[draft]Omnibus Election and Executive Reform Act

Vaculatestar · Post by **Vaculatestar** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:01 am

Omnibus Election and Executive Reform Act Section 1: Amendment to the State Code

(1)The following will be added to Section 6 of the State Code of Osiris:

Section 6: Election of Officials

1. The following officials will be elected from among the membership of the Deshret and will have the following length of term:

(a) The Pharaoh of the Osiris Fraternal Order will have a term of three months.
(b) The Keeper of the Deshret will have a term of two months.
(c The Attorney General will have a 3 month term.

2. There will be no limit to the number of terms any elected official may serve.

3. All elected officials will be elected by plurality vote of the Deshret.

4. In the event that any elected office becomes vacant, an election for that office will begin as soon as practical following the vacancy.

Section 2: Amendment to the Election Administration Act

(1) The following will be added Section 1 of the Election Administration Act:

Section 1: Electoral Administration

1. Elections for Keeper of the Deshret will be administered by the Pharaoh of the Osiris Fraternal Order. Elections for Pharaoh will be administered by the Keeper. Elections for Attorney General will be administered by the Keeper of the Deshret.

2. In the event that an electoral administrator is standing for office in an election they are designated to administer or the office of the electoral administrator is vacant, administration of that election will pass to the most senior member of the Deshret who is not standing for that office and is available to serve as electoral administrator.

This is a working draft I have to make the AG an elected official versus an appointed one therefor freeing the regions prosecutor from executive influence. Thoughts?

Andrew · Post by **Andrew** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:10 am

OMG you lot are going to fast with these proposals

But yeah it looks ok on the first look however I have noticed a very, very small issue

Omnibus Election and Executive Reform wrote:Section 2: Amendment to the Election Administration Act

The Amendment of the Election Administration Act hasn't passed yet

Vaculatestar · Post by **Vaculatestar** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:20 am

this is dependent on that proposals passage. that is why I staggered it a day later. Not to mention I'll probably put this vote off a few days while we wait on 2 other votes to finish.

Andrew · Post by **Andrew** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:39 am

Ill second ya

Cormac · Post by **Cormac** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 7:59 am

In regard to your amendment to Section 6, the way you're doing it isn't necessarily wrong but a cleaner way to do it is:

The following will be added to the State Code of Osiris as Section 6.1(c):

(c) The Attorney General will have a term of three months.

In regard to your EAA amendment, again a cleaner alternative:

Section 1.1 of the Election Administration Act will be amended to read as follows:

1. Elections for Keeper of the Deshret will be administered by the Pharaoh of the Osiris Fraternal Order. All other elections will be administered by the Keeper.

Other than these superficial issues, there are other bits of various laws that need altered. I would suggest searching for "Scribe of Justice" in the State Code and the Criminal Codex, as those will need to be altered to read "Attorney General" or whatever we're calling the prosecutor.

Speaking of what we're calling the prosecutor, I still like my term, "Advocate of the Deshret." It sticks with the theme more than generic Attorney General. But that's just me.

Vaculatestar · Post by **Vaculatestar** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 12:31 am

Alternatively would it work to just amend this to read Scribe of Justice?

Charles Cerebella · Post by **Charles Cerebella** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 5:22 am

Meh. I'm no great fan of elected Attorney Generals.

Cormac · Post by **Cormac** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 6:15 am

Charles Cerebella wrote:Sun Jul 13, 2014 10:22 amMeh. I'm no great fan of elected Attorney Generals.

The concern some of us have is in regard to executive influence, specifically that the Scribe of Justice/Attorney General/Whatever would decline to prosecute executive officials that should be prosecuted. This office has also been given the task of non-binding advisory opinions, so executive influence could also bias advisory opinions related to the executive. While this wouldn't be a major issue in that the opinions are non-binding, we should want them to be of a high quality and unbiased as the purpose of them is to avoid citizens constantly running to the Pschent to settle disputes of law as happens in some other regions.

That said, there are ways to limit executive influence beyond election of the Attorney General. We could, for example, mandate that the Attorney General is appointed by the Pharaoh and confirmed by the Deshret but can only be removed by the Deshret. Removing the Pharaoh's ability to fire the Attorney General would significantly limit executive influence. We could also empower the Pschent to accept cases not filed by the Attorney General and order the Keeper of the Deshret to appoint a special prosecutor, if it believes a conflict of interest exists for the Attorney General. These solutions still wouldn't resolve the advisory opinion issue, but that is a far lesser issue than prosecutor bias.

I lean toward an elected Attorney General, but I'm open to these other solutions as well. As long as we don't keep the status quo in place, which empowers only the Attorney General to prosecute crimes and empowers the Pharaoh to fire the Attorney General.

Vaculatestar · Post by **Vaculatestar** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 7:30 am

We could put in a system where if the Attorney General refuses to prosecute a case a citizen would be allowed to do so.

Charles Cerebella · Post by **Charles Cerebella** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 11:20 am

I would prefer some of the suggestions Cormac proposes. In my opinion, in a community of our size, nothing will completely remove bias in one form or another. There is the added fact, that I'm not confident the best possible candidates for the position would participate in election for it and having to campaign for the role rather than just being appointed. An election is more likely to be a popularity contest than based on genuine legal talent in my opinion.