The following Article shall be added to the Concordat, immediately following Article H. Article I: Enactment and Amendment shall be renamed to Article J: Enactment and Amendment.
Article I: Grand Lodge
Section 1. A Grand Lodge is defined as a complete rewriting of The East Pacific’s constitution and law when its current law and constitution are insufficient for the region’s best interests.
Section 2. A Grand Lodge may only be convened by a proposal passing the Magisterium with a 2/3 majority vote in favor, followed by successful ratification of a 2/3 affirmative majority of voting Registered Voters in a referendum.
Section 3. The proposal to convene a Grand Lodge must explain why the Grand Lodge is necessary, who may participate in it, and its ultimate goal. This motion may not exclude any Magister from participation.
Section 4. The Provost or an appointee thereof shall lead the Grand Lodge. They shall set the basic procedures of the Grand Lodge whilst maintaining and following those in this Concordat.
Section 5. The Grand Lodge participants may vote to introduce a referendum to enact the amendments of the Grand Lodge with a 2/3 affirmative majority.
Section 6. The Concordat and government established by the Grand Lodge shall be considered descendants of the original Concordat and government of The East Pacific.
For reference, this is the Article XIV of the Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific, setting the procedure for constitutional conventions in that region, a heavy inspiration for this amendment proposal with a few key differences:
(1) The Assembly may call a constitutional convention, wherein the Charter and laws of the Coalition can be rewritten or amended in a systematic manner. These conventions shall be known as Great Councils and be presided over by a chair responsible for maintaining decorum, compiling proposals, recognizing motions, and recording votes.
(2) Great Councils shall operate in parallel to the Assembly, which will still be convened under regular order. Participation in Great Councils is determined in the organizing resolution, where the Assembly may expand eligibility beyond legislators or restrict eligibility by criteria it deems fit.
(3) Great Councils may only be called once per year, unless in the intervening time the legitimacy of the Coalition has been challenged and the Assembly must reassert constitutional order.
(4) In calling a Great Council, the Assembly shall pass an organizing resolution by majority vote, naming a chair, determining eligibility requirements, and establishing an agenda and rules of order. Organizing resolutions may be altered by majority vote of the Great Council once convened.
(5) Changes or additions to the constitutional canon of the Coalition may be adopted by a three-fifths majority of the Great Council. Changes or additions to regular statutory law may be adopted by simple majority of the Great Council.
(6) Great Councils shall remain convened until a motion to adjourn sine die is adopted by simple majority
I honestly have no idea how to do that for the whole thing. Unless I do like “A Grand Lodge is a Constitutional Convention and also a rewriting of all the laws. A Grand Lodge is done only when the laws that already exist are bad.” Which just sounds stupid. However, I’ll try rewording the proposal procedure, which sounds kinda bad.
Edit: okay I tried reworking the wording and I may have made it sound a little weird but I’m hoping it’s easier to understand.
The Concrisis made it clear our laws weren’t perfect, and yet sweeping government reform was simply not possible under our current structure. The effort it would take to actually amend our Constitution and laws systematically would be far too much than should be reasonably allowed. Our government has been largely the same for years, in the same time, TSP has gone through like three Great Councils. This Amendment gives us the tools we need to become adaptable. Clearly something in our structure failed, otherwise the Concrisis wouldn’t have happened. At the very least, this procedure would have averted the crisis entirely. I think that’s reason enough, but I’m mainly looking towards the future. Major changes in TEP are somewhat messy - see Citizenship Reform for an example, and amendments to more than one thing at once are even messier and trickier to work with. Simply using the words “repeal and replace” in a Concordat amendment can cause that amendment to be considered high treason. That system is way too delicate for dealing with such a mess. This organizes that mess, even just a little bit. It’s a modern tool that I think we need in some form or another if we’re ever to have a ConCon, and I think we will need a ConCon. If not in the immediate future, then almost certainly a couple years down the line.
The main issue that I think I see here, is that it adds nothing new. It is perfectly possible to hold a sort of ConCon, and then pass the necessary amendments through the existing amendment procedures.
The proposed text also defers to existing referendum procedure. As Section 5 reads now, any proposals by the Grand Lodge would probably be required to go through normal amendment and referendum procedures anyway.
Yeah, but it’s intended to put a pause on everything and get all of the changes through all at once. Additionally, it’s meant for larger scale changes, such as Aelitia’s full rewrite of the Concordat in 2019.
After reading through TSP’s own Grand Council process, it’s a multi-level process.
There’s nothing stopping general legislative activity from occurring during such a convention as it runs parallel to the regular functions of the legislative branch.
It’s a more drawn out process, but also means you don’t have to keep going back amending other legislation to suit any large charges.
Proposals are adopted at the Convention level, and at the end of the Convention, supermajority is required to pass the omnibus containing adopted proposals which would contain changes to the constitution and other statutory law in one go.
Yeah that’s about how this works, although the specific procedures during the Grand Lodge are just decided by Provost, so they’re more flexible. And I mean there’s nothing stopping it, but generally, any important legislative change is likely to just get thrown in.
I think people are already overwhelmed by the number of mechanics that exist in our combined Conk+Laws+SOs and I’m having trouble justifying adding any more mechanics to literally anything right now. I also don’t know who would judge whether something is an “amendment” vs. a “Grand Lodge” when the former appears to be the latter and a disagreement arises over it.
Procedures for Amendment and Grand Lodge are entirely different, so only someone without an understanding of the Conk would confuse the two. Why do we need an extra procedure? That.