Passed Amendment to the Constitution (mutually exclusive offices)

The Speaker or Chairperson may assign this to a thread that has passed their respective house's legislative process.
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Sacento

Sacento

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A MOTION

To amend the Constitution
Introduced into the Senate of the Union of Democratic States on the 14th of March, 2021, by Druing and Glaciosia.
As follows:
​

BELIEVING that the population of the Union requires a precise approach to the restrictions on mutually held Public Offices;
UNDERSTANDING that there is no fundamental difference between the various Ministers;
ENTRUSTING the process for confirmation of Ministers to exclude inappropriate conflicts of interest;
THE FOLLOWING AMENDMENTS ARE MADE :

Section 1: Amendments
1. Article 2, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution shall be amended to read as follows:
“3. Primary public offices, defined as the President, Vice President, Senator, Chairperson of the General Assembly, and Justice of the Supreme Court, shall be mutually exclusive. The offices of Attorney General and Justice of the Supreme Court shall also be exclusive.”
 
Thank you.

This amendment is straightforward - It amends the infamous Public Offices clause, to change which offices are mutually exclusive; That being, which offices no one person may hold at the same time. This has long been an issue of contention within the region and it is now that it has been decided, to amend this clause for such an alteration.

The offices in question are the Attorney General primarily and Justice, secondarily. If this amendment is enacted, the office of Attorney General will no longer be mutually exclusive with the offices of President, Vice President, Senator or Chairperson; With an extra sentence appended to the end of the original text of the clause retaining mutual exclusivity with the office of Justice of the Supreme Court.

Please note that the Constitution later, in Article 3, Section 2, Clause 14, states the following about the office of Attorney General:
The President shall wholly delegate their prosecutorial duty to an Attorney General who shall act as the Government's chief prosecutor. The Attorney General is the Minister of Justice and is subject to approval by the Senate. The Attorney General shall submit to the President a recommendation evaluating whether to sign or veto every motion which is submitted to them. Except for reasons criminal in nature, no Attorney General may be dismissed during a timely prosecution of the Executive branch or any member of the Executive branch.
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As such, this amendment makes it constitutional for a single person to hold both the positions of Minister of Justice/Attorney General and President, Vice President, Senator or Chairperson, within the region. It will remain unconstitutional for a single person to hold both the positions of Minister of Justice/Attorney General and Justice of the Supreme Court.

This follows a recent, relatively benign incident, in which the sitting Attorney General was mistakenly selected to be the Chairperson of the General Assembly. Following this event, this amendment was drafted, as it is the belief of many in the region that these two offices should not be exclusive. In addition, it is also posited that the offices of Attorney General and Senator should not be exclusive, either; We are a self-regulating body and are capable of removing problem individuals and thus, have the capacity to protect ourselves from the risks that come with consolidation of power.
 
Thank you Mr. Acting Speaker.

This bill makes a very simple change to the constitution, by removing the unnecessary special restriction on the Attorney General and replacing it with a targeted one more related to their duties. The Minister of Justice, while important to the region is probably one of the least active Ministers in the Cabinet, and when I have finished the legal exam, my duties will mostly consist of writing a few paragraphs or less whenever a bill passes. Additionally, the AG is often chosen because they are notable with their experience & understanding of the law. Thus, it seems unreasonable to squander such experience on the generally limited duties of the Ministry. I do believe that it is important that the AG not be a member of the Supreme Court, as this would require them to recuse themselves from nearly every case considered.

I believe that it is an example of how nonsensical this provision is considering that the entire region manage to pass over it throughout the weeklong process of Chairperson selection, and that this is a worthwhile and reasonable change which will make our government function smoother than ever.
 
One outcome of this incident proved the usefulness of my constitutional crisis role on the discord :)

Full support.

..k
 
This is a simple amendment, I move to close debate.

Aye.
 
Just no for a few reasons, First of all a Senator-AG could use their power to recommend the President to sign or veto something for dubious reasons simply because they supported/opposed it in the Senate. An AG should in my opinion be as apolitical as possible, at least on paper

Then there are other concerns, such as an overreliance on certain persons to conduct many duties, decreasing the likelyhood of new blood and making some people too powerful. Finally , holding two important positions at the same time may lead to the person conducting their job less effeciently as they may not be able to devote time to both
Also Nay to the motion to close debate prematurely
 
We The People said:
Just no for a few reasons, First of all a Senator-AG could use their power to recommend the President to sign or veto something for dubious reasons simply because they supported/opposed it in the Senate. An AG should in my opinion be as apolitical as possible, at least on paper
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If they aren't a Senator, then they're a full member of the General Assembly. What you suggest is already possible under the current constitution, yet the Attorney General is not barred from participating in the General Assembly for this reason. So why then, would we prohibit participation in the Senate?

We The People said:
Then there are other concerns, such as an overreliance on certain persons to conduct many duties, decreasing the likelyhood of new blood and making some people too powerful. Finally , holding two important positions at the same time may lead to the person conducting their job less effeciently as they may not be able to devote time to both
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Speaking from my wealth of experience in the Executive, I can say that the Attorney General does not have a staggering workload. If anything, the Minister of Justice gets bored with their lack of work. This time without workload, could be more effectively and efficiently used, in contribution to either the General Assembly or as a Senator.

Additionally, we do not have a large enough active pool of participating citizens, to sustain many exclusive offices. We must take measures to allow for the flexibility of our regional office capacities to prevent a fatal shortage of such; Such risks are currently greater than that of allowing the consolidation of power and in our current state, we must endeavour to ensure the continuation of our regional government.
 
Druing said:
If they aren't a Senator, then they're a full member of the General Assembly. What you suggest is already possible under the current constitution, yet the Attorney General is not barred from participating in the General Assembly for this reason. So why then, would we prohibit participation in the Senate?
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Very nicely said Druing, took the words right out of my mouth.
Also, the AG would be picked from one of the best Unionists around, I doubt any AG has been or will be incapable of fulfilling their job without bias.
 
Druing said:
If they aren't a Senator, then they're a full member of the General Assembly. What you suggest is already possible under the current constitution, yet the Attorney General is not barred from participating in the General Assembly for this reason. So why then, would we prohibit participation in the Senate?


Speaking from my wealth of experience in the Executive, I can say that the Attorney General does not have a staggering workload. If anything, the Minister of Justice gets bored with their lack of work. This time without workload, could be more effectively and efficiently used, in contribution to either the General Assembly or as a Senator.

Additionally, we do not have a large enough active pool of participating citizens, to sustain many exclusive offices. We must take measures to allow for the flexibility of our regional office capacities to prevent a fatal shortage of such; Such risks are currently greater than that of allowing the consolidation of power and in our current state, we must endeavour to ensure the continuation of our regional government.
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The AG or anyone else has a choice to deliberately not participate in the GA and many AG’s in my experience have been slightly less involved in legislation , whereas the job of a Senator is to take a stance on EVERYTHING

additionally, the AG exists partly to investigate the other public offices, obviously no one can investigate themselves
 
WTP, I understand and to a small extent agree with your contention. However, as our Senate Substitute has so expertly stated, the Attorney General is not barred from participation in the General Assembly. To bar him from the Senate is an odd concept and makes the Senate an entirely more singular house(and not the way that I want it to be.) As such, despite my objections to the unintentional prohibition of newer individuals gaining office, this will be supported by me.
 
Debate and amendment periods are now closed. Since no amendments were introduced, we move to voting on the bill.
 
With 4 votes in favour and 1 against, I think the Ayes have it, the Ayes have it. The bill is passed.
 
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