Passed Delegacy Act

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

Isles

The Devil
Executive Cabinet
Oct 25, 2020
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Josephto said:

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A MOTION

To Repeal UL-008 the Delegate Voting Act of 2020 and to Enact into law an improved codification of the World Assembly Delegate’s responsibilities.
Introduced into the General Assembly of the Union of Democratic States on the 28th of January, 2021, by Glaciosia, Druing, and Asdersland.
As follows:
​

Believing that UL-008 unduly restricts the World Assembly Delegate in the conduct of their duties;
Asserting that the President need not be directly involved in every decision of the WAD;
UL-008 IS HEREBY REPEALED
and
THE FOLLOWING IS ENACTED AS LAW:


Section One: Definitions and Short Title:
1. This Act may be referenced as the “Delegacy Act”
2. For the purposes of this act:
A.“The President” is the democratically elected head of the Union of Democratic States Executive Branch as certified by the Chancellery in their duty as election officers.
B. The “World Assembly Delegate” or “Delegate” shall be defined as the lawful Delegate of the region, appointed by the Chancellors as provided for in Article 6.6 of the Constitution.
C. The “General Assembly voting page” is the NationStates page found at ‘https://www.nationstates.net/page=ga’.
D. The “Security Council voting page” is the NationStates page found at ‘https://www.nationstates.net/page=sc’.

Section Two: World Assembly Advisory Board

1. The World Assembly Advisory Board shall be composed of members chosen by the World Assembly Delegate, and who may be removed at will.
2. The Chancellors and the President may also sit on the Advisory Board upon their own request.
A. The Chancellors may delegate their seats to their Deputies, and the President may delegate their seat as well as one additional seat to members of their Cabinet.
3. The Advisory Board shall advise the Delegate on a course of action regarding each World Assembly proposal, as well as the general affairs of the World Assembly and World Assembly activity within the region.
4. All members of the Advisory Board shall be members of the World Assembly who have endorsed the Delegate.
A. The Chancellors and the President, or their delegates, shall be exempt from this requirement.
5. The World Assembly Delegate shall be the chair of the Advisory Board.
6. The World Assembly Delegate may choose a member of the Advisory Board who is not a Chancellor or the President to be the Assistant Delegate.
A. The Assistant Delegate shall chair meetings of the Advisory Board in the World Assembly Delegate’s absence or upon their request, and assist the Delegate in the performance of their duties.

Section Three: Voting Procedure

1. The World Assembly Delegate shall vote or abstain on each World Assembly proposal after consultation with the World Assembly Advisory Board.
2. The decision of the Advisory Board shall be non-binding on the Delegate.
3. The President may direct the Delegate to vote for or against a World Assembly proposal in accordance with their duties and powers as Chief Diplomat of the Union of Democratic States.
4. The President shall notify the World Assembly Delegate of a direction to vote within forty-eight (48) hours of the vote in question commencing, which the Delegate shall follow.
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I now invite the sponsors to introduce their bill. @Glaciosia, @Druing and @Asdersland
 
Thank you, Mister Speaker. As I previously stated in the original iteration of this bill, this is a commonsense law to detach the World Assembly Delegate from the Executive as has been shown necessary by recent events and previous arguments. It is imperative this bill is passed with due diligence due to our recent accession to the Partnership for Sovereignty.
 
I will speak specifically on the issue of constitutionality that has been raised, as my contributions to this bill outside of reformatting it as a repeal and replace were incredibly sparse. The issue which has been raised is due to the use of the word "or" in the section of the constitution which defines an external motion and a bill, with some suggesting that because it is defined as an " external motion which enacts, amends, or repeals a statute or this document, or ratifies agreements between the Union and another party." that it is prohibited from doing a combination of enacting, amending, and repealing.

However, this relies on a too-simple conception of the English language as might be derived from a cursory search of the definition of the word "or", which might yield the definition of it as exclusive, when there is a large body of evidence and precedent for or being used inclusively (ie. allowing a motion to repeal and enact), including in the context of legal drafting. This is an ambiguity, one which is common in any communication and inescapable no matter how precisely you draft a law.

Therefore, it is with due respect to the law that this esteemed Senate should continue to interpret this ambiguity through a reasonable lens and not draw out from it a convoluted reading as if blood from a stone. In conclusion, I urge that the Senate should approve this bill due to the reasons established above by the Honourable Delegate and dismiss suggestions that the particular form of it is unconstitutional per the reasoning above.

If a Senator wishes to consult with me on my reasoning, I am happy to do so. I yield my time.
 
Druing said:
The Delegate Voting Act currently restricts the Delegate to vote on all World Assembly resolutions at the explicit direction of the President (Section 2, Clauses 1 & 2) and failing direction, would force them to vote alongside the majority of the region or abstain without it (Section 2, Clauses 3 & 4), with Section 3 covering potential conflicting circumstances such as no President and a Delegate being President.

However, the Druing Administration believes it unnecessary and unacceptable for the Union Government to control the Delegate in this manner - This motion aims to scrap the Act and in its place, establish the World Assembly Advisory Board as the region's first major step into co-ordinating World Assembly affairs. This method better adheres to the spirit of the Union and its principles than the provisions of the Act, as well as providing a flexible and sensible area for citizens to contribute. I ask that the Assembly take these factors into consideration when debating this legislation.
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What I originally said when introducing the original incarnation of this legislation - Unfortunately when it got to my desk, I could not sign it due to errors in its presentation, it has since been reformatted so it is more easily comprehensible and implementable. Minor changes have been made, to reflect the discussions had during the past process of passing the original text. I encourage all Senators to pass this quickly, citing the reasons Asdersland has mentioned.
 
I am astonished, the precedent is to amend rather than repeal and replace and that is for a good reason. I in general do not think we should have to interpret the Constitution so creatively, but rather follow the precedent. I would like to quote certain parts of an opinion on the previous Delegate Voting Act by Zuk that convinced the President to veto that Act

”
Additionally, this bill attempts a repeal and replace- which does not make sense when a simple rewrite could have sufficed





I cannot say for sure whether these formatting errors or this attempt to replace and replace instead of rewrite will have negative legal consequences or set weird legal precedent, so I cannot recommend a signature in good conscience.”

This opinion of course is a little incorrect Since the final version of that Act presented to the President was an amendent to existing law rather than repeal and replace, but I think that these words are worth considering
 
I disagree. It is not sound logically to repeal a bill first and then replace it with a new one, in two separate bills. Also, the argument that there is a precedent to amend but not to repeal and replace, so the latter should not be done, is also not correct. The Legislatur can set a precedent.
 
Then I ask you a question: Why should we create new precedent? We cannot first repeal and then replace according to you(in all probability because you correctly think that these two Acts overlap each other quite a lot) so why not use the amendent process rather than creating an entirely new process that the Chief Justice and the Minister of Justice both have expressed opposition towards?
 
I don’t remember the Chief Justice being opposed to this. The Attorney General’s opposition to the repeal-and-replace stands in the fact that the bill could be amended when clearly the sponsors don’t want to follow that path. I believe that we must judge the bill on its merits and not reject it because it creates a new precedent.
 
I concur, it seems silly to vote down a bill for such a reason, the bill seems legally sound and therefore we should instead be focusing what the bill attempts to achieve and if we agree with that. I also state that I also did not see that the Chief Justice had shown any vocal opposition to the this, correct me if I'm wrong.
 
A few quotes from the CJ”
the Judiciary is not an American Loose Constructivist Court



we're not going to magically come up with random interpretations for words





Yes, asking me to define "or" to mean "more than one option" is ridiculous”

Says clearly what the CJ has previous stated, these quotes are of course taken out of context but still it provides some informal guidance. Secondly, that ”The Attorney General’s opposition to the repeal-and-replace stands in the fact that the bill could be amended when clearly the sponsors don’t want to follow that path.” as stated by you Isles is a peculiar statement, we should not creatively interpret the Constitution just because the Sponsors didn’t bother to follow correct procedure. The President, who is also one of the sponsors, vetoed the previous Delegate Voting Act partly due to it being repeal and replace(despite the final form not even being repeal and replace) and has now introduced this Act. What has changed to make repeal and replaces acceptable? Re-submitting bills is problematic in itself, but proposing an Act, having significant amendents passed by both Chambers, and then re-submitting the original form makes a mockery out of UDS democracy
 
The General Assembly seemed happy to pass it again despite the changes, plus as the CJ said on discord, those statements are not her opinion on the bill itself and these statements are not enough to vote down this bill.
 
I would like to apologize for any confusion that I may have caused, it was not my intention at all to paint these statements as official statements from the office of the Chief Justice nor did I claim that the private citizen Kron is opposed to the Act as a whole, what I did point out is that the citizen of Die Kronprinzessin, as well as other individuals, have stated that ”or” is almost always interpreted in one singular way, and I stand by that statement
 
I think the Noes have it, the Noes have it. The motion is rejected.
 
I was fine with the bill after my concerns in the GA were addressed, so I have no issues with the repeal+replace.

..k
 
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