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 Post subject: Cabinet Acts
PostPosted: October 26th, 2016, 11:33 pm 
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King

Joined: May 30th, 2015, 5:52 pm
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Good Evening all!

Time for some new proposed legislation. We have had an interesting and evolving Imperial Cabinet for a good while now, but - surprisingly enough - no actual laws exist to regulate the behavior of these important areas of governance. Especially now that Ministers are being given further and more specific duties (see: Ministries for Justice, Civil Engineers, etc), a number of us think it is time we formalise the current arrangements and add provisions for new scenarios in an umbrella Cabinet Acts.

Back when we were first discussing modernizing the Carta, I drafted out this proposal for what a Cabinet Acts might look like. I've revised this based on current discussion with a group including Mark, Siden, Septimus, Scrios, and myself - thoughts on this as a framework for Cabinet behaviour would be appreciated!

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The Cabinet Acts

Composition of the Imperial Cabinet

The Imperial Parliament contains an elected Cabinet composed of the Offices of the Emperor as well as five Ministries responsible for coordinating and fostering an area of Hermertian life and society, each directed up by an elected Minister. These five Ministries include those of:

a) Applications and Settlement, charged with coordinating the welcoming of newcomers to Hermertia,

b) Justice, charged with presiding over legal cases and overseeing the implementation of the Empire’s laws,

c) Surveyors and Civil Engineers, charged with mapping and surveying the Empire as well as inspecting and approving Imperial infrastructure,

d) Culture, charged with preserving and promoting the current and historical cultural practices of the Empire, and

e) History, charged with preserving and compiling the history of the Empire and the maintenance of the Imperial Library.

Electionary Procedure

Cabinet-wide elections shall be held by default every 6 mercannum, at which time any noble (Counts, Dukes, Kings/Queens, and the Emperor) may submit their name for consideration for the position of Minister of any Ministry upon the formal announcement of an election in the Ministry by the Emperor. A one-week period of voting shall then be held commencing one week from the Emperor's announcement, during which time all nobles of the Empire are granted a single equal vote per election. The candidate receiving the greatest number of total votes in a Ministerial Election shall be designated the next Minister for that Ministry; if a single candidate runs unopposed they are by default designated the next Minister for that Ministry. If there are no candidates submitted for election in a Ministry, the current Minister retains his/her position until the next election.

Nobles may run for an unlimited number of Ministerial positions, but may only hold one at any time. In the case that an individual receives the greatest number of votes in more than one election, they may chose one position to occupy - the other position(s) will be occupied by the candidate(s) receiving the second-greatest number of votes in the relevant elections.

Special Election Procedure

If it should occur that

a) a current Minister declares their decision in the Imperial Parliament to resign from their position, or

b) an active sitting member of the Council of the Crowned tables legislation to remove a current sitting Minister from office, and that legislation receives support from either a clear majority of the Council of the Crowned (60%) or a majority of the Council of the Crowned (50% + 1) concurrent with a majority (50% + 1) of the House of Dukes, or

c) an election, for whatever reason, leaves a Ministry with no individual able to occupy the position of Minister,

the Emperor may declare a Special Election for the position in question at which time any noble (Counts, Dukes, Kings/Queens, and the Emperor) may submit their name for consideration for the position of Minister. A one-week period of voting shall then be held commencing one week from the Emperor's announcement, during which time all nobles of the Empire are granted a single equal vote. The candidate receiving the greatest number of total votes shall be designated the next Minister for that Ministry, and shall hold that position until the time of the next regularly-scheduled election, at which point they shall be the incumbent.

If no candidate declares an intention to run for a Special Election within the one-week period prior to voting, the position shall be left vacant and the election open until such time as a candidate declares their intention to run, whereupon a one-week period will be left prior to voting to allow for any other nobles to declare intention to run.

Deputy and Assistant Ministers

Ministers may appoint others to act as ‘Deputy’ or ‘Assistant’ Ministers to aid in carrying out the tasks of the Ministry; these positions have no legal weight and are not bound by other restrictions in these Acts.

Alteration of the Composition of the Imperial Parliament

The Imperial Parliament reserves the right to create, alter, and remove Ministries and/or Ministerial positions in the Imperial Cabinet. A legislative motion proposing any of these substantive changes to the Cabinet must be met with approval of either a clear majority (60%) in the Council of the Crowned or a majority (50%) in the Council of the Crowned and a majority (50%) in the House of Dukes.

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 Post subject: Re: Cabinet Acts
PostPosted: October 27th, 2016, 1:23 am 
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Joined: April 28th, 2016, 6:15 pm
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Typo under point d) under Composition of the Imperial Cabinet

Otherwise, this looks perfect!

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 Post subject: Re: Cabinet Acts
PostPosted: October 27th, 2016, 1:32 am 
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Count

Joined: August 8th, 2015, 8:55 pm
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I wanted to ask some questions, just for curiosity.

1) How much power does a minister holds?

2) Is it possible for a minister to make a coup d'état? I ask this just for lore purposes, how cool would it be to have a real political event at hermertia? Not a war per se, but an event in which diplomacy and politics are key elements. Kind of a model of united nations, but in hermertia.

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 Post subject: Re: Cabinet Acts
PostPosted: October 27th, 2016, 1:52 am 
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Runil wrote:
I wanted to ask some questions, just for curiosity.

1) How much power does a minister holds?


It depends on the Ministry. The Justice minister has the most actual power - this minister can deliver judgements during trials, and determines sentencing. Others, like the Ministry of Culture or the Ministry of History have no actual political power.

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 Post subject: Re: Cabinet Acts
PostPosted: October 27th, 2016, 5:14 am 
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King

Joined: May 30th, 2015, 7:09 pm
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It shouldn't say 36 mercannum, just 6. A mercannum is an irl month so 36 would be 3 tears between elections. Either 36 years or 6 mercannums

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 Post subject: Re: Cabinet Acts
PostPosted: October 27th, 2016, 1:32 pm 
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King

Joined: May 30th, 2015, 5:52 pm
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Quite right there Myron! Woops.

And Runil, Mark is right that it is very dependent upon the Ministry in question. Most Ministries just started out with a broad, unspecific mandate (i.e. 'Encourage new applications to Hermertia'); as time goes on, however, we have taken the opportunity that these positions present to formally grant Ministers more duties and legal responsibilities. The MInister for Surveyors and Civil Engineers now has more practical powers as they are required to verify applications for a number of infrastructural elements (fast-travel, etc), while the Minister for Justice has seen their portfolio completely revamped and is now the default Judge and Mediator for Imperial Court Cases. So some Ministries have more practical, specified responsibilities than others, but none are inherently more powerful in the way that, say, the U.S. Secretary of Defence is.

I'm a regular participant in MUN, incidentally - big surprise there! - and I love Hermertia's political and diplomatic elements. The nature of our system of governance, with no actual central figure more powerful than / able to direct others, raises the question of just what a coup d'etat in Hermertia could or would look like. KIngship is divine, so you couldn't overthrow or replace a King - no one else would recognize it, and you couldn't just take on that KIng's powers because no one would accept it or your vote. By this same manner, a vassal of Perth couldn't kill Scrios and then demand to be the new KIng of Perth; no one else would recognize them. The closest thing we could get to might be if, through some unknown confluence of events, a large enough group including the Council just decided to not recognize a King or their status as divine - everything in respect to these positions only functions because we all recognize them, after all. If no one recognized, say, Sam as being a King and just blithely voted without him or ignored his votes, then, maybe, that could be counted as a sort of coup with Sam deprived of his divine kingship through the simple fact that no one else recognized that divinity.

Of course, this is pure conjecture and would never happen (hides coup plans back in library) - we're all close enough that proposing anything like this would be met with intense bafflement and wouldn't fly. As for a Minister making a coup attempt, it's the same issue - there's really no single position to take over! Say, hypothetically, Mark was Minister for Justice and wants to take over the position of Emperor; Mark manages to convince the Council and the House of Dukes to pass a law making him the Emperor. In this hypothetical, Mark has, perhaps, just committed a coup? This is roughly analogous to irl parliaments being strong armed into passing term extensions allowing leaders to come to or hold into power; it's all uncharted territory, but if by some wacky circumstance an individual was able to command the confidence of both Houses they might just be able to do what they wanted. Who knows?

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 Post subject: Re: Cabinet Acts
PostPosted: October 27th, 2016, 6:09 pm 
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Hey, keep me out of your fantasy coup stories!

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 Post subject: Re: Cabinet Acts
PostPosted: October 27th, 2016, 7:31 pm 
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King

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Great points made here. I can't think of anything that should be added at the moment.

Anyone got any other suggestions?

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