Law on how Talossans become inactive or legally dead

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun]

Jan 30, 2020 2:09:15 GMT -6 Eðo Grischun said:

Jan 30, 2020 0:43:24 GMT -6 Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun said:

No, I do not care to tone down my outrage one bit, thank you for the offer. My feelings are mine to feel, and express. If you feel slighted by that, then that is your feeling to feel and express.

Ah, but it does. It strips a citizen, a full-fledged citizen, from their ability (read, essentially: “right”) to vote without having to take an additional and pre-planned step, just for not having voted. A citizen may not even be aware that they are not on a voting roll any longer. Come election time, they will be surprised.

It is neither here nor there. The Government and the Ziu have no Organic right to introduce a difficulty in what is my Organic right to vote. Either you strip my citizenship for not voting, in which case I have no right to vote any longer, or you do not act at all, whether I choose to vote or not – and my right to voting and my ability to exercise that right freely are not affected.

Having to take additional or pre-requisite steps before being able to exercise a right does not remove or revoke a right, though. You have the right to vote in Germany (I assume, yes?). Do you take offence at the fact that before you can exercise that right you need to apply to vote (Antrag) before you can receive a polling card (Wahlschein) entitling you to vote, even though you "have the right"? Loads upon loads of countries with a "right to vote" have pre-registration requirements.

Having a particular right does not always give you carte blanche. Rights can be restricted. Pre-requisites can be put in place. Voter registration is a common enough example. Then, in the US, they have the right to bear arms, yet some states restrict that right with background checks and particular weapons have been banned. Then, in the UK, we have the rights of free assembly and free expression, yet we need to apply for a permit to hold a parade and the local councils can dictate which streets we can and cannot march on. Rights can be restricted. Pre-requisites can be put in place. Nothing in the Organic Law prevents similar practice in Talossa.

The right to vote isn't being messed with by this Bill. It's grossly hyperbolic to assert that your rights would be infringed upon by this proposal. Again, all citizens would automatically be added to the new register at it's inception. We are not even proposing a 'register first' requirement. Whenever someone drops off the register they can be added back by simply requesting to be added back. Now, at that point, if there was a chance that the request could be denied, then you're argument would hold some water. Then a case could be made that someones rights had been infringed. However, the request cannot be denied. It must be honoured. If someone drops off it is guaranteed that they can be added back on. Right to vote intact.

No. Except for when I was naturalised at 18 years old, I have never had to proactively get into the electoral roll in Germany. And that, I only had to do because I got naturalised just after the electoral roll for the upcoming elections had been composed. I have not had to do it every since. Not when I moved residence, not when I moved across state lines, not when I was out of the country for 18 months, and certainly not if I were not to vote for X consecutive elections. The inclusion into the electoral roll is done automatically for every citizen by every region where a citizen keeps their main residence, as a matter of law.

Electoral rolls are composed for every election separately. If I were to move to another catchment area after an electoral roll was composed, I would still remain in the roll of my old place of residence for that election, and only be moved upon request to the new place of residence. For other elections, my new place of residence would automatically put me into their electoral roll.

Long story short, I never have to do anything to be able to vote. It is a positive right. It is not comparable to owning guns, which can hurt people. My voting does not have the potential to harm someone directly. It is an organic right, and there cannot be a reason for it to be infringed. This bill tries to do just that. It obfuscates, confuses, and makes it possible for fully-fledged citizens to not be able to vote without a lawful Cort order, just because they missed three consecutive elections.

Hear this: if the Government thinks of making it more difficult for citizens and obscuring the voting process for its citizens for one reason or another, I will be calling upon the Uppermost Cort to strike down this law.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Jan 30, 2020 7:36:13 GMT -6 Glüc da Dhi said:

This is after the chancery has already made reform after reform in the past couple of years and with nobody even bothering to ask the chancery whether the implementation is feasible.

The purpose of the Chancery, as with the rest of the Royal Civil Service, is to follow the law, not to tell the Ziu what the law has to be.

what it also does is directly contradict multiple other sections of the lexhatx and creating even more legal mess.

Citation needed.

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun]

The purpose of the Government is to make sure that the Chancery has enough power, opportunity, support, and help to follow the law. It is not a puppet that you can make do whatever you wish. If MPF and/or Glüc quit, who the hell is going to "follow the law", Miestra? You?

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Ya Allà. The SoS is not a slave and is perfectly welcome to quit if he feels incapable of following a new law. Even better, if he quits he can start a political party which can run in opposition to the new law.

Not that I want Glüc to quit, and not that I will die in a ditch over the timing of this new law; but I have opposed the constitutional theory that the Chancery should be a fourth branch of government.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Part of the problem here is that there is never enough discussion. For example, some people have certain issues with the format of recent new laws, which are perhaps valid but I've never heard of before. The law only says a bill needs Hoppering for 10 days before being Clarked. Does anyone want to change that term to extend it?

I've spoken in the past about opposing the veto of the inactive over the active. You honestly can't go on "Talossan holiday" for 3 or 6 months, then come back and find that things happened that you don't like, and then go all vituperative and expect others to take you seriously. You can't criticise Government inactivity, and at the same time promote a culture where sufficiently nastily-phrased objections at the last minute from the previously absent/apathetic can derail anything.

The Cabinet is discussing "unclarking" this bill for now, but all those people who used to say that myself and Senator V. Marcianüs were the nasty ones in Talossa just need to look at this thread and check their ideas.

[E.S. Bornatfiglheu]

But, D:na Schiva, why not simply abolish the three strikes and call it a day?

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun]

Let's face it, Miestra. Your comment before last treats the Chancery and the persons running its operations as a machine, a robot of sorts. You, the Government, are dependent on the Chancery for literally everything that you do which you want to take effect. You are DEPENDENT on the Chancery. And you treat it like a pile of shit, and pay it no mind whatsoever while you merrily go on your way to push some bills through that are not even that useful. And you load more and more work on an already overloaded and overworked, underappreciated Chancery.

You are basically the capitalist exploiting your labour force – in this case, the Chancery –, and you pay it no mind whatsoever. Congratulations.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I do not endorse Epic's socialist undertone, but I a thousand-times endorse the idea that the Chancery is incredibly overworked and underappreciated, and the first step before asking the Chancery to accomplish a new, complicated task should be, "Is this feasible with your current resources?" Yes, the Chancery doesn't get to write bills, but it's pure foolishness not to respectfully consult them.

This isn't an isolated incident, either, lest we forget about the transition to Wittenberg -- the Government deciding something for the Chancery even though it wasn't yet feasible.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Jan 30, 2020 14:15:18 GMT -6 E.S. Bornatfiglheu said:

But, D:na Schiva, why not simply abolish the three strikes and call it a day?

That's the idea. But that requires an OrgLaw amendment. And I'm loathe to offer OrgLaw Amendments before the new OrgLaw is even in force.

The best argument that has been given so far for delaying this bill is that it should have come at the same time as the requisite OrgLaw amendments. But we decided to introduce it in advance, you know, to give it plenty of discussion time. And no-one objected so I thought, why not Clark it?

The best thing is that this has inspired interest in Talossa from people who were in danger of drifting into inactivity

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

I should also note that - by his own admission - with his computer issues the SoS has been very hard to get hold of. It took ages for me to get a straight answer from him to the basic question of how he was going to interpret the "Senator inactivity" law, for example. The inactive don't get a veto over the active.

Hope to see that a lot of the people who are suddenly expressing sympathy for the overworked Chancery volunteer to work for the Chancery - Glüc has been doing too much on his own for ages, and I've been suggesting for a while that he deputize some of his duties.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Jan 30, 2020 14:44:30 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

The best thing is that this has inspired interest in Talossa from people who were in danger of drifting into inactivity

Contempt from our rulers often inspires opposition.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Noted. I will strive to treat you all with much more contempt in future.

(Ha ha, I image-searched "contempt" and got lots of pictures of Bill Barr and Chelsea Manning.)

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Anyway! In case you missed it, this bill has been withdrawn from the current Clark for more discussion.

Firstly, I take the point that it should have been introduced along with the necessary requirement for amendment to the new Organic Law, which would be the deletion of the following:

X.5. Any citizen who neither votes in any general election nor responds to any national census established by law for a period of two years, as calculated at any Election Deadline, shall be deemed to have renounced his citizenship.

and its replacement, perhaps, with this:

X.5. In the absence of voluntary renunciation, Talossan citizenship is only lost upon the legal or physical decease of the citizen, confirmed to the satisfaction of the Chancery; or upon banishment by decision of the Uppermost Cort. A verdict of banishment or a finding of legal decease may be set aside and citizenship restored according to law.

I also take the point that the Chancery already has to deal with a varying number of databases of citizen information, and those could stand to be rationalised. Give me a moment.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosa and Senäts in Ziu assembled that:

1. Organic Law X.5, which currently reads:

Any citizen who neither votes in any general election nor responds to any national census established by law for a period of two years, as calculated at any Election Deadline, shall be deemed to have renounced his citizenship.

is amended to read:

In the absence of voluntary renunciation, Talossan citizenship is only lost upon the legal or physical decease of the citizen, confirmed to the satisfaction of the Chancery; or upon banishment by decision of the Uppermost Cort. A verdict of banishment or a finding of legal decease may be set aside and citizenship restored according to law.

2. A new section shall be added to El Lexhatx D.8.5 (on the electoral database) as follows:

8.5.8. Citizens who do not respond to a Census shall be removed from the Electoral Database.
8.5.9. Any citizen who has been removed from this Database for any reason shall be restored to the Database at their own request.

3. A new section shall be added to El Lexhatx D.8.8 (on the contact information database) as follows:

8.8.6. Citizens who do not respond to a Census shall be removed from the Contact Information database.
8.8.7. Any citizen who has been removed from the Database for any reason shall be restored to the Database at their own request.

4. A new section shall be added to El Lexhatx C.1.2.2. (on the census):

1.2.2.5 A citizen who does not respond to three successive censuses over a period of at least seven years shall be considered to be legally deceased, until such time as they respond to a Census.

[Açafat del Val]

I want to give myself proper time to think and consider on the revisions above made, but in the meantime I would like to say to everyone:

There is an important difference between healthy conflict and outright antipathy. It is possible to disagree with the Government (for my part, I am no less a member of the Seneschal's own party!) at the same time as respecting its members and not impugning or maligning them.

Let's remember that despite our differing political goals we are on the same team and want the same things, i.e. a prosperous and happy Talossa. Disagree passionately, but don't attack.