Notes on 61RZ27

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

First things first. I agree that El Lexhatx E.5. gives too much discretion to the Immigration Minister to just "yoink" an immigration application at any time for any reason. I think the next Cosa should look at this topic again.

However, the Union of Free Reformists caucus decided to vote against 61RZ27 for the following reasons.

The established procedure of the Ministry of Immigration - which predates my own tenure of the role, and which was followed by my predecessor, now Senator from Cézembre - has been that an immigration application is not considered to be effective until the applicant has created a Wittenberg account, and obeyed the law in writing their application (eg. in giving evidence of their real identity, or under the new law, writing in English or Talossan). There is no recognition of this in the Clarked bill. As written, this would require Immigration to "process and post" immigration applications which are illegal and/or unserious.

Moreover, Baron Davinescu is very good, in other areas, about not wanting to pass laws which make more work for public officials without getting their input. In this case, however, he seemed to have no problems passing laws to give me, personally, a whole bunch of extra work without asking for my input. This seems to be because the whole motivation of this bill was to punish me, personally - for something he thought I might, potentially, do.

I have made a conscious decision in the current Cosa that no-one particularly wants to watch me butting heads with the Baron, and what's more, I just don't like doing it. So when he "goes off on one", as we say in the Antipodes, I find it easier just to ignore him if I don't have to engage. The argument which led up to this bill - the one where I expressed distaste about a particular citizenship application whose social media included some offensive material - included a lot of the Baron's usual party trick of accusing his political opponents of corruption, tyranny, even criminal behaviour unless he sees evidence otherwise. I'm old enough that at that point I just think, why bother engaging.

The Baron put the Public Process Bill in the Hopper at the height of his dudgeon on behalf of the said applicant (who, as it turned out, never followed through, so the whole thing was pointless). I made one snide comment, then more or less ignored it. I hoped he would calm down about it and it would go by the wayside; so I was disappointed that he took it to the CRL for the Sixth Clark. It was clearly too late by then to make further principled arguments against it. So, I just decided to lobby my party to vote against it.

It is also worth remembering in the last Clark of the 60th Cosa, the Ziu passed an Organic Law amendment over the strong objections of the Baron's party. The Baron mobilised and got that bill defeated by the people in referendum - and good on him for doing so. But he made a big to-do at the time about how the bill's sponsor, cxhn. Autófil, had just ignored the input of the bill's opponents. Well, sauce for the goose.

One reason why I've not been best pleased with the Chancery deciding to allow every party a mailer a week up to the election is that it opens the door for parties to bore potential voters senseless with rants about stuff that's not germane to their experience. But it's good that it's only one a week, because otherwise the Baron would have been blasting out his increasingly shrill communiqués on this issue (as posted on his party's forum) to the whole nation at a rate of one a day. I should tell the Baron that I just don't read stuff like that from him any more; and I doubt that a lot of other Talossans do, either. I'm not going to engage with a firehose of angry rhetoric when I don't have to; increasingly, it's clear that election campaigning on Witt does nothing.

So, this presumably well-intentioned bill went down to defeat because the Baron did not engage with me or my party respectfully in the leadup. As I keep telling the other, much worse, party leader, behaviour has consequences.

Once again: I don't know if I'll be in the next Ziu, but I assume the Union of Free Reformists will be pleased to work with the Progressive Alliance on reforming immigration applications to improve transparency and fairness, without making the job of Immigration Minister any more onerous than it is. The Baron will no doubt reply to this, but if it's a long, paragraph-by-paragraph "fisking", be warned I'm probably not going to read that either.

PS: I wrote this before I understood that the Baron has pledged to investigate and prosecute me after the fact if he gets into office. As mentioned above, I have acted at all times in accordance with what I have understood to be the law and the precedent of my predecessors in this role - and I'm pretty sure these threats of investigation won't apply to the Senator from Cézembre. But you had better believe that I would be renouncing my citizenship so fast my feet wouldn't touch the ground if Alexandreu somehow gets into power without resiling from such Trump-style threats, and he can then pass seven banishments on me in abstentia if he feels like it. Talossa can simply not function without the presumption of good faith, something which the Baron has always lacked with regard to his political opponents. The alternatives are noisy fights which everyone hates; passive resistance; or quitting.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

As written, this would require Immigration to "process and post" immigration applications which are illegal and/or unserious.

This is -- charitably -- a mistake.

The current law states, and The Public Process Act does not change, that "if an application for immigration does not meet the requirements of this section, the Immigration Minister shall communicate this fact to the prospective citizen and explain how to remedy the problems with their application. Should the applicant not do so to the Minister's satisfaction, the Minister may at their discretion not proceed to the next stages of the immigration process."

The law would still allow the minister to return an inadequate application if it doesn't meet the requirements of the application process.  Notably, the minister also is required to report that to the Ziu under current law... since no government official should secretly control the immigration process!

This seems to be because the whole motivation of this bill was to punish me, personally - for something he thought I might, potentially, do.

I learned recently that the incumbent Government believes it has the legal power to secretly reject any immigration application for any reason -- "chuck it in the bin," as I think the Most Honourable Seneschal put it.  I don't like that.  I think it's wrong.  I was surprised that the URL has insisted on defending that.

PS: I wrote this before I understood that the Baron has pledged to investigate and prosecute me after the fact if he gets into office.

There's really not a charitable explanation possible here.  This is not a truthful statement.

The Seneschal feels caught out on a deeply unpopular decision, knows that there will be a reckoning with the voters, and she's looking for an excuse to explain it.  But there's no excuse that holds water, folks.  There's no good explanation for the Government demanding the power to secretly control immigration.

As I say in that very thread, at no point have we ever said that anyone will be prosecuted.  No prosecution is even possible, since we're trying to change the current law that allows this behavior.

The URL just voted with near unanimity to preserve the Government's power to secretly block anyone for applying for citizenship for any reason.  The government should not have that power.  No government should have that power.

The Progressive Alliance will overturn this unjust and absurd law, pledge never to use it until we can, and bring to light any past use of this power.  We hope that voters will give us a chance to do so.