[CHANCERY] Call for Bills for the July 2026 Clark

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

@Sir Lüc if you will forgive the 11th-hour request, please Clark the Caretaker Clarification Act. Under Lexh.H.2.1.5, one CRL member has recommended to accept the bill for Clarking, none have voted to reject, and there have been no amendments suggested.

[Sir Lüc]

@Sir Lüc if you will forgive the 11th-hour request, please Clark the Caretaker Clarification Act. Under Lexh.H.2.1.5, one CRL member has recommended to accept the bill for Clarking, none have voted to reject, and there have been no amendments suggested.

I will grant this request, despite major doubts. I will post a full reasoning later - I worked at it for over two hours, including researching precedents, and I simply must move on now.

But in short - you can argue for either decision, depending on precedent and the extremely vague statutory provisions. I strongly object to the timeline of CRL review, because for a bill that was in the Hopper for a whole month, giving the CRL 1 day and 23 hours to review it is not an attempt at receiving a fair review. But, again, the law is so vague that time isn't a factor at all, and depending on how you look at precedent, one can easily argue that one positive review is enough for Clarking. (A dangerous precedent to set!)

I will therefore accept the bill for Clarking under something akin to Speaker Denison's Rule, ie, that when in doubt, one should allow for debate to continue, which in this instance means letting the bill on the Clark instead of "pocket vetoing" it by having it die in committee.

The law as written means that any instance when operation strays from a clean full approval from a full panel of reviewers is an opportunity for bad precedent and unintended consequences. This is one of those instances.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Just for the record, approval has never been taken in this way before in other votes and contexts, which is really going to serve as the operative precedent here absent anything else. Generally, we do not take a body's vote of approval to mean that at least one person voted in favor and no one has yet voted against it.

I don't have any particular objection to this bill passing (although I had asked a question because I had a concern about the form, and I did have a suggested amendment!) But my main concern is just making sure that this does not actually become a precedent.

[Sir Lüc]

Just for the record, approval has never been taken in this way before in other votes and contexts, which is really going to serve as the operative precedent here absent anything else. Generally, we do not take a body's vote of approval to mean that at least one person voted in favor and no one has yet voted against it.

This would be perfectly applicable if the CRL actually operated as a committee and took votes like a mini-Cosă or mini-Senäts, but it does not. No committee would cast conditional votes, for instance. The 2.1.6 clause, "After the CRL has given its recommendation", is extremely vague either way.

I don't have any particular objection to this bill passing (although I had asked a question because I had a concern about the form, and I did have a suggested amendment!) But my main concern is just making sure that this does not actually become a precedent.

Setting bad precedents in the case of the CRL is also something I was strongly opposed to in previous instances, but my concerns were generally ignored. One of the comments I wanted to make in the fuller writeup I couldn't complete on time is precisely this - the provisions governing the CRL have been inadequate for a long time, and even if the CRL as a whole is not abolished or replaced, they need to be seriously looked at.

So yeah, I don't like the situation one bit and I loathe intentionally setting a bad precedent, but I'm happy to force the Ziu to take a look at the issue so this same precedent can be made irrelevant soon. And thankfully, the result of my decision here is that the Ziu can still consider the bill as it stands, both on the basis of its form and merit - no big harm done.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

This would be perfectly applicable if the CRL actually operated as a committee and took votes like a mini-Cosă or mini-Senäts, but it does not. No committee would cast conditional votes, for instance. The 2.1.6 clause, "After the CRL has given its recommendation", is extremely vague either way.

I agree that it is vague, but it's also pretty hard to read that text and interpret it to mean anything other than a decision by the body. And there are no entities in the country that make decisions in this way.

Setting bad precedents in the case of the CRL is also something I was strongly opposed to in previous instances, but my concerns were generally ignored. One of the comments I wanted to make in the fuller writeup I couldn't complete on time is precisely this - the provisions governing the CRL have been inadequate for a long time, and even if the CRL as a whole is not abolished or replaced, they need to be seriously looked at.

So yeah, I don't like the situation one bit and I loathe intentionally setting a bad precedent, but I'm happy to force the Ziu to take a look at the issue so this same precedent can be made irrelevant soon. And thankfully, the result of my decision here is that the Ziu can still consider the bill as it stands, both on the basis of its form and merit - no big harm done.

I agree that there's no big harm done, but I don't think you should intentionally set a bad precedent to try to force the legislature to make changes. I think you should try your best to interpret the law as it seems to mean, or ask for guidance if you're not sure.

That said, I do think you are acting in good faith and you're just trying to do your best in a bad situation. Really, the problem is the 11th hour attempt here, frankly. It's not realistic to expect people to be able to give a full and fair review of something in such a short amount of time.