Discussion Resolution to Establish a Committee on Constitutional Change and Reform

[Chanku]

Resolution to establish a Committee on Constitutional Change and Reform

Proposed by:Chanku L. Kaizer

Preamble

Recognizing that the current Mandate and Government of Lazarus is not working as intended, and that the current situation we find ourselves in is untenable, the Assembly hereby takes measures to seek reform.

Section 1. Purpose of the Committee

(1) The Committee is established for the sole purpose of reviewing Mandate 12 for the purposes of reform or replacement.

Section 2. Composition of the Committee

(1) The Committee is comprised of one member selected from the Judiciary, one from the Council on Lazarene Security, the Delegate or their representative, the PM or their representative, and one elected member.

(2) Members of the Committee who are selected from another governmental body serve until resignation or removal by that governmental body.

(3) The elected member may be recalled by the Assembly through the standard procedures.

(4) The Committee will select one member to act as Speaker of the Committee.

(5) No person may hold more than one seat on the Committee.

Section 3. Powers of the Committee

(1) The Committee may establish its own procedures and rules not-with-standing any existing legislation including this resolution.

(2) The Committee has the authority to request testimony from any Lazarene and may invite any person to speak before the committee.

(3) The Committee has the authority to establish its own reports and proposals to give to the Assembly at any time prior to dissolution.

(4) The Committee may vote to dissolve itself by its own accord, and may determine whether or not a new committee should be constituted under this Resolution or not provided it is more than seven (7) days prior to the expiration of the Committee.

(5) The Committee is to make decisions by Consensus or by Simple majority vote should Consensus be impossible.

Section 4. Expiration of the Committee

(1) The Committee has until September 1st, 2022 at 00:01 Eastern Daylight Time to present a proposal to the Assembly, at which time the Assembly will vote on whether or not to continue the Committee or to dissolve it. Such a vote will have Nay as a vote to dissolve the Committee and Aye to continue the Committee. Should the vote pass with a simple majority vote, the Committee will continue for one additional month until such a vote will be held again. Such extensions may not continue the Assembly past January 1st, 2022 at 00:01 Eastern Standard Time.

(2) The Committee will automatically dissolve prior to the dates specified if its proposals are adopted by the Assembly, however proposals that are not passed into law by the Assembly will not require dissolution.

(3) The Assembly may vote to dissolve or alter the Committee at any time.
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This is an idea that I've had for a minute and decided to propose. I'm not married to this, nor am I sure this is a good idea, but it might help us come up with some ideas to move the region forward.​

 

[New Rogernomics]

If this was hypothetically proposed, I don't feel the need to limit constitutional changes to a small committee group.

Though even if such a committee was established, I think if we are going into drastic changes to the mandate, it would make sense to understand what actually needs to change before going into it.

Like is it proposing shaking up the legislature, court, delegacy, elected positions, what is the objective?

Because change for changes sake can do the opposite of the intent, and produce something worse than what came before, unless everyone is clear on what they want out of it.

As far as Lazarus stability is concerned, and from what I've heard whenever it was brought up, the Delegate and CLS structure is fine, but the rest needs work.

That's assuming there is an effort to change the mandate drastically.

If I was to hypothetically rewrite it, then Lazarus needs to rework the courts to be clearer about criminal charges and penalties, and on what its actual role and limit is constitutional law wise.

Then as I propose in one proposed legislation, I think that Lazarus is better off with an executive council structure than just leaving every position to their own devices, as I don't think the Delegate/VD, PM, and Cabinet existing separately works great when there are things that need continuous input. The most obvious continuous input issue would be WA votes.

As for the Assembly, we could technically open it up to residents as non-voters, while restricting access to view discussions and votes on treaties and declarations of war and peace or the votes of public officials.

 

[Leonism]

While I appreciate the intention to reform the Lazarene government where it is "not working as intended", I agree with @New Rogernomics that there is no reason to limit ideas to those of a few preselected committee members. I also think such a committee creating it's own procedural rules requires too much creative resources which are better spent elsewhere.

The Emerald Council / Executive Council proposal currently at vote will already significantly change the way government works if approved, and I would like to evaluate its impact before we embark on the next governmental reforms.