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The way I see it, if we're not going to be passing laws often, there's no reason those duties can't be taken up by the Riksråd, or a completely open assembly.

So that's what my second proposal is: an open assembly. But with a twist.

You see, our current judiciary relies on having two Skrifa and one Peer in it, so obviously it would be a hassle to try and change the judiciary so fundamentally, especially as we've almost never been able to agree on anything to do with the judiciary. It would therefore be problematic to get rid of the UH and OH entirely.

So my proposal is this, and credit goes to @Chanku and @Bodobol for giving me two elements of this idea to work with:

Instead of holding elections every two or four months, we have an UH with 6 month terms, and at any time during that term, any Skrifa may get recalled by the citizenry and replaced by another. The UH stands for re-election at the conclusion of that six month term.

But here's the kicker: the UH would serve mostly as an organisational and advisory body to the citizenry, and one of the reasons for keeping them alive would be for the judiciary. The OH would become a source to test the constitutionality of laws that the citizenry in the open assembly put forward, much like the constitutional court in South Africa, while still having veto power to stop awful laws from passing, and represent the monarchy in the process. They would also stay preserved for the judiciary.

So to summarise:

1. The UH lives on (I haven't decided on a potential size for it yet), but as an advisory body, and they only get a complete election every six months. At any time, the citizenry, who become involved with our open assembly, may recall individual Skrifa, and vote on someone to replace any Skrifa who gets recalled or who resigns.

2. The OH simultaneously represent the monarchy and serve as a constitutional court to test the legality of the laws that the citizenry vote on. This duty cannot be given to the Riksråd, because our laws require the existence of the UH and OH for the judiciary when it has to get assembled.

3. We cover the bases of existing laws such as those that cover the judiciary (and citizenship revocations), while having a nice new open assembly for laws to get passed through in the future, as well as neat little safeguards being put in place to make sure terrible laws don't get through, and we can finally move forward.

Discuss/criticise/verbally abuse away.

So yeah, this time I quite like your proposal... though I will make a few comments on it...

Are you sure, in this new system that keeping both the UH and OH is entirely necessary? It seems like the idea of combining the Storting into one body with both elected and selected representative would fit perfectly into this idea, the judges would be 2 elected and 1 selected rep, and the whole body would act as the veto that the OH currently has? It could maybe have the reduced seat amount (3-5) and the 6 month extended term.

I would make this a new proposal, but I would basically copy paste yours and change a few words

Additionally, a slight issue I have with this is the complexity (although that is solved with what I suggested above).

But for the first time this is actually a proposal I wouldn't mind seeing come into effect

Great job Laurentus!

Yeah, I suppose no reason exists for them not to be part of the same body, but I just like keeping shit compartmentalised.

Also, if they were to serve on a single body, the elected would always need to remain at a slightly lower number of seats compared to the appointed, for the vetoing to be handy. That's not really a problem. I just haven't received clarification on this point, as some seemed to be advocating an extra seat for the elected as opposed to the appointed. I'm sure you can see why that might be problematic.

The reason the OH is so handy is that 3 members of the OH can veto an act passed unanimously by the UH, even if the UH exists out of the full seven seats.

Hmm, this is very interesting, I was actually taking it as read that if the citizenry wanted a law passed enough that they had got it through the assembly and all the elected reps agreed that it would pass, no matter what the monarchy or its representatives thought. Hence there would be more elected reps than selected... though it also makes sense the other way... this seems to be quite subjective, huh. Maybe it would be best if it was always 50/50...

Whatever the case I would now particularly like to hear everyone else's opinion on this, I may even start a poll.

It is worth noting that the elected sometimes fuck up badly (myself included). I have yet to see the OH really fuck up.

I've a feeling that's due to the fact that the OH can't do anything until the UH passes something, which has been barely ever.

I personally like the proposal in either your or @HannahB's form. It sounds like a fair compromise while also keeping the necessary provisions in place for all three branches of government.

This seems like an awfully complex proposal...both chambers remain, and you also bring along an open assembly. Do we really need to effectively expand the legislature if we don't think the current one does all that much?

It doesn't actually expand it. It does add an open assembly aspect, true, and changes the existing Storting's job a bit, but it also gives people a way of stopping the petty bickering that has sometimes dominated the UH, and gives people direct power, with the knowledge that they'll use it infrequently. It also still has a method for stopping malevolent laws from passing in a way that doesn't raise concerns over things like Citizenship Revocations.

It's also a proposal that goes in a completely different direction to my previous one, since very few people liked that one.

It also means we change very little with the actual laws we have for things like the judiciary, while reforming the legislature to be less political and still have it in place for those rare occasions that we have to pass laws.

Just to gain more understanding, what about this system is so complex?

Well, other proposals have been about reducing the size of government...yours expands it by adding an open assembly and I'm guessing only using the traditional Storting as a jury pool (plus the OH's constitutional court part of the proposal).

Many people have proposed open assemblies, fewer have drawn up a proposal topic for it.

An inactive legislature isn't really something that bothers me, if the realisation is there that perhaps there isn't much left to do. People who get elected with absolute power to be our legislature, and then spend that time bickering over laws that mostly impact its own procedure, does bother me, though. Someone who might wish to join the legislature and improve the region, inevitably gets caught up bickering over procedure far more often than passing an honest-to-god piece of impactful legislation, and are then completely drained for months after the term ends.

An expanded legislature isn't inherently a bad thing, especially if it removes said bickering, and it is still there for when we need to pass laws. Who knows? Perhaps the very act of making it so open could revive proper discussion on legislative issues that still need addressing that the grizzled, hardened and fatigued Skrifa have completely missed because of being so grizzled, hardened and fatigued, without having to deal with all the political and bureaucratic BS that has traditionally come with it. That would be a good thing.

So to summarise, my mentality hasn't really ever been "destroy the legislature!" It's really been more like "destroy the UH and everything it represents!"

I understand that it's been proposed, but it's usually been proposed as a replacement for the traditional Storting, not as an addition to it. I presume that most of the people most active in the open assembly will be the people that have been interested in serving in the Underhusen, and I presume this assembly will need to have procedures, so I'm not sure it would change things so much as shift it to a more open arena which as I've said before could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how it works out. I'm not saying we shouldn't try an open legislature, I'm just saying I doubt it'll be the cure to all that ails the Underhusen. I'm mostly concerned about keeping an Underhusen whose Skrifa would sit around and wait for a case to serve in, unless I'm missing something.

Would the role of the Underhusen in your plan be only to serve as potential jurors?

Pretty much, or to make sure laws that pass through the open assembly aren't completely horrid if my idea gets altered to fit with Hannah's suggestion (which, allow me to say, I'm definitely open to).

There is also the fact that many people run for UH, not many get in. Those who don't get in are definitely substantial possible voices in an open assembly.

This system isn't perfect, for the concerns you've raised, but the procedure I have in mind for this would be pretty straight forward because the open assembly would not have to deal with elections, and since it doesn't become the citizenry's job (as in you won't lose your citizenship because you don't vote or propose laws), it won't move all that's wrong with the UH over to another platform, because the citizenry can take it far more casually than the UH, and someone who then does use it as an avenue for pointless bickering (or trolling) can simply get restricted from the discussion if the citizenry wills it. This isn't something that can happen with the UH, for obvious reasons. Sure, recall is an option, but recall is only an option for the first month, and it leads to the hassle of first recalling someone, and then hoping someone would be willing to take that person's place. Not to mention, we might not always wish to go to such nuclear extremes.

I suppose if I'm to illustrate what I have in mind, I should write an example of how the procedure would actually look?

Yes, please, not because I'm confused, but to rather accustom myself to a potentially new procedure should this pass. I imagine that bills passed by the Assembly move to the new Storting, correct?

I'd prefer only to do so if there is confusion or uncertainty.

And whatever we decide to do, must first pass through the UH and OH, I think? It then has to get voted on and achieve a super majority in the next election for the UH.

I would appreciate an example, since now we've gone from Skrifa just serving as jurors to still having some role in the laws from the open assembly as well.