is decided in practice and how it is stated in the law. It is in fact relevant because the current amendment is drawing on those definitions and usages, and the aim of this amendment, I thought, was to achieve a satisfactory level of consistency throughout
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Apologies for the late response Chas. I was not ignoring you, or to be more precise not just you. This has been a busy week in RL, and I had little time for NS.

To address the issues you raised, a few points. Most of them are repetition of things others already said, but as the author of the bill I feel I should respond anyway.

First, the purpose of this bill is not to bring consistency; it is to fix an oversight in the definition of seniority, that would allow for continuous periods of membership that are not the current one to be taken into account when considering seniority. That, by virtue of this chance, consistency is improved is just a by-product of the fact that most reasonable definitions of seniority similarly disregard periods of membership that are not the current one.

Second, regarding the part about RA memberships before the "adoption of the current Constitution". My understanding, based on feedback from older members, is that this was intended to mean the amendment that took place in August 2012. Of course, as you say, given that all that was passed in August 2012 was indeed an amendment, technically we must take the above phrase to refer to the original adoption of the Constitution, back in December 2007.

Third, regardless of which interpretation we take, the presence of that clause is undesirable. If it refers to the date of August 2012, then it makes a handful of RA members tied in terms of seniority, for no apparent reason. If it refers to the date of December 2007, then as COE said it has no effect at all, given that this RA did not exist before the adoption of the Constitution.
 
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