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It seems I need to do this once again

Anywho I do have a few issues with the proposed bill, the three main ones are:

• It attempts to solve a problem that does not exist
• It throws off the balance of the Storting

[li]It sets De jure procedure for something that should be set through De Facto processes.
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The first one is simple. The problem of amending laws is not a problem. We have De Facto procedure already, and this is not something we need fixed, because it works as it is. I also wish to echo Skrifa Barnes's thoughts on some of the bill,

...I feel I shouldn't be required to name an amendment a certain way even when it's clear the bill represents an amendment...

The second one is also simple, it throws off the balance of the Storting. It gives power to the OH outside of being able to approve or deny laws. This is against the entire reason the Overhusen's power was limited. Further the petition is unnecessary as if someone wants an amendment we can already go ahead and propose it here, a petition adds unnecessary procedure that ultimately may be left behind.

The third one is more personal than anything else, I dislike setting De jure laws for styling when we have done fine with De Facto standards. We have a Demonym for Wintreath Citizens, Wintreans, but nearly no laws actually use it outside of the Demonym Act. They all use Wintreath Citizen or Citizen of Wintreath. We also have the horrid act that is a combination of a Fundamental Laws amendment and a Statutory Law, which sets titles and stylings, but they are rarely used as well. De Jure styling laws are ineffective at creating standards as what are you going to do if the standard is broken? There is no way the styling law can be enforced, aside from vetoing a bill because it fails to follow style, when otherwise it is a good bill. That would be absurd.

There is also another issue I have on this bill, and that is the fact that it uses the Old-Style of law drafting, instead of the new style. I have come to dislike the old style due to the fact that it's somewhat harder to amend. There is no good reason Section 1 should just be Title. Section 1 should be the line declaring the name of the act.

I guess I will use this topic, although I'm not really responding to Chanku.

I don't personally oppose any of the provisions of the Act, though I do agree that some of them are unnecessary. What I do like is the provision that requires the Underhusen to take up proposals once they've received a certain level of support...I'm not sure it has ever been a problem with statutory law, but before we reformed the judicial system the Underhusen routinely ignored court cases that had been filed. I'll also note that in the past there's been some support for requiring that amendments outline the exact changes that are being made compared to the original text.

Aye, there has been, but apparently that finicky 'necessary and proper' clause makes it pointless to add anything that isn't completely and 100% proven-to-be necessary to our laws :p

I will be reintroducing the Amendment Protocol Bill should it fail, as I think having a process for amending legislation that shows what was there before and what it got changed to is an important thing for record-keeping purposes and to show what the issue was in the first place that prompted the amendment proposal. I'm glad you approve of the provision for taking on petitions, and I do understand that there's not been an issue in the past... but if there's been no issue, what's the issue with codifying it? It won't change anything apart from adding it to our laws, and if it was going to happen anyway why not add it to the laws?

From the discussions, I've got a good idea of which parts are viewed as unnecessary, and a lot of that stems from my personal style of drafting laws - I like to be inclusive and cover all the bases so that future amendments to correct loopholes aren't made necessary, but the rest of the UH seems to prefer short, simple and to the point legislation, which is entirely fine as well. I'll just have to adapt.


EDIT: To explain my position regarding the 'necessary and proper' clause, the fact that the UH had to revise its protocols to allow Skifra to challenge each other's interpretations of the law (and disallow that interpretation in the future) to me demonstrates a need to legislate and codify certain de facto processes within the region to avoid cases like that in the future. Leaving things up to individual interpretation can be... difficult at times. Codifying a process sidesteps that issue entirely, even if, yes yes, technically we don't need to because of the 'necessary and proper' clause.

I think you might have better luck passing the two main components as two separate acts. I, for instance, really liked section 5, but I didn't much like the other sections. I would happily have voted aye on the bill if it consisted only of 5.