[Draft] Omnibus State Code Amendment Act

[Cormac]

Updated draft is in the OP. What's new in this draft?

- New Section 2.9, which gives the Pharaoh the power to annex sovereign territory of the Osiris Fraternal Order.
- New Section 4.9, which gives the Deshret the power to release sovereign territory from the possession of the Osiris Fraternal Order by two-thirds majority vote.
- Removal of the Keeper's power to accept or reject applications for Deshret membership, in favor of a full Deshret vote on each application. See Section 4.1.

Given that we haven't reached any kind of consensus either on election/appointment of Elders or on term limits, I have not made any changes in regard to those issues in this draft.

[Cormac]

All right, unresolved issues that come to mind:

- Term limits. Some wanted them, some didn't. Ideas for potential compromises?
- Elected judges and attorney general. Again, some in favor, some not. Ideas?
- Full Deshret vote on all Deshret applications. Not much discussion yet, but some for and some opposed. Ideas?
- Other issues?

If we can't find some sort of compromise on the above issues within the next few days, or if no other issues are noted, I'm likely to move for a vote and see where the votes fall as I support the draft as written. However, I think the State Code should have as much consensus behind it as possible so I'm more than open to suggested compromises that would make everyone more comfortable with voting for this.

[Andrew]

getting rather quiet

[shetef]

All right, unresolved issues that come to mind:

- Term limits. Some wanted them, some didn't. Ideas for potential compromises?
- Elected judges and attorney general. Again, some in favor, some not. Ideas?
- Full Deshret vote on all Deshret applications. Not much discussion yet, but some for and some opposed. Ideas?
- Other issues?

If we can't find some sort of compromise on the above issues within the next few days, or if no other issues are noted, I'm likely to move for a vote and see where the votes fall as I support the draft as written. However, I think the State Code should have as much consensus behind it as possible so I'm more than open to suggested compromises that would make everyone more comfortable with voting for this.

- Term limits: Perhaps term limits on the Vizier and Elders, but not for the Pharaoh?
- Elected Elders and AG: AG is already a Scribe of the Hedjet and has no legal definition in itself. I'd like to leave it that way I'd prefer to leave Elders as appointed offices but I wouldn't be devastated if they were to become elected.
- NO. This will take way too much time and runs the risk of Sepatarchy Part II in my mind.
- I don't have any other issues with this.

[Lands of the South]

All right, unresolved issues that come to mind:

- Term limits. Some wanted them, some didn't. Ideas for potential compromises?
- Elected judges and attorney general. Again, some in favor, some not. Ideas?
- Full Deshret vote on all Deshret applications. Not much discussion yet, but some for and some opposed. Ideas?
- Other issues?

- Term limits: Perhaps term limits on the Vizier and Elders, but not for the Pharaoh?
- Elected Elders and AG: AG is already a Scribe of the Hedjet and has no legal definition in itself. I'd like to leave it that way I'd prefer to leave Elders as appointed offices but I wouldn't be devastated if they were to become elected.
- NO. This will take way too much time and runs the risk of Sepatarchy Part II in my mind.
- I don't have any other issues with this.

- I still think our community is too small for term limits to be necessary and practical. But if we want them, I suggest a generous system. I'm against term limits for the Pharaoh as well.
- AG is replaced by the Keeper under the new draft, right? I'm still opposed to elected Elders.
- Agreed. I suppose 90% of all Deshret applications are open and shut. I'd like, however, the Keepers' decisions to be suspended pending vote if the Deshret challenges a decision.
- Not right now.

[Cormac]

- Term limits: Perhaps term limits on the Vizier and Elders, but not for the Pharaoh?
- Elected Elders and AG: AG is already a Scribe of the Hedjet and has no legal definition in itself. I'd like to leave it that way I'd prefer to leave Elders as appointed offices but I wouldn't be devastated if they were to become elected.
- NO. This will take way too much time and runs the risk of Sepatarchy Part II in my mind.
- I don't have any other issues with this.

Yeah, so I completely disagree with all of the above.

- I don't see the point in term limiting the Vizier, given that it's an appointed position that has to be re-nominated for confirmation every time a Pharaoh is elected.

- I don't understand why we would term limit Elders, who we're trying to keep politically independent insofar as possible, but not term limit the Pharaoh, who is the chief executive of the region and who also has in-game reasons to be term limited (e.g., accumulation of regional influence). I'm not for term limits in general, but this doesn't make sense.

- This draft makes the AG, now the Advocate of the Deshret, a politically independent official and not a Scribe of the Hedjet. The purpose behind that is to remove what is currently the Pharaoh's near-absolute power over prosecutions, and what would under this draft become absolute power since the Pharaoh is given the power to both appoint and remove Scribes without any oversight from the Deshret. There's absolutely no way I would be in favor of the attorney general remaining a Scribe of the Hedjet in that scenario.

- It also isn't true that the AG currently has no legal definition. It has a limited legal definition in that it is currently the only mandatory Scribe.

- I continue to oppose the appointment of judges. Even with confirmation, allowing the Pharaoh to appoint judges is asking for executive bias on the court. The trade-off of elected judges may be political considerations, but I would rather have judges with political considerations than have judges with bias toward the executive deciding matters of constitutionality. This isn't even to mention if these judges have to preside over a criminal trial of the Pharaoh (or former Pharaoh) who appointed them.

- I'm not sure how having a full Deshret vote on every Deshret application would "run the risk of Sepatarchy Part II," especially when we already allow for the potential of a full Deshret vote on every application if someone motions for such a vote. I could technically already make this happen by moving for a vote on every acceptance or rejection by the Keeper.

I'm somewhat willing to negotiate here, but at absolute minimum it needs to be made constitutionally clear that, if there is a full Deshret vote, an applicant is neither accepted nor rejected until conclusion of that vote. This situation we have with Quadrimmina accepted and able to vote on his own application is nonsensical, even if he does vote Present. Just the situation of having someone voting on their own application is a problem, regardless of how they vote.

It's much simpler to just have a full Deshret vote on every application than to insert yet another complicated amendment into the State Code clarifying when an applicant is and isn't accepted.

[Vaculatestar]

All right, unresolved issues that come to mind:

- Term limits. Some wanted them, some didn't. Ideas for potential compromises?
- Elected judges and attorney general. Again, some in favor, some not. Ideas?
- Full Deshret vote on all Deshret applications. Not much discussion yet, but some for and some opposed. Ideas?
- Other issues?

If we can't find some sort of compromise on the above issues within the next few days, or if no other issues are noted, I'm likely to move for a vote and see where the votes fall as I support the draft as written. However, I think the State Code should have as much consensus behind it as possible so I'm more than open to suggested compromises that would make everyone more comfortable with voting for this.

Big no. Community still to small, we don't wanna limit our talent pool in this manner.
Not really a fan of this because this means they have to play to the populace when making rulings on cases. In my mind the current system works.
NO, I don't wanna see this. We could just allow the Keeper to continue as he is now but put in a provision that dis-allows people to vote in a vote such as what is going on with Quad.
I don't really have any other ideas.

[Venico]

Against term limits, People shouldn't be considered rejected or accepted until vote ends but no need for a mandatory vote every time. Judges can be appointed or elected they'll have bias no matter what. AG...no opinion.

[Cormac]

Okay, here's what we're going to do:

I'm going to keep this legislation as-is, and people can either vote for or against it. If people don't like this legislation, they can author their own, but I'm tired of trying to legislate tiny details (see, for example, Keeper acceptance/rejection of applications) and people still finding loopholes to ignore the obvious intent of the legislation. So I'm going for full Deshret votes on each application, but if someone else wants to draft a better amendment to the State Code with yet more details for people to read/remember, and that somehow prevents people from exploiting loopholes that shouldn't even exist under a good faith reading of the legislation in the first place, by all means, feel free.

I'm not going to legislate things I oppose either, such as continued executive appointment of judges. Again, if you want that, legislate it yourself.

I move that we vote on the current draft of the amendment to the State Code of Osiris in the first post in this thread.

I move that we vote on the current draft of the amendment to the Procedure of the Deshret in the second post in this thread.

[Datford-Zyvetskistaahn]

I second both of the afore motions.