Discretionary Powers Act (October 2020)

[Domais]

Discretionary Powers Act (October 2020)

Proposed by: @Domais​

Section 1. Constitutional Status

(1) This act will bear Constitutional Status and will be subject to the voting thresholds thereof.

Section 2. Application

(1) The powers enumerated herein will not apply to any law holding Constitutional Status nor the Mandate of Lazarus.

Section 3. Discretionary Powers

(1) The Speaker may rectify any formatting inconsistencies of passed legislation, including:

a. Legislation which is not in compliance with any of the rules for the formatting thereof,
b. Numbering inconsistencies within any legislation,
c. Inconsistencies with BBcode of any legislation,
d. Any other change that may be reasonably deemed to be categorized as an issue with the formatting of any legislation.

(2) The Speaker may rectify any minor grammatical and spelling inconsistencies of passed legislation.

(3) The Speaker may substitute any terms that may be reasonably deemed outdated in terms of the Laws of Lazarus with an updated term.

Section 4. Promulgation and the right of Veto

(1) The Speaker must publicly promulgate any use of powers enumerated herein within 24 hours thereof.

(2) If any Citizen tables a motion to Overturn the decision of the Speaker and another Citizen seconds the relevant motion, then the relevant use of the powers enumerated herein will be rendered unenforceable pending a vote in the Assembly;

a. The relevant vote can be held after a minimum discussion period of 3 days, but will be held after a period of 7 days,
b. The vote will last for 5 days and if the nays outnumber the yeas then the relevant use of the powers enumerated herein will be repealed.

Section 5. Delegation of powers

(1) The Speaker may not delegate the use of the powers enumerated herein to their deputies or any other person.

Section 6. Definitions

(1) "Outdated term" - Any word or phrase that has been rendered obsolete by new legislation.

 

[Deleted1]

a. The relevant vote will be held after a discussion period of 5-7 days,

a. The relevant vote can be held after a minimum discussion period of 3 days, but will be held after a period of 7 days,

What if it said something like this?

 

[McChimp]

Allowing the Speaker to edit people's laws before they come to vote is extremely iffy.

Against.

 

[Deleted1]

(1) The Speaker may rectify any formatting inconsistencies of passed legislation, including:

These are passed laws, though.

 

[McChimp]

The Speaker has no more authority over laws that have already passed than any other citizen. If this were to be anybody's duty it should be the Court's.

That said, as I've said before I'm against legislation that brings more bureaucracy to this process. It would be nice if everybody's grammar was up to scratch but this is the internet so I think we just have to live with the reality that that's not going to happen. I'm completely against this.

 

[Domais]

The Speaker has no more authority over laws that have already passed than any other citizen. If this were to be anybody's duty it should be the Court's.

That said, as I've said before I'm against legislation that brings more bureaucracy to this process. It would be nice if everybody's grammar was up to scratch but this is the internet so I think we just have to live with the reality that that's not going to happen. I'm completely against this.

Why should we need to go through the courts to remove an extra [align] tag or an error in numbering? The Speaker should able to fix these slight issues. And, if the region doesn't like them they can overturn it.

 

[Deleted1]

Why not have the justices be the ones that approve typo/spelling changes that the Speaker brings to their attention? If citizens still have an issue with any changes, their remedy to start a vote stays. The court is involved, citizens have a remedy for issues, and the Speaker can fix mistakes under the watch of the people who interpret the law.

 

[McChimp]

If law's errors are that egregious then the Assembly as a whole should vote against passing it in the first place. I don't see why we should entrust this to any more limited group of people when there is no guarantee that they will know better than anyone else.

Already you have tried to adjust legal text I and others have written for no good reason whatsoever-I see you included replacing "outdated" terms, by the way. I find it extremely aggravating to think that in the future our citizens' laws will be "fixed" by somebody who may well write worse English than them and that they will then have to fight to overturn such meddling. Your efforts to impose overreaching and misguided standards on the written word-like your recent efforts to remove the perfectly good word "shall" from our lexicon-are entirely unwelcome so far as I am concerned.

 

[Domais]

If law's errors are that egregious then the Assembly as a whole should vote against passing it in the first place. I don't see why we should entrust this to any more limited group of people when there is no guarantee that they will know better than anyone else.

Already you have tried to adjust legal text I and others have written for no good reason whatsoever-I see you included replacing "outdated" terms, by the way. I find it extremely aggravating to think that in the future our citizens' laws will be "fixed" by somebody who may well write worse English than them and that they will then have to fight to overturn such meddling. Your efforts to impose overreaching and misguided standards on the written word-like your recent efforts to remove the perfectly good word "shall" from our lexicon-are entirely unwelcome so far as I am concerned.

 

[Domais]

I added a definition section and a section that makes it so the Speaker cannot delegate the powers. Also, I made Deb's change to the discussion period.

 

[Domais]

I motion to vote.

 

[Frankender]

I second the motion with my support of this legislation.

 

[Frankender]

If law's errors are that egregious then the Assembly as a whole should vote against passing it in the first place.

I don't see why we should entrust this to any more limited group of people when there is no guarantee that they will know better than anyone else.

This is similar to any ministry. If you are worried about the Speaker's abuse of power, either don't approve the nomination, or file a bill of recall.

Already you have tried to adjust legal text I and others have written for no good reason whatsoever-I see you included replacing "outdated" terms, by the way. I find it extremely aggravating to think that in the future our citizens' laws will be "fixed" by somebody who may well write worse English than them and that they will then have to fight to overturn such meddling. Your efforts to impose overreaching and misguided standards on the written word-like your recent efforts to remove the perfectly good word "shall" from our lexicon-are entirely unwelcome so far as I am concerned.

"Already you have tried to adjust legal text I and others have written for no good reason . . ."

 

[Mzeusia]

I support.

 

[Domais]

No we need 3 quarters vote. So with our current tally we need 9 aye votes, we only have like 6.

 

[McChimp]

Not all activity is good activity. I don't see any future where the main business of this place is arguing about the grammar and vocabulary of active laws as a good one. We've had one thread of it already and I for one hated it.


You've clearly missed my point. What I am saying is that these problems ought to be resolved before the legislation passes, not after. As you say, this proposal does not do that. Therefore in my opinion this procedure is the wrong approach. The intention may be to allow the Speaker to clean up the law library but it also potentially gives the Speaker the power to mess up either by replacing something grammatically correct with something incorrect or by changing the meaning of the law.

This is similar to any ministry. If you are worried about the Speaker's abuse of power, either don't approve the nomination, or file a bill of recall.

No ministry of government deigns to change the Assembly's laws by any means other than legislation. I have no intention whatsoever of supporting a bill that means I'll have to try and block anyone with English less than equal to my own from office or worse recall them. It's bad enough finding justices, we shouldn't expand that problem to the office of Speaker too.

"Already you have tried to adjust legal text I and others have written for no good reason . . ."

I don't have a personal grudge against Domais but I do resent his recent efforts to adjust other people's English, especially since the adjustments he proposed weren't justified and numerous laws he has proposed in the past have passed with grammatical errors that he chose not to correct. I think that given his activity here there is a reasonable chance that Domais will be Speaker one day and I will not support a future in which he-or anybody else-will have the authority to make such changes unilaterally.

 

[Domais]

I don't have a personal grudge against Domais but I do resent his recent efforts to adjust other people's English, especially since the adjustments he proposed weren't justified and numerous laws he has proposed in the past have passed with grammatical errors that he chose not to correct. I think that given his activity here there is a reasonable chance that Domais will be Speaker one day and I will not support a future in which he-or anybody else-will have the authority to make such changes unilaterally.

But if the Speaker attempts to make a change to a law and they themselves make an error then the assembly can voice their objects in their thread. Surely, the Speaker would listen to the assembly because if they don't then the assenbly can just overide their actions as well as remove them from office. I really don't see the point of amending every law that mentions "Minister" instead of "Cabinet minister" when we could just appoint someone to do that. Or amending a law to fix some numbering error that happened because no-one noticed it during an amendment.
Edit: I guess during the voting period one could withdraw the motion.

 

[McChimp]

I don't have a personal grudge against Domais but I do resent his recent efforts to adjust other people's English, especially since the adjustments he proposed weren't justified and numerous laws he has proposed in the past have passed with grammatical errors that he chose not to correct. I think that given his activity here there is a reasonable chance that Domais will be Speaker one day and I will not support a future in which he-or anybody else-will have the authority to make such changes unilaterally.

But if the Speaker attempts to make a change to a law and they themselves make an error then the assembly can voice their objects in their thread. Surely, the Speaker would listen to the assembly because if they don't then the assenbly can just overide their actions as well as remove them from office. I really don't see the point of amending every law that mentions "Minister" instead of "Cabinet minister" when we could just appoint someone to do that. Or amending a law to fix some numbering error that happened because no-one noticed it during an amendment.
Edit: I guess during the voting period one could withdraw the motion.

Having to continually challenge and threaten to recall the Speaker in order to leave peoples' adequate laws untampered with is not worth whatever small percieved benefit in presentability would be gained. If a change is worth making it should be pointed out before the proposal in question has passed or, if it's already too late for that, by amending it.

 

[Frankender]

Not all activity is good activity. I don't see any future where the main business of this place is arguing about the grammar and vocabulary of active laws as a good one. We've had one thread of it already and I for one hated it.

The main business of this place is not arguing about grammar and vocabulary of active laws. In the past month, these chambers have had 10 different discussions. 1 pertained specifically to language, the other is this bill, which is not only geared at correcting language.

Regardless, "not all activity is good activity" is not helping Lazarus become more active...

You've clearly missed my point. What I am saying is that these problems ought to be resolved before the legislation passes, not after. As you say, this proposal does not do that. Therefore in my opinion this procedure is the wrong approach.

The intention may be to allow the Speaker to clean up the law library but it also potentially gives the Speaker the power to mess up either by replacing something grammatically correct with something incorrect or by changing the meaning of the law.

It does not give the Speaker the power to mess up anything. If two citizens have an issue with a change, the edit is easily reversed:

(1) The Speaker must publicly promulgate any use of powers enumerated herein within 24 hours thereof.
(2) If any Citizen tables a motion to Overturn the decision of the Speaker and another Citizen seconds the relevant motion, then the relevant use of the powers enumerated herein will be rendered unenforceable pending a vote in the Assembly;

This is similar to any ministry. If you are worried about the Speaker's abuse of power, either don't approve the nomination, or file a bill of recall.

No ministry of government deigns to change the Assembly's laws by any means other than legislation. I have no intention whatsoever of supporting a bill that means I'll have to try and block anyone with English less than equal to my own from office or worse recall them. It's bad enough finding justices, we shouldn't expand that problem to the office of Speaker too.

Discretionary (which means optional) Powers. This does not change the role of a Speaker into a Grammar Nazi.

I don't have a personal grudge against Domais but I do resent his recent efforts to adjust other people's English, especially since the adjustments he proposed weren't justified and numerous laws he has proposed in the past have passed with grammatical errors that he chose not to correct. I think that given his activity here there is a reasonable chance that Domais will be Speaker one day and I will not support a future in which he-or anybody else-will have the authority to make such changes unilaterally.

 

[McChimp]

The main business of this place is not arguing about grammar and vocabulary of active laws. In the past month, these chambers have had 10 different discussions. 1 pertained specifically to language, the other is this bill, which is not only geared at correcting language.

Regardless, "not all activity is good activity" is not helping Lazarus become more active...

Allowing the Speaker to change peoples' laws without consulting them will make it thus.


Or instead we use the less contentious method to amend things: amendments. Or even give these powers to the Court, the people who are supposed to have domain over active laws.

It does not give the Speaker the power to mess up anything. If two citizens have an issue with a change, the edit is easily reversed...

you suggest this allows the Speaker to change the Assembly's laws. This bill does not, as has been discussed.

I am aware that the proposal has a veto mechanism. I think it's absurd that I should have to use it to prevent the Speaker from unilaterally changing laws.

Discretionary (which means optional) Powers. This does not change the role of a Speaker into a Grammar Nazi.

I made no such suggestion but I do think it's a bad idea to give people powers you don't trust them to wield.


I can't ensure any such thing. Only you can prevent that from happening by voting down this proposal. That said, I would be perfectly happy to see Domais in that position so long as there was no risk of him doing this.