[CRL] The Terpelaziuns Amendment (Order! ORDER!!) Bill

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

WHEREAS Terpelaziuns are necessary and proper for good government and accountability;

AND WHEREAS Terpelaziuns degenerating into long threads of mutual speechifying and political barbs not only does nothing for government accountability, but is unseemly, and is one of the reasons Talossan politics has become toxic, driving down public interest in politics and in Talossa in general;

AND WHEREAS members of the Cosa have queried whether Terpelaziun threads should be open for uninvolved parties to contribute to, and this should be allowed at the discretion of the presiding officers;

AND WHEREAS parliamentary debate in Talossa should be regulated by the presiding officers of the Houses of the Ziu, as in other civilised nations;

BE IT ENACTED that El Lexhatx H.1.2.3, which currently reads:

The questioned Minister, or other applicable official as described above, must answer the Terpelaziun in the same thread as the original question, and the questioner may ask a reasonable number of supplementary questions, as determined by the presiding officer.

shall be amended to:

The questioned Minister, or other applicable official as described above, must answer the Terpelaziun in the same thread as the original question, and the questioner or any other MC may, with the express permission of the presiding officer, ask one or more supplementary questions.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I support this bill. A friendly observation that in the amended section I think you mean officer not offer.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Can we take this to the CRL please

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I support this bill. A friendly observation that in the amended section I think you mean officer not offer.

@Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC Did you mean officer or offer?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

FYI @Baron Alexandreu Davinescu @þerxh Sant-Enogat @PENorwood

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

I would extend to 'or any other MZ may, with the express permission of the presiding officer, ask one or more supplementary questions.', to be in line with the 4th whereas and H 1.2.1.  With this correction, ok for me.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

When it comes to CRL approval, this seems fine to me in form and function, and I vote to approve.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

On a personal note, I will be voting against the Seneschal's effort to restrict parliamentary questioning, since it doesn't make sense.  If a terpelaziun inspires discussion among legislators, that's a good thing.  This discussion can suggest solutions, identify additional problems, offer historical context, and so on.

Forcing MZs to make a separate thread to do these things will discourage them from doing so, and if they do, will make it harder to follow the conversation since it will now be split.  The suggested change will only make Ziu oversight more difficult and more confusing, the opposite of its stated purpose.

As it stands, the rules already require an orderly conversation -- an MZ asks a terpelaziun and no one is allowed to comment until after it's answered and that same MZ responds.  This change makes things worse.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Then I wonder how you would deal with the current problem of "supplementary questions" used, not to elicit information, but to make political speeches and to "bait" the Minister in question. Or the problem where it seems to have become a "tradition" - unsupported by law - that other members can also pile into the conversation to make political speeches and "bait" the Minister.

This measure also means the Presiding Officers have to take an interest in proceedings. We've already had a Tuischac'h harassed into semi-retirement by a "Terpelaziun" thread. I thought we didn't like harassment meant to cow and drive out Talossans, or is it okay if it's not sexual harassment?

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I'm not actually sure it's a problem that politicians are doing politics? Or that legislators might have something to say about a conversation happening in the legislature?

And of course, it is unbelievably shabby to try to compare sexual harassment with the just criticism of a government presiding over a historic slump in immigration.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Well, we've established that it's fine if you harass Talossans into semi-retirement as long as you don't tell them they're cute while doing so. Let me re-emphasise: the current Túischac'h has not been seen on Witt since the Big Bopper piled into him in that thread. Perhaps the Baron is fine with this because the CRL seat is, er, in "good hands". But no, I don't think non-sexual harassment which drives Talossans out of public life is okay. And I don't think it's politics either.

But seriously, a "Free-for-all" in the supplementaries is *not* how Parliamentary Questions work in any other country, and one of the issues in Talossa has always been USAmericans wanting to adopt the forms of a parliamentary system without being sure of how it works. In a civilised country, the Presiding Officer of the House maintains order. For those who think that bullying and (NOT sexual!) harassment is politics, of course a free-for-all where the presiding officer fears to step in is better.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I think you must have linked to the wrong thread. This bill would change terpelaziuns. Your example is a Hopper thread, which would be unaffected.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

The mechanisms of harassment are not different, and the Túischac'h already has jurisdiction over Hopper threads (if they're not bullied into retirement). But a wider point is: if MZs had to ask the Túischac'h for permission to ask supplementaries, they might think twice about bullying them into retirement.

That said, the point that if supplementaries are restricted but Terps are not, you'll just get a forest of Terps is well taken.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Restricting legislators from topical discussion is a fairly extreme thing to do.  You have not provided any examples to justify this restriction.  Accordingly, I will be voting against your proposal.

On the other matter, we did just write a bill to criminalize disruption, so maybe let's just see how that goes. I'm not sure you'll ever be able to eliminate general rudeness.

[M:sr Pôl dal Nordselvă, D.Div, M.Ed]

I am in support of this bill as it stands.