[A] Proscription Voting Reforms

Codex Memorial Garden The Magisterium
1

This is a reform that has gained the support of multiple Viziers and non-citizen residents who have engaged on my proposal for Praesidium reform and improvement of RMB relations through better governance and increased opportunity. I initially wrote these provisions and set 3/4 as a majority because I felt like there should be a high bar to establish such an extreme measure.

However, thus far, no proscription proposal has struggled to reach this majority, unless it also struggled to reach a simple majority, so it seems that it wasn’t as necessary for raising the bar. On the other hand, since removal and alteration follows the same procedures, the 3/4 bar has combined with a sentiment against change to kill proposals that are widely popular amongst both Viziers and the people of TEP.

It is important that our Viziers do not make any decisions on a whim. However, a supermajority of 2/3 is still a supermajority and a rather high bar. 3/4 is more of a super-super-majority, and has been more of an obstacle to checking power than a check on power itself. It is also important to note that even good decisions may have dissent. 2/3, in my opinion, accomplishes everything that 3/4 intended, while making professional, expert policy disagreement (which happens!) less of an obstacle to well-supported, well-jusitfied change.

SECTION VI: PROSCRIPTION

…6.1. Proscription shall be a status which confers banishment from the region for reasons of regional security based on actions committed abroad or against The East Pacific. No proscription may be issued against any resident for reason of summary or indictable offense; all such instances must be tried by Conclave.

…6.2. Individuals with no known resident nation may be proscribed by the Praesidium through any process dictated by the Standing Orders of the Praesidium.

…6.3. Non-citizen residents may be proscribed by the Praesidium through a 3/42/3 majority vote, the administration of which shall be defined by the Standing Orders of the Praesidium.

…6.4. No Citizen may be proscribed by the Praesidium.

…6.5. The Grand Vizier shall maintain a public record of proscribed groups and nations on the forums, as well as the reasons behind proscription…

…6.6. The Delegate must be informed upon the beginning of a proscription process, as well as once a decision is made. The Grand Vizier must announce each proscription, or consign such a task to the Delegate. This announcement must adequately justify the proscription.

…6.7. The maintenance of a resident nation by an individual proscribed by the Praesidium shall be considered a summary offense with a sentence of banishment for as long as the proscription lasts.

…6.8. The Praesidium may alter or lift any proscription by the process in which it was established, or establish a time limit or terms within the initial proscription decision. Alterations or reversals shall require a 2/3 majority vote.

…6.9. Any proscribed nation may appeal to the Conclave, in which the length or terms of proscription may be altered, including an exception to group proscriptions, or the proscription may be fully lifted, if it is determined to be unreasonable or unjustified.

[A-2025-42] Amendment to the Citizenship Act, Section VI
Notice from the Magisterium
Citizenship Act
2

Im good with 66%.

3

Strongly against this one. This feels like a knee-jerk reaction to a failed vote, and more an effort at appeasement than an amendment that is genuinely necessary. The Praesidium is a security body, and we are tasked with making tough and important decisions to ensure the safety and security of our region and its government.

Given the nature and importance of our decisions, and the impacts they may have on our people and our region, if we are not at least in 75% agreement, proposals should simply not pass. When it comes to simpler decisions outside of our paramount security body, a lesser 66% majority is understandable, however we do not make simple decisions and as such I feel the system as it was designed works perfectly fine. We do not require unanimous agreement, but we do require 3/4 of us to be on the same page when it’s necessary we make a call.

If your proposals do not meet 75% agreement amongst Viziers, that should serve as encouragement to make a better argument, not to alter the voting guidelines.

4

I disagree on the fundamental premise that a 2/3rds supermajority is too low and trivial.

5

IMO I agree there needs to be a high supermajority for putting something up, so honestly I’m not the most against 3/4 majority for that - but I think 66% is better in such a case because yes more division is reflected in voting tallies but it’ll also allow us to take up action more quickly in a pretty large security body that’s bound to have disagreements. 66% is also not 50%, so it isn’t a sheer near split - more people sitll have to be in favor than not of a given course of action.

For reversal of security decisions though, I definitely think 3/4 is too high. When more of the given body wants to get rid of a security measure than those who wish to keep it, it is simply weird that that measure is still around. That being said, 50/50 again isn’t the most ideal for security-wise because we do want more people in favor of a reversal than not - so I think 66% is a solid middle-ground for that. Otherwise, we risk keeping things around like a proscription that a sizable majority of Viziers wish to get rid of that a relative minority still wishes to keep.

6

The difference between 66% and 75% is negligible with 16 Viziers. It’s a grand total of 11 (rounded up from 10.56 since you can’t have a .XX of a living person) vs 12 to reach an affirmative vote.

Even if there were 30 Viziers, the difference would be 20 vs. 23 to reach an affirmative vote.

Given that the proposed change only adjusts the requirement by one person, I’m wondering does it really change the fundamental issue of “[…]the 3/4 bar has combined with a sentiment against change[…]”

I think if the process to remove a proscription is currently too difficult, then the process needs to be radically changed. EG: Send proscription removals as closed sessions to the Magisterium or the Conclave and require a 66% vote there and cap the number of times that a removal can be raised per Session. That, or amend the Conk to expand the Magisterium’s override power for certain decisions made by the Prae which would allow Prae to revoke a proscription while still allowing an out if there is truly a sentiment against change just for the sake of preventing change.

7

Not all 16 Viziers vote. In the latest vote, it was 7-4, or a 63.6% majority. Even if we flipped one of those votes, that’s only 72.3%. We would have needed to flip two votes, which would push us into 81%. Therefore, in this vote, the 75% supermajority defaulted to an 81% supermajority. If no one was willing to change their mind, we would have only needed one more Vizier to vote for in order to reach 2/3, but we would have needed five more to reach 75%.

The reality isn’t as simple as 11 or 12. It could be 8 with one more voter or 12 with five more voters. It could be 8 or 9 against 3-4 people where none of them are open to changing their mind because of deep-held biases – after all, we pick an ideologically diverse Praesidium for a reason. It’s not always the same thing because we don’t see the same people turn out for every vote and we don’t see people cling to their position with the same conviction on every vote. It’s more complicated in reality than on paper.

For a Magisterium repeal of a proscription, I am generally cautious, because I can see that abused by an infiltrator group rather easily, but I’m willing to discuss it further if you have more ideas about how it might work.

8

I have several elements I’d like to highlight in this thread.

The Praesidium, and before the Praesidium as a formalized institution existed, the Viziers, operate traditionally in near-consensus, or collegial. This is indeed because when certain decisions are needed, they tend to be delicate, important to TEP’s security, and complicated. A lot of debate precedes such decisions. In those circumstances, unity and consensus is an important element in and of itself of our security apparatus. This was formalized later in our Standing Orders in a 3/4 majority requirement for ALL votes.

Interestingly, the Concordat requires a 2/3 majority for the Praesidium to take certain decisions, such as suspending a sitting Delegate.

That’s the background of those required majorities, and I think having consensus or near-consensus remains important.

I don’t see a meaningful difference between the decision to implement or remove a security measure. Both are measures changing the security layout of TEP. Even to the contrary, one could argue that removing security measures should require a higher majority than imposing new ones.

Debating voting tresholds in general is one thing. Changing our rules for all issues and affairs at the behest of one specific issue one disagrees with, is a non-starter to me. I also see no justifications to treat prohibitions as a class of decisions different, in terms of procedure, as all other security-related decisions we take.

I’m not in favor of involving the Magisterium directly in individual decisions like these. Just like the Magisterium should respect the other branches like the Delegate, or the decisions of the Conclave, it should - as a baseline - respect the decisions of the Praesidium. If not, maybe the Praesidium should have veto power over new laws, just like the Delegate.

I think this kind of trying to game out votes is a bad idea, and (again) encourages the idea that Viziers can and should be pressured to “flip” on issues.

In my experience, this greatly overstates the degree of division in the Praesidium and does a disservice to the seriousness and open-minded approach of all Viziers in general. “Deep-held biases” is not something I’ve seen, and such accusations don’t do this debate any good service.

9

Well I think my point is right here – we shouldn’t be pressuring people to flip. We specifically seek out a Praesidium that disagrees with itself – people with raider leanings, defender leanings, UCR involvement, GCR involvement, TEP-only experience, R/D experience, FA experience, RP experience, decades-old, years-old, former Delegates, former Arbiters, current Magisters, people from all around the world IRL and in NS. Seeking a near-consensus from such a group seems like a very tall order and, in the past, has proven very difficult – the LWU proscription was very divided, as is the Cordone proscription now, there’s been disagreement about the endorsement cap, about the HOGS debate, etc. Seeing that, and knowing still that a 2/3 supermajority (again SUPERmajority) with such a group is a high bar that requires cross-divide coalitions. That, and the fact that, again, this wouldn’t affect many issues anyway, leaving this current event as a strong outlier, proves to me that this is a minor policy change (something that Cyber also touches on) that simply happens to cover a few very important gaps. I hope that makes sense.

2 Likes
10

The Praesidium, and before the Praesidium as a formalized institution existed, the Viziers, operate traditionally in near-consensus, or collegial. This is indeed because when certain decisions are needed, they tend to be delicate, important to TEP’s security, and complicated. A lot of debate precedes such decisions. In those circumstances, unity and consensus is an important element in and of itself of our security apparatus. This was formalized later in our Standing Orders in a 3/4 majority requirement for ALL votes.

The Praesidium was also being formalized from a time in which 3 Viziers was the norm.

I don’t see a meaningful difference between the decision to implement or remove a security measure. Both are measures changing the security layout of TEP. Even to the contrary, one could argue that removing security measures should require a higher majority than imposing new ones.

Security measures are restrictive, and therefore should be either equivalent or easier to take down than put up.

1 Like
11

Indeed we shouldn’t be pressuring people to flip. We should be pressuring people to vote.

The numbers of the vizierteam has led to this problem. I disagree that approval percentage numbers need to be changed, what needs to be changed are the inactive nonvoting viziers.

Changing the approval numbers just hides the problem

12

I don’t know what you’re suggesting but I do know that it is entirely off-topic, so I encourage you to create your own discussion or proposal thread.

13

Formally establishing my current lack of a position as I have not had much time to think about this, and to someone who is not currently a Vizier it seems entirely tangential and is not reflective of the greater problem surrounding recent events. I am not bothered if we opt to change the number; similarly, I am not bothered if we don’t.

14

So divided that we passed both with a 3/4th majority?

15

Why? Shouldn’t they be at least as difficult to take away? Being restrictive is indeed the point, and doing away with security measures is always as much a security-issue as imposing them in the first place is.

16

I did mention “be either equivalent” as a point :stuck_out_tongue:

17

I’ve addressed this point before but I’ll be happy to answer new questions or address new points.

18

I motion this to a vote.

19

I can say I am personally against lowering the requirement for proscription. Proscription isn’t something to be taken lightly, and allowing it to occur and be removed easier is making it seem less than it should be. It should have the highest bar necessary of any vote the Praesidium may undertake due to this.

1 Like
20

Why 3/4 and not 4/5, then? It’s not like that majority hasn’t been used in TEP law before. 3/4 is an arbitrary number. 2/3 is also a supermajority. 4/5 is also a supermajority. With any of these supermajorities, a very large percentage of experts from a variety of different backgrounds need to agree on a course of action. That’s not something that’s done lightly.

The difference, though, is that with each higher supermajority, a smaller number of people can make a determination to just keep things the way they are. If we need to pass, alter, or repeal proscriptions with ease and speed, then we’re screwed if 1/4+1 of the Praesidium doesn’t want to. Now, 3/4 or 2/3 of the Praesidium will never be in the hands of people of ill will, but, years down the line, 1/4+1 might be. A supermajority that balances the need for deliberation with the need to protect against a small filibuster is necessary.

If I was proposing this law from scratch, 2/3 wouldn’t bat an eye. I know because 2/3 is all it takes to remove a Delegate. If you think that we should have a higher standard for letting TEPers into a region with some people who hate us than for removing and indicting our democratically elected Delegate on suspicion of acting to destroy the Concordat, then I’m not sure I understand what we’re doing here.

Although it’s not the Praesidium, 2/3 is also the majority that the Magisterium (a body by design much more susceptible to whims) needs to confirm a Vizier or Arbiter or to suspend a Vizier, Arbiter, or Delegate. It’s also used for every Conclave decision. It’s also used for amending the Concordat.

Again, it’s a lower majority to amend the Concordat, remove sitting Viziers and Arbiters, add new Viziers and Arbiters, and remove the Delegate than it is to make, alter, or lift proscriptions. Does that not seem like overkill?