Confirmation of Sil Dorsett as Advocate General

Halsoni:

It is therefore my honour to appoint @Sil Dorsett as Advocate General. This appointment is subject to a majority confirmation vote, so I also ping the Speaker (@Foskeburg) to set the legal workings in motion.

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@Sil Dorsett has been appointed as Advocate General by the Delegate. Noting that this nomination is subject to confirmation by the Regional Assembly, I hereby open the floor to debate and discussion on this matter. I invite the Delegate to give a statement in support of the nominee.

Should this reach a vote, I put the following motion before the Regional Assembly:

Motion:

The Regional Assembly, acting upon the nomination of the delegate, confirms Sil Dorsett as the Advocate General.

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My reasoning is in my original statement on the matter. If people are curious if Sil is qualified, feel free to ask him some legal gibberish and I’m sure he can translate it.

@Sil Dorsett Do you believe you'd be able to serve as both Advocate General and Election Commissioner? Do you invision a time when there'd be a conflict of interest?

You could apply the potential for a conflict of interest to any of the government positions I hold. Election Commissioner, Deputy Speaker, Security Councilor. If there was any potential of a conflict of interest, I'd, honestly, rather drop AG.

I'm more curious about what you would perceive as a conflict of interest, given the different nature of the roles. Do you fear that I might protect my fellow ECers, SCers and Speaker's Office members by shutting down a case that is brought forward? I think that in itself would be Gross Misconduct. But I could see how you might see that as a conflict of interest. The expectation would be that there would be a Deputy AG that would handle those situations, but the law doesn't require that a Deputy AG is even appointed. But let's assume I do the correct thing and appoint one. Given how many different places I'm in, I could see a deputy managing quite a bit of the potential workload.

This is a good point, and I think this is something I'll have to talk to the Delegate about. Besides, perhaps managing four positions is a bit much.

Nah, we need to add a few more roles to you given your refusal to be Delegate.

Conflict of interest is the wrong term here I think. When we think of conflicts of interest, we think of judges hearing criminal cases where they are the defendant, or officials regulating things in ways that personally enrich themselves or eliminate competition. I fail to see where there is an inherent conflict in being AG and being on the EC. In the event that a potential prosecution of EC action is required, Sil can designate a deputy to handle it. If he does not, or he fails to prosecute a prosecutable case (I do not see how it is a conflict for him to prosecute something prosecutable concerning the EC, unless the charge is that he is throwing the case I guess), there's always the option to recall him. TNP is a region where we allow people to do many jobs and it's always a possibility that something they do in one job could awkwardly run into another one of those jobs, and when those situations come we will deal with them. The two jobs, if they inherently came into conflict, I might feel differently about this appointment, but they aren't.

But I cannot believe Sil of all people is the kind not to take his different roles and how they interact into serious consideration. This is the guy who is going to take advantage of his position and benefit himself with a conflict of interest? The fact he even wants to spend this much time thinking about and thinks he has to have further conversations with the delegate illustrate enough how honest an actor he is, and why we need not be concerned.

I agree with Pallaith. I am not concerned of conflicts of interest being mismanaged.

I think the question of whether it is too many positions is only one Sil can answer, in terms of his availability etc.

Simone:

Nah, we need to add a few more roles to you given your refusal to be Delegate.

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Perhaps I'll declare candidacy in January (assuming my flip-flop bill fails) or March (assuming my flip-flop bill passes) and see if I win on name recognition alone. (Spoiler alert: I won't win.)

mcmasterdonia:

I agree with Pallaith. I am not concerned of conflicts of interest being mismanaged.

I think the question of whether it is too many positions is only one Sil can answer, in terms of his availability etc.

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I appreciate the vote of confidence that I can manage the potential conflicts. As far as my availability, -- I've given this a lot of thought -- one thing to consider is that not all of my roles are persistently active roles. Election Commissioner only activates when preparing for and while in an election cycle. Security Councilor is a role that becomes HyperActive™ in times of crisis, but it's normal active roles, including but not limited to endotarting and threat analysis, don't take a crippling amount of time to perform. Deputy Speaker... well, If I need to step back from that role to do AG duties, I don't foresee that being an issue, given how well the Speaker's Office is staffed.