Compromise on the Compromise Act and Amendment

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

WHEREAS There is no point in being longwinded here because everything that can be said about an elective Monarchy has already been said,

THEREFORE Org II.3 is replaced in its entirety with:

When the King has reigned for at least seven years since the previous Convocation, a Convocation shall be called and chaired by the Senior Judge of the Uppermost Cort, or in their absence the next available Judge in order of seniority. Such a Convocation may also be called by the Ziu at any time following the same procedure as amending this Organic Law (with the most senior available Judge serving as Chair).

The Judge shall call a Convocation by publicly submitting to the Secretary of State a message to all eligible electors announcing the Convocation and providing instructions on how and when to register to participate. Whenever the Convocation is called by the Ziu, the Túischac'h (or other Cosa official if the Túischac'h is unavailable) shall submit this message instead. Upon receiving the message, the Secretary of State shall be responsible for communicating the message to all eligible electors. The Convocation shall commence fourteen days from the moment the Secretary of State sends the message to the electors.

Any Talossan shall who has been a citizen for at least seven years as of when the Judge (or Cosa official) submits the message to the Secretary of State shall be eligible to be an elector in the Convocation, but only those who register with the Judge before the Convocation commences shall be electors.

All discussions of the Convocation shall be open, but its votes shall be by secret ballot. The votes of every elector shall have equal weight. All other operations of the Convocation shall be decided by the Convocation or prescribed by statute.

Should more than 60% of the Convocation express that they desire the King not remain on the throne, then the Convocation shall be called and meet again in six months according to the procedures above. At this meeting of the Convocation, a new King of Talossa (who may be the current King) shall be chosen. The candidate who receives the expressed support of 2/3 of the Convocation shall immediately receive the title of "Heir Presumptive". The Convocation shall also be called to choose a new King whenever there is no King.

The Heir Presumptive shall swear an oath promising to protect and uphold the Organic Law of Talossa and the rights of all its citizens, and thereupon become King of Talossa, replacing the previous King (unless both are the same person).

FURTHERMORE Org II.4 is deleted.

FURTHERMORE Org II.5 is renumbered to Org II.4 and is amended to read:

The King may, at whim, appoint, replace, or remove a Regent (or a Council of Regency, which is considered equivalent to a Regent), who shall administer the government in the name of the King, and exercise all powers Organically or legally vested in the King, except the power to appoint or replace a Regent. No person not a citizen of Talossa shall be competent to serve as Regent or member of a Council of Regency. The Ziu may by law remove or replace any appointed Regent, and if the Ziu removes a Regent appointed by the King, the King may not reappoint the same person Regent without the prior consent of the Ziu. Whenever there is no King, the Uppermost Cort shall serve as the Council of Regency.

FURTHERMORE Org II.6 is renumbered to Org II.5

FURTHERMORE The name of Title L of el Lexhatx is amended to "Laws Supplementing Article II of the Organic Law"

FURTHERMORE Lex.L.10 is replaced with the following:

10. The following provisions apply to Convocations called in accordance with Article II, Section 3 of the Organic Law.

10.1 The Convocation may, as it deems necessary, adopt a rule, procedure, or protocol to conduct operation provided a majority of Electors supports any such rule, procedure, or protocol, or change thereto.  Any rule, procedure, or protocol adopted by a Convocation will not a subsequent Convocation.

10.2 Before any vote for King is cast, the Conclave shall choose an Elector to serve as Herald in a manner it deems appropriate.  Within 96 hours of a vote for King ending, the Herald, the Secretary of State, and the Council of Regency shall, separately and independently of the other, count such votes, and the Herald, the Secretary of State, and the Council of Regency shall, separately and independently of the other, report one result to the Convocation.   After 96 hours, the vote for King is verified based on the vote count of the majority of timely reported results.

Ureu q'estadra sa:
Ian Plätschisch (Sen-MM)

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

The wording could stand to be improved, but this is the gist of what the LCC is supporting.

[Eðo Grischun]

What is the reason behind the six month delay between a failed "VoC" and the second convening?

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

What is the reason behind the six month delay between a failed "VoC" and the second convening?

Essentially to stop the process from going to quickly: if the King happened to become briefly unpopular around the time of the vote, the waiting period would prevent him from being immediately replaced, and makes sure the decision is well-considered

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

What is the reason behind the six month delay between a failed "VoC" and the second convening?

Essentially to stop the process from going to quickly: if the King happened to become briefly unpopular around the time of the vote, the waiting period would prevent him from being immediately replaced, and makes sure the decision is well-considered

Six months is an entire Cosa term. Remember that Talossan politics happens in "dog years". Three months is surely more reasonable.

[Tierçéu Rôibeardescù]

What is the reason behind the six month delay between a failed "VoC" and the second convening?

Essentially to stop the process from going to quickly: if the King happened to become briefly unpopular around the time of the vote, the waiting period would prevent him from being immediately replaced, and makes sure the decision is well-considered

Six months is an entire Cosa term. Remember that Talossan politics happens in "dog years". Three months is surely more reasonable.

I think that also the point, It removes the incentive to remove the king purely for political gain.

[Eðo Grischun]

But nothing in the six months changes.  The VoC fails, then six months pass, then a new King "shall" be chosen.

The waiting period doesn't actually do anything to ensure the decision is well considered.  The decision would have been made and no amount of waiting period changes that. 

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

But nothing in the six months changes.  The VoC fails, then six months pass, then a new King "shall" be chosen.

The waiting period doesn't actually do anything to ensure the decision is well considered.  The decision would have been made and no amount of waiting period changes that.

If there was temporary dislike of the King for whatever reason, then, by the time six months had past, the Convocation would be more inclined to select the current King again.

[Eðo Grischun]

But nothing in the six months changes.  The VoC fails, then six months pass, then a new King "shall" be chosen.

The waiting period doesn't actually do anything to ensure the decision is well considered.  The decision would have been made and no amount of waiting period changes that.

If there was temporary dislike of the King for whatever reason, then, by the time six months had past, the Convocation would be more inclined to select the current King again.

Gotcha now.  Thanks.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Well, I suppose this once more becomes a live issue.

My position is that it must never be more complicated or difficult to get rid of the King through this Convocation procedure than it would to simply delete OrgLaw II.3 through the regular amendment mechanism. That is, a 3/4 majority in the Cosa, 5 Senators, and a simple majority in referendum. Because otherwise, what's the point? The current OrgLaw II.4 will never be invoked because it's harder - requiring a successful case in the CpI and a 2/3 referendum victory.

That is to say, I now support this measure in principle - i.e. as a thing we should do right now - but the thing is that if a King starts acting the goat in the midst of a seven year "term", a sufficiently riled-up legislature will just delete this new OrgLaw II.3 and choose a new King / declare a Republic, making this reform otiose.

I should also point out that this proposal has a similar problem to 55RZ21, in that it instantly puts John W. out of a job, so he's more likely to veto it.

Can I recommend the following amendment:

1) that this amendment replace OrgLaw II.4, rather than OrgLaw II.3;
2) add a provision that 2/3 of the Cosa and 2/3 of the Senäts will be authorised to call one of these convocations at any time, with the same rules (inc. six-month cooling-off period).

[Glüc da Dhi S.H.]

Some suggestions:

* remove MC's, Senators and the Seneschal from the convocation (or even better: explicitly exclude them). The King should ideally be some counterbalance to the short term politics that govern us and represent its long-term culture and history. I'd be nice if the system that produces the monarch was completely separated from the partisan politics which already dominates everything else.
(We shouldn't really want parties with silly names like the King Lüc Party explicitly campaigning on their position in the convocation whenever a convocation is coming up)

* The convocation should probably also be convened whenever we are without a King for other reasons than the convocation removing him.

* Maybe establish some explicit procedure for convening the convocation. I.e. have someone (the SoS?) call all eligible members (maybe an email requirement) and then set some deadline at which point the convocation is fixed (and anyone who hasn't responded to the call at that point is not part of that particular convocation.

* Some formal system for the various voting round when choosing a new King. For example:
Each vote takes two days and is preceded by three days of discussion.
New votes are called until a candidate reaches 2/3rd of the vote
In the first two rounds all votes are free
In the third round members are only allowed to vote for candidates who received votes in the second round (or abstain)
In the fourth round members are only allowed to vote for candidates who received at least 10% of the vote in the third round (or abstain).
In the fifth round members are only allowed to vote for the top 4 candidates from the fourth round (or abstain).
In the sixth round members are only allowed to vote for the top 3 candidates from the fifth round (or abstain).
In the seventh and eight round members are only allowed to vote for the top 2 candidates from the sixth round (or abstain).
In the ninth and tenth round members are only allowed to vote for or against the candidate with the most votes in the eight round.
If after ten rounds the remaining candidate does not get 2/3rd of the vote, the convocation is dissolved and a referendum is held on the remaining candidate during the next election. If the candidate fails a new convocation is called the month following the election.

The above is just an example, but this is supposed to be a major event that solidifies the Monarchy and its legitimacy for another seven years. Some overly formal and pompous rules would be nice (plus there should definitely be some rules to establish what happens if no candidate gets 2/3rd of the vote anyway).

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

IMHO "overly formal and pompous rules" are a curse on Talossa which make it more trouble than it's worth to do anything, and then people complain about falling activity. Most of the legislative activity I'm interested in is eliminating over-complex rules.

If we're going to make things pompous, let's do it ceremonially. Like require all members of the Conclave to wear wigs and knee-breeches.

[Françal I. Lux]

I agree—the more complex and elaborate the procedure, the less like people will participate since it's too much of a hassle for most.

Also, while I'm not opposed in principle to a non-partisan Electoral College be created to elect the monarch, practically speaking, given the limited number of active citizens we have, it's still gonna end up being us who are appointed as electors in the end.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Yeah; a conclave restricted to non-Parliamentarians would be one dominated by inactive citizens whom, by Glüc's own reckoning, mostly have no idea what's going on. The kind of conclave that would become a rubber stamp for a long-term incumbent King. Note that I have no issue with the number of MZs being restricted to stop it becoming a rubber stamp for the legislature, in converse.

The other way to get "the broad masses" involved would be to require a new King to win a referendum; but that has the problem of making the process not only more complicated, but more political in the bad way that no monarchist (and few Republicans) want.

Personally, I think Senator Plätschisch's proposal + my amendments is "good to go".

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

(plus there should definitely be some rules to establish what happens if no candidate gets 2/3rd of the vote anyway).

Then the UC continues as a Council of Regency until the Convocation gets its act together. Like what happens with papal elections. A pity we can't actually lock them up and put them on bread-and-water.