WHEREAS El Lexhatx E.4 sets a strict mandatory limit on the immigration process where a prospective citizens' application is to be terminated if a citizenship application is not lodged with The Chancery after 40 days of the examination period beginning, and

WHEREAS sometimes a prospective citizen needs a little more time to settle in and become engaged, and

WHEREAS sometimes a little more time is needed for people to get to know each other, and

WHEREAS a recent case has shown that while rejecting an application too late doesn't really matter much, rejecting one too early may cause an issue, and

WHEREAS the law, oddly, doesn't make an explicit provision for terminating an application when the prospective never, ever shows up in the first place, so

THEREFORE be it enacted by the Ziu assembled that El Lexhatx E.4 is rewritten as follows:

An examination period shall begin with the prospective citizen's first posting to Wittenberg after an introduction by the Interior Minister. At any time at least fifteen days after the beginning of the examination period, any current citizen of Talossa may petition the Secretary of State requesting that a Royal Grant of Citizenship be issued to the prospective citizen. If no such petition is laid before the Secretary of State within the first sixty days of the examination period, the examination period shall end, the immigration process for the prospective citizen shall be terminated, and their Wittenberg account shall be disabled. In addition, if a prospective citizen fails to ever make a first posting to Wittenberg within thirty days of their introduction by the Interior Minister then the immigration process for the prospective citizen shall be terminated, and his Wittenberg account shall be disabled. Furthermore, whenever an immigration process is terminated then the Interior Minister shall notify the nation and the prospective citizen of the termination, and shall post a notification to the effect on Wittenberg.

WHEREAS the Free Democrats were elected with a mandate to form the Council of Governors as stated in their manifesto for the 54th Cosa, and
WHEREAS the parties, the Free Democrats, Awakening and Magnifying Passion and the Peculiar Nationalist Party, entered into a governing coalition and as part of that have agreed upon a Programme for Government, and
WHEREAS the Programme for Government includes the mandated Free Democrat policy to form the Council of Governors, so


THEREFORE in accordance with El Lexhatx D.9.1., which states, "The Minister of the Interior shall call the Council into order no later than the first day of the first Clark of each Cosa term",

I, the Right Honourable Éovart Grischun, the Minister of the Interior for H.M. Government, hereby call the Council of Governors (el Cußéglh del Governadéirs) to order, on this the 19th day of December of the year 2019.

FURTHERMORE, I bring to the attention of the executive officers of the provinces the following text as quoted from the same statute as above, which reads: "Each provincial executive shall accept his or her seat in the Council no later than the last day of that Clark".

ADDITIONALLY, I say, the government appears to have zero authority over the actions of the council, however, the government requests of the council, once formed, the following mission and timetable:

a) REQUESTED MISSION FOR CG: As stated in H.M. Government's Programme for Government; to recommend a future for provincial governments, including suggestions for further mergers.

b) REQUESTED TIMETABLE FOR CG:

• Prior to first day of first Clark: Minister of Interior calls council to order
• No later than last day of first Clark: Provincial executives accept their seats on council
• Last day of the month that the first Clark concludes within:  If applicable, Minister of Interior to act in accordance with LEX.D.9.1.1 and LEX.D.9.5
• No later than the last day of the second Clark: The council to meet the obligations of LEX.E.9.2 and LEX.E.9.3
• No later than the first day of the fifth Clark: Forward final recommendations and reports to H.M. Government so that enough time exists for the government to Hopper and Clark any Bills resulting from those recommendations and reports in the final sixth Clark.

EVEN-MORE-SO the government reserves the option to seek a statutory instrument from the Ziu to enforce the sought mission and timetable.


Relevant Statutes:

Quote

El Lexhatx

D. The Government

9. The Ziu authorises the formation of a Council of Governors (el Cußéglh del Governadéirs in Talossan, abbreviated CG) to be comprised of each provincial executive, whether he or she is called "Governor" or not.

9.1. The Minister of the Interior shall call the Council into order no later than the first day of the first Clark of each Cosa term. Each provincial executive shall accept his or her seat in the Council no later than the last day of that Clark. (51RZ9)

9.1.1. If the executive of a province does not accept his or her seat by the specified time, the Minister of the Interior may appoint a resident of that province to the Council, who shall serve until the executive of that province accepts his or her seat. The Minister of the Interior shall not appoint him or herself to the Council in this manner. (51RZ9)

9.2. The Council shall meet and operate under rules of its own design. (51RZ9)

9.3. The Governor-General of Talossa shall be the leader of the Council, chosen by a majority of the Council members (who are the collective governors and provincial leaders of Talossa). In matters provincial, the Governor-General shall serve as a liaison to the Government of Talossa, to serve at the behest of the Council of Governors. (32RZ10) (51RZ9)

9.4. If a member of the Council ceases to be a provincial executive, he or she shall immediately lose his or her seat in the Council. The new executive of the province shall have one month to accept his or her seat in the Council, after which the Minister of the Interior may appoint a resident of that province to the Council, who shall serve until the new provincial executive accepts his or her seat. (51RZ9)

9.5. If a province is without an executive, the Minister of the Interior may appoint a resident of that province to the Council, who shall serve until the province elects an executive and that executive accepts his or her seat. (51RZ9)

Azul,

In regards to the ongoing migration to "New Witt", official Ministry policy at this time is that all existing immigration applications and all new immigration applications shall continue to be processed on the old ProBoards forum.
Prospective citizens will not be asked to create a new account here on the new forums, but shall be asked to do so upon naturalization. That is to say, at this time, only fully naturalized citizens should be migrating.

Immigration shall move to the new forum after the "official switch" has happened. At that time, the Ministry shall transfer any active applications to the new forum and begin processing new applicants here.

A) The backlog of immigration applications have been processed and all applicants contacted. At this time I have dealt with everything that appears to be outstanding. Some of these applications go back a while, so they may be lost causes, but they have been approached all the same.

B) I have recreated the contact form on the Kingdom's website using a new software plugin. The front end of the form looks identical to how it's been for ages. The back end gives us a little bit of magic.

First, the initial contact phase of an application is now automated. Before, when an application was received, some time would pass before somebody got round to checking their emails and then send replies with a canned response. This canned response was simply a welcome message along with instructions to go create a forum account here on Witt. This was just wasted time. Now, this response is automatic. A simple autoresponder sends that email direct to the applicant within a few minutes, meaning the initial application, initial response and welcome from the Kingdom and Wittenberg account creation can all happen in a matter of minutes.

Second (and this is the really cool bit), the details submitted on the application form are now fed into a database. This database is on the admin backend of the Kingdom's website. This means we no longer rely on email to receive new applications, which means nothing ever getting lost in spam ever again. We now have a nice & neat database table displaying applications which is updated as soon as a new applicant hits submit. It also means that if a future immigration official drops the ball on the applications, someone else can access the database and instantly get to the missed applications. No more chasing people down to forward weeks and months worth of lost or forgotten about applications.

Bureau of Immigration,
Ministry of the Interior.