Amendment for Bench Expansion (ABE)

The Magisterium
,
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Article C, Section 3 of the Concordat shall be amended as follows:

“The Conclave shall be composed of fourfive Arbiters, which shall not serve concurrently as the Delegate or as a Magister. In the final decisions of the Conclave, the total number of votes cast may not exceed 3, as determined by the Standing Orders of the Conclave.”

This is my reasoning:

Why do we have an even number of Arbiters? It makes things so much more complicated when it comes to voting. The only reason I am the shortest serving Viceroy in TEP history is that the votes had been cast, there was a tie, and even though I wished to concede, procedure required that the Viceroy’s vote be voided – and I therefore won when I did not want to. It’s just overcomplicated.

That’s not the only reason why I’m proposing this amendment, however. It’s not even the main reason. The bench is small, and while I understand that we cannot provide the manpower for a large court, a single Arbiter increase would definitely be doable – I have multiple qualified candidates in mind I would nominate if I were Delegate.

We’ve had this discussion before. After the Concrisis, especially. The Conclave is very powerful, and as long as only three are voting under our janky system, one Arbiter wields a third of the power of the Court. And again, the Court is very powerful. Only the Delegate can compare to the power of a single Arbiter. Expanding the court dilutes that power, if slightly, and strengthens the integrity of the court.

I understand there’s not much work for the court to do and right now there’s not many threats to democracy coming from their expansive power, but nevertheless it never hurts to be prepared. I’d rather do it when things are quiet than wait for shit to hit the fan and make us learn our lesson once again.

If you read my latest UTEP piece (please do), you might be confused – in that, I argue that the court is a largely vestigial organ that is not strictly necessary for our government and democracy to function correctly. However, I think this amendment is still a natural extension of that – if the court has more destructive potential than helpful potential, then of course we should ensure its integrity through increasing the bench and diluting the power of any individual serving.

I don’t know how popular this amendment is going to be. I know others have agreed with me in the past that expanding the bench is necessary. I know my bold proposal for a rotating bench (similar to India’s Supreme Court irl) was not popular. I know my reasoning might seem esoteric or disagreeable to some, at least in part. But I hope that the sentiment is shared in whatever way, and I am passionate about this change, little though it may seem.

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seems good

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I like this

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Although I rather value the wisdom in my usual approach, while being Arbiter, of not meddling too much with the legislative process in this body, this current proposal does seem to call for some considered input.

But first: I do not think that, in and of itself, much changes between having 4 or 5 Arbiters. There are pros and cons, as to everything, but this choice is essentially a question of how much resources (competent, active players) to put in the Conclave rather than other branches of government. I do not see any profound effects beyond that, other than making it only slightly more difficult to influence the Conclave’s decisions by subversion. So this begs the question: why?

And to me, the explanation given here rather raises more questions than it answers.

Supposedly, having 4 arbiters makes voting complicated. But that is not, says Aivintis, even the main reason. The main reason, he follows up, is that the bench is small and one more Arbiter should be doable.

If that seems a thin foundation for this proposed change to the Concordat, that’s because it is. In my experience as Arbiter, voting is not complicated. Some internal procedures might be, but that can be fixed internally.

And the bench is “small”. I haven’t checked lately, but I don’t think the Conclave is comparatively small to other courts in GCR’s.

So why?

Luckily the real reason is also articulated in this thread; and you can safely forget all other arguments used to package it: because the Conclave is, purportedly, powerful. And this amendment seeks to dilute that power. This is the real discussion to be had.

But this is also where the given explanation lacks depth. It only states that (1) an Arbiter wields a power comparable to that of a Delegate; and (2) it never hurts to be prepared.

I hope I don’t have to explain that (1) is, at best, a gross oversimplification of our balance of powers and constitutional framework, and, worse, a mere restatement rather than substantiation (the Conclave is powerful because Arbiters are powerful …).

As for (2): the general notion that it never hurts to be prepared does not explain why the Conclave is, purportedly, too powerful.

So before any of this is shot into the Concordat by the hip, I would invite this body to exercise appropriate consideration.

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We’ve had this discussion before. After the Concrisis, especially. The Conclave is very powerful, and as long as only three are voting under our janky system, one Arbiter wields a third of the power of the Court. And again, the Court is very powerful. Only the Delegate can compare to the power of a single Arbiter. Expanding the court dilutes that power, if slightly, and strengthens the integrity of the court.

Hasn’t this discussion already been concluded a while back? The biggest issue with the ConCrisis is that the ability of the Conclave to annull a Concordat was left up in the air, and Conclave ruling that it could do so meant the effective dissolution of the government. This issue has already been resolved in two ways:

  1. Article C, Section 6 of the Concordat has been amended to say that the Conclave may not overturn any part of the Concordat.

  2. The recent passage of the Conclave Orders Act legislates the types of Orders the Conclave may execute, as well as allow the Magisterium the ability to say no to any Orders Conclave declares that does not fall under the list of predetermined Orders, which may I remind you, was set by the Magisterium.

Both of these make the lessons of the ConCrisis clear: the Conclave may not extend its power too far. In effect, these act as execution of that idea. In my honest opinion, both of these serve enough of a function to keep the Conclave in check. So I propose this question: do we really need more checks against the Conclave?

In fact, I would like to take this one step farther: how much more checks do we need under the possibility of a branch of government “going rouge”? This pattern have happened twice now: once against the Executive when the Fedele crisis happened, and again here with the ConCrisis. If we are to consider to check against the possibility of any branch going rouge, what then do we do with the Praesidium? Aiv’s arguments with the Conclave not being a “democratic institution” could also apply to the Praesidium, but unlike the Conclave, the Praesidium has actual, regional power. No law on this forum can apply to the Praesidium if they ever decide to go rogue, since they hold on-site power. The traditional argument of “we should therefore stack the Praesidium with trustworthy people” doesn’t hold water anymore, because this argument was also used to justify the existence of the Conclave, who still went and caused the ConCrisis anyways. There is also a discussion on who defines how a branch goes rouge in the first place, but that is outside the scope of this response.

There comes a time when we need to ask ourselves: how much is too much? How much do we need to add checks and balances into this system before we start losing sight of what we are trying to do: serve the Residents? This, the Conclave Act, and Aiv’s UTEP article made it clear: the Conclave of the ConCrisis was on the wrong side of history. I was on the wrong side of history. I accept that now. But if we continue to add more checks against anything that could possibly cause an issue to the people, we risk losing the fluidity and freedom these bodies have to perform their duties. Its why I never decided to push for an Executive Order law: I could never figure out how to do it in a way where the Executive could still remain free to execute its role without adding too much Magisterial influence. How many more checks until do we finally feel “safe”?

Declaration of Conflict of Interest: As I have made abundantly clear, I was one of the Arbiters during the ConCrisis. That has most definitely influenced the post above, and I invite you all to consider this in mind.

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Perhaps, but no one envisioned that such a devastating ruling could occur — it’s not a leap to suggest that future rulings can still be destructive without referring directly to the Concordat. What if Conclave rules it interprets the Eastern Pacific Sovereign Armada as a separate military to the Eastern Pacific Sovereign Army and thus an illegal military, making relevant Delegates and OOs criminals in the process? Or something else that neither of us can even think of at the moment? The point is not the jurisprudence behind a negatively impactful decision, the point is that a decision can be so negatively impactful in the first place?

I’ll get to the larger argument at play here in a second but a correction: I don’t mind that the Conclave is undemocratic. That’s how courts work. I don’t like that the court’s power is so concentrated and that individual arbiters are deprived of an internal vote. I don’t want every Joe Shmo to have a vote in the Conclave, but I think it’s fair to request that every Arbiter have a vote.

I agree, the Praesidium should have strong checks than “Don’t appoint bad people.” Just as the Conclave should have had from the start. Appointment procedures are the same, so no conversation to be had there. There’s no equivalent of the Conclave Act, but I’m not sure what that sort of a law would entail — I’d be open to that conversation, but of course that has nothing to do with this.

Regarding membership — specifically diluting the power of an individual member — that’s not even a question with the Praesidium. The Executive and Magisterium can decide at any time to expand the Praesidium by any number. It doesn’t require a Constitutional amendment like this. A new Vizier was appointed recently and I’ve actually tried pushing for more — except I don’t push too hard because I don’t think the GV should be too involved in the process. In fact, we celebrate every new Vizier that’s appointed. I can’t recall a time we saw a Praesidium nomination be met with calls that the security measures are too extreme.

Not to mention, there’s already 10 Viziers. The majority is THREE TIMES larger for the Praesidium than for the Conclave. Every member of Conclave could also be a Vizier and vote a certain way and still be in the minority on a certain issue. We had low turnout in leadership elections which I think is concerning but we STILL had more Viziers voting than there are Conclave members. And the majority was therefore STILL larger than the two Conclave needs.

This is one new arbiter. One. I feel a little silly because I feel at the same time I have to (a) justify why such a small change is necessary and (b) justify why such a big change is necessary. It’s not too small because at this level every addition makes a difference and because having an odd number will make all Arbiters equal. It’s not too big because it’s only one new person added to the court and we can spare the manpower.

“What new checks can we create to keep the Praesidium in line?” is a really good question that I wanna work with you to answer but I don’t personally feel this is the place. It’s really not that relevant to this amendment beyond saying that it is already doing way better on THIS front than the Conclave.

The same questions were asked about post-coup reforms. In this case, I think “too much” depends on the policy being proposed. It would be a lot of effort, for example, to reconfirm Arbiters every month rather than every six months. A check, yes, but that’s too much.

But can you really tell me with a straight face that adding one person to the court is too much? One person? ONE? Again, adding to the Magisterium or the Praesidium is so easy and it’s done constantly. Five Arbiters is a good balance of small but not too small. We can spare the fifth person — I could name candidates but it’s not my place. I’m sure the creatively inclined Magisters can guess at some options.

It’s not about history, it’s about the future. What can happen in the future? Maybe not the same exact thing, but maybe it’s something similarly damaging. This tiny change is a small price to pay.

Can you explain how adding one person to the court makes it more difficult for the court to perform its duties freely and fluidly? I really don’t get the argument here.

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I think it should change because 5 seats lets all the judges vote. it doesn’t make sense to have 4 and make one person not vote. It lets more people participate too.

1 Like
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I have posted a reply to @Bachtendekuppen’s concerns and others within the latest issue of EPNS. This opinion article can be found here. I entreat Magisters to read this in order to deepen their understanding of my motives and to upvote the EPNS dispatch in response to a malicious downvote campaign that appears to have been conducted by foreign actors.

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I know this topic has been bumped twice but I want to publicly say that I am looking for more debate and discussion on this. If there are no more posts in this thread in about a week, I’ll just move for a vote.