Okay, I'm at a computer now so I can, hopefully, better articulate my thoughts on some of the matters that others have raised.
At the outset, those areas identified as "controversial," namely inclusion of the simulated coup text, I agree with Miestra's post - let's remove and seek it at a later date in a proper fashion. However, in light of some accusations levied, I feel it necessary to provide some background on my involvement, my intent, and how we got here, for a clear record.
When I sat down last year (or was it two years ago at this point?) to rewrite the Organic Law, it was, if I recall, a Saturday night, drinking a glass of whisky, and trying to figure out something in the Organic Law. Out of curiosity, I started looking at how other common-law States organized their Constitutions, and found inspiration in the Australian Constitution. Theirs, it seemed, could provide an ideal template for Talossa. I set to drafting a new Organic Law following their outline. I finished the following day. That draft, naturally, contained no shortage of typos, grammatical mistakes, and misspellings. But I considered those negligible considering that I felt I successfully put something together that made more sense, did not remove any power from any institutions with which I strongly disagree, and truly sought to only provide a more straightforward Organic Law.
As many of you know, brevity and I are not friends; verbosity and I are practically siblings. So the draft was long. But I shared it. And oh the comments and feedback I got. Edits were made. Those were shared. That continued until I posted Draft V as a GoogleDoc, and invited everyone to make in-line edits or leave comments (
see talossa.proboards.com/post/157308).
Many have commented on the Drafts, in passing or otherwise, even Mr. Davinescu. From those comments, I think we can infer that all citizens and parties have had access to the same document on which we worked. Nothing has been hidden.
At the start of this Government, we committed to introducing an edited and more complete draft by October 1, 2018. This would be, as I am calling it, Draft VI. Unfortunately, my clerkship ended (miss that job), and, fortunately, I started at a firm over the summer. Unfortunately, going from appellate work to trial litigation has a steep learning curve, and I work very long hours. The Prime Minister, being diligent as he is, wanted to meet our deadline, and made edits to Draft VI. I perused them but did not give the close read it desired. Not to mention, the little time I had for Talossa focused more on other issues, including, but not limited to, the Judiciary Reformation Amendment , which will be included in this Org Law. He took the lead in making edits, and I applaud his hard work and the fantastic job that he produced. But let's not kid ourselves here, the very document that he worked in was publicly accessible at all times. My failure to do a close read of Draft VI is, only that, my failure.
Draft VI is what we have, and we are technically in the same spot we were last month, people are welcome to comment and raise issues. I'm thrilled people are doing just that. I wish they would have been involved earlier, but I'll take what I can get. And to be frank, I cannot possibly keep track of every alleged attempt to slip something in that previously failed -
that is why I wanted people, including those in the RUMP, involved, and why I have, from the very beginning, been 100% transparent by making drafts available for anyone to edit.
I state all of this to rebut this accusation that we are working in secret and trying to pass something rejected by Talossans. If you go back to my original proposals, they did not remove any powers or make any substantive changes outside of rewording and reorganizing. Hence, I except to the accusation, overt or covert, that I have been anything other than honest and transparent throughout this entire process, and I challenge any person to show otherwise.
What we now see is Draft VI, and I'm very proud of what the good Prime Minister has done. I'm equally ecstatic that people that previously criticized the document, e.g. AD, are offering, to some extent, positive critiques and raising concerns. That is what I wanted to happen in prior Drafts, and it did, and changes were made. Draft VI, likely, will eventually become Draft VII, which I hope is the final produce we present to the Ziu and the People of Talossa.
Now, let me quickly explain something that I have reiterated countless times to criticisms of the proposed Org Law in any of its drafts - I never sought to use this as a backdoor to change the power of any institution of the State, regardless of my personal feelings towards that institution. AD raises points about Draft VI potentially doing this very thing. I'm willing to edit and reword it so it doesn't do that thing. That's what this process is about. My goal, from the get-go, has been to simply rewrite and reorganize the Organic Law into a new document that is cogent, succinct, and readable. But, as I said, i'm not one for brevity, so others are realizing that goal through editing.
I hope that clarifies some issues and puts to rest this notion that I, or others in my party or the Government, are trying to slip things in. That's something unsupported by the record.
To address some substantive commentary -
(1) I appreciate the concern with too many layers of law. But that will happen in any system. As we are a common-law State, we have statutory law, Organic law, and, in theory, case law. If we had a more developed civil service, we'd have administrative law (arguably PDs). This happens. It really cannot be avoided. But this isn't, of course, the point. It's having too many layers of statute.
Initially, I encourage everyone to read the Short Thesis on Bifurcation I posted in March 2018 regarding how I envision an optimal interplay of the governing documents (
see talossa.proboards.com/post/157305/thread). Following the thought stated therein, I understand the following issues raised in this thread, and propose the following structure as it speaks to the Organic Law and legislation:
The hierarchy of Law should be:
(1) The Covenants of Rights and Freedoms of the Kingdom of Talossa - this is the defining document of fundamental rights that we, as Talossan, value over all things, and that defines us as a people. Under legal positivism, this creates the authority in which we form a State to protect those rights. It must inform everything we do as a nation.
(2) The Organic Law - this exists to effectuate the protection of the Covenants by establishing the framework of the State. Many want this to be minimal and to move a lot into statutory law. I agree to an extent. My concern stems from the US experience - if we rely too much on statutes that can easily be changed by a Government or rely too much on Convention, we don't have clear rules. To that end, I think there is a compromise - let's keep the Organic Law minimal but then establish two types of Statutory Law -
(3) The Entrenched Law - Many sections of the 1997 Organic Law could be moved into what we call the Entrenched Law. This is what Talossans have said are those statutes that are so important that they require a shield from mob rule or the whims of populism. For instance, the election law should be here. I can envision any number of possibilities in which we set forth an Election Law and a subsequent Government that wants to stay in power changes it because they happen to control a bare majority of the seats. For something to be in the Entrenched Law, it must have passed with 2/3s of both houses (or 2/3 Cosa and majority Senate). I'm also open to requiring it to pass through two Governments with majorities required in each, to prevent the very thing about which I raise concern. I'm also open to the prospect of identifying which areas could be governed by the Entrenched Law. Now, right now I set a very high bar - I do not want this to be as hard as an amendment. It should be somewhere between. At its basis, this provides stability to our most important laws, while not requiring us to continuously tweak the Organic Law.
(4) El Lex - This should continue to be our statutory law and changed as proscribed in the Organic Law.
So yes, it is correct that I am suggested a Fourth Legal Code. But I am okay with that because I think what I propose is fairly straightforward. I'm open, additionally, to keeping El Lex as the only Legal Code, with two clear sections so there's one spot in which we look for law, but can easily tell whether a statute is entrenched.
On a completely unrelated note - I posted the Judiciary Reformation Amendment. At the moment, we are still stuck in being a common-law State. The proposed Amendment, and if added to this Draft law, would continue that. But I would like to have a conversation about moving closer to a Norwegian or South African system - trial courts follow more of a civil law structure and do not set law or identify common law or issues of equity, while the appellate court, e.g., the UC, in its power of equity, identifies the common law as practiced in common-law countries. Their decisions are binding. I'm open to thoughts on this.l