[Dropped] Amend Section 2/6 of the Constitution

Obviously subject to debate on whether this violates Clause 10 of the Bill of Rights, (and thus require an amendment on that or clause 5, or both), as @Lord Dominator mentioned.

To amend the existing text:

6. The Regional Assembly may remove a government official from office by a two-thirds majority vote.

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To the following:

The Regional Assembly may remove a government official from office by a two-thirds majority vote. The aforesaid government official must abstain from such a vote in the Regional Assembly.

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In addition, either a change to BoR clause 10 (change in bold italics):

10. Each Nation entitled to a vote in any manner under the fundamental laws of the region and its territories is entitled to the equal treatment and protection of that Nation's right to vote, subject to the fundamental laws of that region or territory.

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I do not believe clause 5 of BoR needs to change, because it cites (bold mine):

5. All Nations of The North Pacific and its territories have the right to be protected against the abuse of powers by any official of a government authority of the region and its territories. Any Nation of The North Pacific and its territories has the right to request the recall of any official of a government authority of the region and its territories in accordance with the Constitution, that is deemed to have participated in such acts.

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I'm gonna kinda pick on you a little bit since you have a Hearing Officer mask. If this were to be challenged in court and you were hearing the case, what would your initial thoughts be prior to reading briefs? If you were filing a brief in the case instead, would you defend the law or challenge the law, and how would you do whichever choice you made?

Imo this proposal feels unlawful. Everyone should have the right to cast a vote in the RA unless the court has taken away their voting rights. This feels contradictory to the BoR.

Skaraborg:

Imo this proposal feels unlawful. Everyone should have the right to cast a vote in the RA unless the court has taken away their voting rights. This feels contradictory to the BoR.

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Clause 10, as LD said and was mentioned in the OP. Pretty slam dunk from my point of view. If this is something you really want to do, you’re going to need to amend the BoR, and you would want to go for clause 5, which mentions recall. You would need to probably word it so that it’s considered a right of nations to be able to vote for the recall of officials without the official’s vote having an impact on the outcome or something like that. It would be difficult to do, because the language of the BoR isn’t super detailed and this is prime specific law stuff. But if the BoR guaranteed a provision that government officials couldn’t affect the outcome of their own recalls, then you could amend the constitution to forbid it more or less how you drafted it here. But that BoR change will be needed to make that possible.

Having said that, I’m not sure I actually agree with going this far. It’s not quite right to call this a norm since it’s so infrequent a thing to have recall votes, but it’s arguably more crucial than the well-established norm of candidates not voting for themselves. It’s obviously been seen as significant enough to play a major role in the second recall vote, so perhaps that’s enough? I guess everyone has to draw that like for themselves.

Pallaith:

Clause 10, as LD said and was mentioned in the OP. Pretty slam dunk from my point of view. If this is something you really want to do, you’re going to need to amend the BoR, and you would want to go for clause 5, which mentions recall. You would need to probably word it so that it’s considered a right of nations to be able to vote for the recall of officials without the official’s vote having an impact on the outcome or something like that. It would be difficult to do, because the language of the BoR isn’t super detailed and this is prime specific law stuff. But if the BoR guaranteed a provision that government officials couldn’t affect the outcome of their own recalls, then you could amend the constitution to forbid it more or less how you drafted it here. But that BoR change will be needed to make that possible.

Having said that, I’m not sure I actually agree with going this far. It’s not quite right to call this a norm since it’s so infrequent a thing to have recall votes, but it’s arguably more crucial than the well-established norm of candidates not voting for themselves. It’s obviously been seen as significant enough to play a major role in the second recall vote, so perhaps that’s enough? I guess everyone has to draw that like for themselves.

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First of all, Some of TNP’s norms are quite weird, like the neutral principle of the Speaker. Considering that there’s been two major votes so far (recall and Aurora Alliance) it feels weird I, as a citizen, am not expected to vote aye or nay. The norm that you don’t vote for yourself in election is weird too. That’s obviously something you would do irl, but I still respect it.

Recall feels like a more understandable situation where you don’t vote, but I think it’s more a situation of “if you have the moral decency or not to abstain” from your own vote than that it should be enshrined in law. Obviously the consequences of Gorundu’s vote was just a longer process through another vote which I value higher than amending the BoR to prevent a citizen from the RA to vote.

Not really addressing the overall argument because I have no strong opinions either way beyond “some norms are just that and best remain uncodified”, but merely going to say: the neutrality of the presiding officer is a largely Anglophone tradition but is not in any way strange. It’s meant to protect the presiding officer of the assembly from accusations of partisanship and for them to be able to serve the assembly in as visibly neutral a way as possible.

This proposal is unconstitutional, directly violating Clause 10 of the Bill of Rights. You cannot disenfranchise a citizen who has not otherwise been sentenced for their wrongdoing.

Further, I am against codifying this voting behavioral norm.

My view is that clause 5 of BOR does not need to be changed because it already delegates powers over recalls to the Constitution (so the Constitutional change will suffice), Clause 10 does not, so it possibly requires a change. As mentioned on Discord, I anticipate a legal challenge if the BoR is not changed but the Constitution is.

Replies are in the following message due to an error when I replied on my tablet. Apologies.

Sil Dorsett:

I'm gonna kinda pick on you a little bit since you have a Hearing Officer mask. If this were to be challenged in court and you were hearing the case, what would your initial thoughts be prior to reading briefs? If you were filing a brief in the case instead, would you defend the law or challenge the law, and how would you do whichever choice you made?

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I don't have the badge now since I am not sitting as a hearing officer at the moment. My proposal as it stands requires a constitutional amendment (and quite possibly an amendment to the Bill of Rights), so precedent is less important in this case - in terms of US Supreme Court cases, obviously Oregon v US was overriden by the 26th Amendment, Dred Scott by 14th. So my proposal blatantly sets a precedent (in the sense that I am following on from @Fregerson abstaining from his recall.

Skaraborg:

Imo this proposal feels unlawful. Everyone should have the right to cast a vote in the RA unless the court has taken away their voting rights. This feels contradictory to the BoR.

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Yes it is contradictory to clause 10 of BoR I think, hence I am proposing a change to clause 10 of the BoR as well. I don't think it is contradictory to clause 5 because the recall powers are given to the Constitution pursuant to clause 5.

Yes I am proposing a fairly radical solution to the results of the last two recall votes (Gor 1 plus Freg as speaker). I don't know if there's enough popular support for it, but I feel it's worth a discussion.

Hulldom:

Not really addressing the overall argument because I have no strong opinions either way beyond “some norms are just that and best remain uncodified”, but merely going to say: the neutrality of the presiding officer is a largely Anglophone tradition but is not in any way strange. It’s meant to protect the presiding officer of the assembly from accusations of partisanship and for them to be able to serve the assembly in as visibly neutral a way as possible.

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More specifically, the English parliament, since the US House and Senate leaders are partisan. I also presume that Donald Trump voted for himself in Florida and Joe Biden voted for himself in Delaware.

But given that uncodified norms have been broken, I believe it is worth asking if it needs to be codified. My proposal is dramatic and involving changing BoR and the Constitution but I think it serves as a good starting point for discussions.

TlomzKrano:

This proposal is unconstitutional, directly violating Clause 10 of the Bill of Rights. You cannot disenfranchise a citizen who has not otherwise been sentenced for their wrongdoing.

Further, I am against codifying this voting behavioral norm.

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Yes it is explicitly unconstitutional which is why I am proposing a constitutional change to override it plus a BOR change. I don't know if there's 3/4 support to codify this, but it's a discussion that I think is worthwhile given all the rage in Discord and elsewhere.

Skaraborg:

First of all, Some of TNP’s norms are quite weird, like the neutral principle of the Speaker. Considering that there’s been two major votes so far (recall and Aurora Alliance) it feels weird I, as a citizen, am not expected to vote aye or nay. The norm that you don’t vote for yourself in election is weird too. That’s obviously something you would do irl, but I still respect it.

Recall feels like a more understandable situation where you don’t vote, but I think it’s more a situation of “if you have the moral decency or not to abstain” from your own vote than that it should be enshrined in law. Obviously the consequences of Gorundu’s vote was just a longer process through another vote which I value higher than amending the BoR to prevent a citizen from the RA to vote.

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Agreed on this front. Taking what Hulldom said, it's largely an Anglophone tradition, and even though this is an English-speaking forum and server, not everyone here comes from a country with that kind of "Anglo-Saxon" tradition (which is why it might seem strange for others). Even in countries where there is such a tradition, the Presider is usually an ex-officio member of the Chamber (ex. Vice-President of the United States for the US Senate) or someone who has been elevated into that position who had shed all party loyalty and committed not to vote (Speaker of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom). In those jurisdictions, many apply Speaker Denison's rule, the constitutional convention where the Speaker does not cast a vote, and will only cast a vote when there is a tie, and even then, his/her vote would be in favour of further debate or in favour of the status quo. Speaker Denison's rule was established in the British House of Commons only in 1867.

The other main difference between a national legislature and the TNP Regional Assembly is that we aren't elected by somebody else (ie. we don't have a constituency), we represent ourselves (or our nation, if we do it ICly, but that nation only exists in our head).

If people want to enforce this or feel strongly about this, make it a campaign issue instead of enforcing it as a matter of law. Ask the candidates on whether they intend to abstain/recuse or not in votes. Ask that for the people running for Delegate, for Vice-Delegate, for Speaker, for Justice. Personally, I do not care about them voting, because my viewpoint is that they are a citizen in this region and if all citizens are going to have equal rights in this region, that includes the ability to vote and have a say in the region. I also suspect that losing the ability to vote might also turn away potential candidates to those positions.

I am 100% against the way you've changed Clause 10.

10. Each Nation entitled to a vote in any manner under the fundamental laws of the region and its territories is entitled to the equal treatment and protection of that Nation's right to vote, subject to the fundamental laws of that region or territory.

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"Subject to the fundamental laws of that region or territory" essentially means that the governing body could legislate away equal treatment and protection and still call it equal treatment and protection. It makes the entire clause worthless.