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Title
1. This act shall be cited as the Grammar Amendment Simplification Act.

Legislation
2. Errors of punctuation, capitalization, and formatting in statutory and procedural legislation may henceforth be amended at the discretion of the Speaker of the Underhusen and Chairperson of the Overhusen subject to the restrictions outlined below.
     2.1 Formatting is defined as precedent-defined layout of legislation, limited to numbering, section titling, and citations of other laws.
     2.2 Correction of these errors may not alter the plain meaning of the legislation.
     2.3 This power does not extend to Constitutional Law, which shall continue to only be amendable pursuant to Section VII of the Fundamental Laws.
     2.4 The Speaker of the Underhusen may only amend statutory and Underhusen procedural legislation.
     2.5 The Chairperson of the Overhusen may only amend statutory and Overhusen procedural legislation.
3. The Speaker or Chairperson must report any proposed changes to both their respective chamber and Monarch and must ensure a minimum of 48 hours passes between making the report and making any such changes.
4. Where either the Monarch or a member of the Storting should dispute the change, the Speaker or Chairperson may either explain their changes or present the amendments as proposed legislation to the appropriate chamber.
     4.1 Should there be no dispute for the minimum 48 hours, or should all disputation be withdrawn, the Speaker or Chairperson may make their amendments.
     4.2 All members of the Storting, as well as the Monarch, reserve the right to contest any changes made at any time within the session during which the legislation was considered, so long as the legislation is not an amendment to the procedural rules of another chamber.
     4.3 Should a dispute still exist after 48 hours the Speaker or Chairman must bring the amendment to a vote.

This is based on an older piece of legislation from the 28th term. I thought it would be nice to reintroduce with corrections based on the concerns raised back then. Feel free to point out any more.

Well, now that I have the up to date version, please point out anything you find wrong with this. I want to get this absolutely correct this time.

Two things, first, I want to be absolutely sure that this is the correct version?

Second, in 4. I just want to clarify. If I am reading this correctly, it says that the Speaker may elect to explain the changes he makes or present an amendment. It somewhat implies that, in matters that are not statutory, the Speaker does not have to present an amendment even if there is significant opposition in the UH. Now, I may be mistaken so I just want to check, is that the intent of this section?

Also, just to be on the safe side I'll go ahead and mention the other Skrifa.

@Chanku
@Elbbsas
@Gabrielle

I'll do another pass later on, but for now:

3. The Speaker or Chairperson must report any proposed changes to both their respective chamber and Monarch, and must ensure a minimum of 48 hours passes between making the report and making any such changes.

Should probably have a comma between "The Speaker or Chairperson must report any proposed changes to both their respective chamber and Monarch" and "and must ensure a minimum of 48 hours passes between making the report and making any such changes." Alternatively, separate the two clauses into two sentences. ("Monarch and must" -> "Monarch. They/The Speaker or Chairperson must ensure there is a").

Also, the sub-points don't have indenting yet.

So, I may not be discussing this in the correct manner, but I am still learning - I see that 48 hours must pass before making any changes. Everyone must be notified and given 48 hours to think about it. If 48 hours is given, I think it should be confirmed that everyone has seen the notification. Perhaps before the 48-hour time limit begins, is it assured that each person has definitely seen the report? When working online, these kinds of things are tricky. Someone might be busy and not online for 24 hours, thus putting them at a disadvantage when trying to make a decision. I hope that makes sense.

So, I may not be discussing this in the correct manner, but I am still learning - I see that 48 hours must pass before making any changes. Everyone must be notified and given 48 hours to think about it. If 48 hours is given, I think it should be confirmed that everyone has seen the notification. Perhaps before the 48-hour time limit begins, is it assured that each person has definitely seen the report? When working online, these kinds of things are tricky. Someone might be busy and not online for 24 hours, thus putting them at a disadvantage when trying to make a decision. I hope that makes sense.

Hmm, that's definitely a good point. I should begin doing that with my legislation. We already do it with votes.

Before we take this act any further, we really need to decide what the formatting for these acts actually is.

In laws that have sub-points, the formatting for them is inconsistent (even within this act itself). In the thread in the Citizen's Platform, for example, sub-points were labelled as "4.2" instead of "4b." Looking across Wintreath Law, the most used style is "1, 1.1, 2, 2.1", though the indenting seems inconsistent.

So, before we pass this, we should decide what style our multi-level lists should have. After all, we should avoid needing this act to modify this act.

@Chanku, you're probably the best person to ask regarding this question, since Wintreath doesn't have a written style guide. Is this the most current style?

The style of Number.Number is the correct formatting for all intents and purposes. The only laws that use letters are as follows:

• Procedural Rules of the [Overhusen/Underhusen] - Written well before any standards, as such they are to be considered Ancient when writing laws and their style shouldn't be copied. Due to their nature, it might be best to leave the styling as it is, as they are so old and are 'procedural rules'.
• All Commendation Acts - I have never written one, and the first one was written before styles had fully 'cemented' for all laws. These laws should be updated and should not have been passed with this styling (especially the more recent ones)
• Definition of Abstention Act - Doesn't follow formatting that an earlier definition act used, so I'm unsure why this styling was used beyond potentially being that the author might have been used to a different style used in a different region. This is an oddity and should be corrected.
• Point Breeze Paragon Act - This is the only Paragon Act to use this formatting, which I don't understand. Perhaps there was a common author with the other acts that just used this styling for whatever reason. Much like the Definition of Absention Act this should be updated.
• Revocation of Citizenship (Govindia) - Due to the nature of this act an alternative style was used (In this instance, style was less important than the act itself). I did not write it, and I don't entirely recall who did. Due to this, it is likely the Author either looked to semi-similiar acts or used a style they were personally more familiar with. In any case this law should be updated.

I would consider the letter form of subsections to be archaic and would ask any new laws going forward to adhere to the styling approach used throughout the rest of our laws

I think I wrote most of those.

I think I wrote most of those.

Fair enough, I generally considered that most of those acts were written by the same person, but I couldn't remember and didn't entirely care as much about who wrote the laws at that point. (Obviously excluding the Procedural Rules)

Two things, first, I want to be absolutely sure that this is the correct version?

Second, in 4. I just want to clarify. If I am reading this correctly, it says that the Speaker may elect to explain the changes he makes or present an amendment. It somewhat implies that, in matters that are not statutory, the Speaker does not have to present an amendment even if there is significant opposition in the UH. Now, I may be mistaken so I just want to check, is that the intent of this section?

Hm, I suppose you'd be right. The initial reasoning behind that wording was due to each house having their own procedural rules, but I suppose this situation can be remedied by saying "...may elect to either explain their changes or present the amendments as proposed legislation to the appropriate chamber."

My proposed changes would be this. Bolded and underlined for changes. Also took out "elect to" in 4.

Spoiler

4. Where either the Monarch or a member of the Storting should dispute the change, the Speaker or Chairperson may either explain their changes or, should the law in question be statutory, present the amendments as proposed legislation to the Underhusen.
     4a. Should there be no dispute for the minimum 48 hours, or should all disputation be withdrawn, the Speaker or Chairperson may make their amendments.
     4b. All members of the Storting, as well as the Monarch, reserve the right to contest any changes made at any time within the session during which the legislation was considered, so long as the legislation is not an amendment to the procedural rules of another chamber.
     4c. Should a dispute still exist after 48 hours the Speaker or Chairman must bring the amendment to a vote.

@Katie @Chanku @Elbsas @Gabrielle This has been up for 5 days, I need a motion to extend debate, bring this to a vote or to table.

Darn, @Elbbsas

Ah, I’m still learning how to do all of this. Perhaps we should vote?