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I will be introducing this to the UH in the coming days, preferably before the end of our terms.


The Storting Reformation Amendment Act

1. Article I of the Fundamental Laws shall be amended as follows:

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Article I: The Storting

1. The legislative authorities and duties of Wintreath shall be vested in a unicameral legislature called the Storting.

Membership of the Storting
2. The Storting shall consist of all Citizens of Wintreath.

3. The Storting shall have the authority to suspend a member's voting rights for a period of no more than three months at a time with a 3/4 supermajority vote of those voting. At the conclusion of the three-month period, the Storting may consider an additional suspension.

Storting Officers
2. The Speaker shall serve as Presiding Officer of the Storting.

3. The Storting shall have the right to create, modify, and remove any other Officer positions. The Storting shall have the authority to delegate duties to these Officers, except for those duties which require the full participation of the Storting.

4. All Officer positions shall come up for election on the first day of December, March, June, and September, and elections shall last for a period of seven days, after which the winners shall take their Offices. All Citizens whose voting rights are not suspended as of the end of the election may run for any Officer position.

The Legislative Process
5. All legislation shall be introduced in the Storting, which shall have the right to discuss and amend the legislation before putting it to a vote. Unless specified otherwise in this document, legislation shall pass the Storting by majority vote of those voting.

6. Upon passage by the Storting, the Speaker shall present the legislation to the Monarch for Royal Assent. Legislation signed by the Monarch shall become law immediately, while legislation vetoed by the Monarch shall not become law unless the Storting votes to override the veto with a 2/3 supermajority vote of those voting. In the event that the Monarch neither signs or vetoes the legislation, it shall become law one week after passage by the Storting.

7. Legislation concerning matters subject to alternative approval methods as approved by both the Storting and Monarch (or the previous Overhusen chamber) shall be exempt from Section 6 and instead follow the methods specified in the relevant legislation. Legislation concerning the Procedural Rules of the Storting, the voting rights of members, and Officers of the Storting shall also be exempt from Section 6 and shall be considered law upon passage by the Storting.

Authorities and Duties of the Storting
8. The Storting shall have the authority to pass legislation, repeal previously passed legislation, propose amendments to these Fundamental Laws, and take any other action deemed necessary and proper to execute the authorities and duties vested in the Storting by these Fundamental Laws.

9. The Storting shall have the authority to create and revise their own procedural rules.

10. The Storting shall have the authority to declare war upon another region or organization.

11. The Storting shall have the authority to ratify or reject treaties with other regions and organizations.

12. The Storting shall have the authority to issue non-binding resolutions expressing the opinion of the Storting in relation to all matters.

13. The Storting shall have the authority to interpret these Fundamental Laws and statutory laws and consider the constitutionality over laws brought before the Storting, determine rulings and verdicts in regard to violations of these laws, and determine punishments for violations of these laws within the parameters of these Fundamental Laws and any other laws.

14. The Storting shall have the authority to issue advisory opinions on matters of constitutionality and legality to anyone whom the Storting has determined has standing to seek an advisory opinion.

15. The Storting shall have the authority to create and revise the rules of judicial proceedings for judicial panels.

2. Article III Section 1 of the Fundamental Laws shall be amended as follows:

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1. Upon the filing of cases within the Storting, a judicial panel shall convene to determine whether to accept the case and then to make an initial ruling if the case is accepted. The judicial panel shall be presided over by the Monarch or their designee as Chief Justice, and the Speaker of the Storting and a random Citizen who has voted in the last four votes of the Storting shall serve as Associate Justices. In the event that no Citizen has participated in the last four votes, a random Citizen from those has participated in the most consecutive votes including the last shall be chosen instead.

3. Article IV Section 2 of the Fundamental Laws shall be amended as follows:

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2. Elections shall follow the optional preferential voting system, and the results shall be determined by either via instant runoff in single-seat positions or single transferable vote in multi-seat positions. Elections shall be overseen by the Monarch or the Monarch's designee. No person shall oversee an election in which they are running.

3. Article IV Sections 4-6 of the Fundamental Laws shall be removed, and subsequent sections renumbered accordingly.

4. Article VII shall be amended as follows:

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1. No section under Administration may be amended without the consent of The Winter Nomad.

2.The Storting shall have the authority to propose amendments to these Fundamental Laws by a two-thirds supermajority vote of those voting, after which amendments shall require consent of the Monarch to be considered ratified.

5. Upon ratification, this Amendment shall go into effect on 8 March 2016, with Speaker elections beginning one week prior.

Does anyone have any objections?

Is this Moot's Open Assembly idea?

Also, the code for quoting stuff is:

Code: [Select]

[quote]stuff[/quote]

things

I wanted to address something that was just said in the UH regarding this:

I really think that we should consider putting in a month or so wait period before persons can be members of the Storting. The situation with Red/Sci is exactly what it would prevent.

Wanting a month wait period or post requirement is a valid concern for reasons of activity concern.

However, you could put a year requirement on there, and chances are still likely that you could get another person like him in the Storting.  Time won't turn away people of any type, it'll just turn away those that aren't active on the forums.

The only way this could really be done is by doing background checks, which is somewhat impossible to do with every candidate, not to mention it would be a long and exhausting process, and even then all of the information about them wouldn't be available to us.

I read where the Underhusen debated a waiting period before they realized the amendment wasn't finished, and there didn't seem to be consensus on the idea...nor was there any further discussion about it in my topic even when I invited more discussion about it, so I let it drop.

I would say that Sci is the first instance of those sort of circumstances happening, while we've had a number of people run for Underhusen right after joining and do a great job of it. I'm not sure we would be doing a service to the region by not allowing those people to participate for a month over one event, no matter how major that one event was.

I would appreciate if we could, especially in anything associated with our legislation, refrain from specifically bringing Sci up. I'm not questioning anything that his alleged actions will spawn in the near future, but simply the detail that we make references to him at every turn. That is simply unnecessary and will only keep the matter afloat much longer than it should be.

On another note, since this seems like a good opportunity: I would like to see some amendments to what candidates running for positions need to disclose by default in every election, namely their active/current affiliations with other regions. This is not overly common topic to go over during the elections but could (and should) interest the voters.

Overall I think we could at least discuss the possibilities of more tightly regulating the election process, as we have seen elections with practically no campaigning what so ever, and that doesn't give off very good picture of our government. I'll go ahead and propose that campaign threads are made mandatory to maintain eligibility to get elected, noting that directing more efforts to our elections would score us credibility as a region and promote activity.

We could also streamline the process of filling any sudden empty UH seats by simply making it so that the position is offered to the person who got the next most votes in the most recent election. This would further serve towards increasing the weight of the elections.

Finally I would like to invoke discussion about a concept of minimum votes required in elections, applied either to entire vote count or votes received by an individual candidate. Opening the possibility of dismissing an entire result of an election would give us a chance to appoint a temporary short term UH made up of officials selected by other means, having the cogs turning while the community recoups.

I agree with this.  While the concern was understandable, we need to stop mentioning him.  Everything is done and over with, and again, continued mentioning is not very courteous to the others.

I would appreciate if we could, especially in anything associated with our legislation, refrain from specifically bringing Sci up. I'm not questioning anything that his alleged actions will spawn in the near future, but simply the detail that we make references to him at every turn. That is simply unnecessary and will only keep the matter afloat much longer than it should be.

On another note, since this seems like a good opportunity: I would like to see some amendments to what candidates running for positions need to disclose by default in every election, namely their active/current affiliations with other regions. This is not overly common topic to go over during the elections but could (and should) interest the voters.

Overall I think we could at least discuss the possibilities of more tightly regulating the election process, as we have seen elections with practically no campaigning what so ever, and that doesn't give off very good picture of our government. I'll go ahead and propose that campaign threads are made mandatory to maintain eligibility to get elected, noting that directing more efforts to our elections would score us credibility as a region and promote activity.

We could also streamline the process of filling any sudden empty UH seats by simply making it so that the position is offered to the person who got the next most votes in the most recent election. This would further serve towards increasing the weight of the elections.

Finally I would like to invoke discussion about a concept of minimum votes required in elections, applied either to entire vote count or votes received by an individual candidate. Opening the possibility of dismissing an entire result of an election would give us a chance to appoint a temporary short term UH made up of officials selected by other means, having the cogs turning while the community recoups.

I really like your ideas about elections, but perhaps they should be included in the Procedural Rules or a separate election bylaws instead of the Fundamental Law amendment?

I wanted to address something that was just said in the UH regarding this:

I really think that we should consider putting in a month or so wait period before persons can be members of the Storting. The situation with Red/Sci is exactly what it would prevent.

Wanting a month wait period or post requirement is a valid concern for reasons of activity concern.

However, you could put a year requirement on there, and chances are still likely that you could get another person like him in the Storting.  Time won't turn away people of any type, it'll just turn away those that aren't active on the forums.

The only way this could really be done is by doing background checks, which is somewhat impossible to do with every candidate, not to mention it would be a long and exhausting process, and even then all of the information about them wouldn't be available to us.

I suggested something along these lines that might be something of a compromise:

At the moment the only real thing I'd like to see added is a one week period before new citizens are accepted into the Storting and a three week trial period after that in which a majority decision can revoke their voting rights for another month, whereupon they go through the whole induction process again after that month is over.

The one week grace period allows us to get to know new members and begin to get a feel of their character et cetera, as well as serving to - in some small way, admittedly - test the commitment they have to our region. A one week wait isn't off-putting by any means, and it's an expected level of activity if they're serious about joining and taking part in the legislative aspects of our community.

A trial period is, I think, the best compromise between a month wait for them to join and the concerns raised about inactivity. A three week period where their suggestions are, if not scrutinised per say, but definitely observed with an eye to making sure they're taking it seriously et cetera et cetera If at any time during that time period they prove unworthy of the rights held by Storting citizens, they get the month ban.

I reckon that works better than keeping new citizens from participating fully in the region for an entire month, but I'm happy to hear thoughts from the rest of you on how to improve this idea.

One thing I don't think any of us want to see is an open assembly that becomes an echo chamber.  Giving the Storting the ability to silence a new member with a simple vote is dangerous because it could be used to stifle a minority voice.  What criteria or standards of conduct are there going to be to define when someone is "taking it seriously" enough for the Speaker/majority/status quo? 

One thing I don't think any of us want to see is an open assembly that becomes an echo chamber.  Giving the Storting the ability to silence a new member with a simple vote is dangerous because it could be used to stifle a minority voice.  What criteria or standards of conduct are there going to be to define when someone is "taking it seriously" enough for the Speaker/majority/status quo? 

Hmm...

Is there a general conduct thread for the Underhusen at the moment? If not, I'd imagine the 'taking it seriously' caveat would pretty much be akin to saying 'adhere to the forum code of conduct'. Obviously, the Storting is a chamber for the discussion of legislation, so it's important that in asking people to respect one another's opinions we don't also attempt to prevent any sort of dissent from the majority opinion by accident.

I'm open to suggestions - perhaps add a section to the Act that's something along the lines of "proper conduct", with the first point being follow the forum rules/code of conduct, a second being respect other people's opinions and a third being remember the purpose of the Storting is to debate things, and that by nature debate requires dissent.

If someone steps outside those boundaries, and I don't imagine it'd happen often, there's a guideline for what stands and what doesn't and how to go about suspending their voting power until they learn to keep a level head during discussions.

Now that we're talking about it, I don't think there is any general code of conduct for the Storting.  I would argue it would be more important to have one as we transition to an open assembly.  It would also help un-blur the line between good conduct and having the right opinion.

Now that we're talking about it, I don't think there is any general code of conduct for the Storting.  I would argue it would be more important to have one as we transition to an open assembly.  It would also help un-blur the line between good conduct and having the right opinion.

Yeah, perhaps make the '3 week trial period behavioural standards' less of that and more of a general code of conduct for the entire body? That way, we've got a guideline of how to act/how to go about disciplinary stuff if the need should arise, and we can just use that for the trial period standards without too much trouble.

The only time I personally would like to vote for someone to lose voting and posting rights for awhile is when a person clearly trolls, flames or personally attacks, such as by calling people "idiotic" when I or someone else disagree with them.

I'd be much the same, I think. For the most part, I don't see our community simply voting to remove someone's participation rights because they're disagreeing with what the majority wants, but it makes sense to have a few simple Do's and Don'ts codified into the Storting's establishing Act. General attitude pointers more than anything else, really.