[AMENDMENT] Law Standards Act

Codex Memorial Garden The Magisterium
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Posting my pipe dream for a new Law Standards Act. Feedback, especially on feasibility of implementation would be greatly appreciated. The date in 3.1.1. is just a placeholder and would be updated to reflect the date the amendment came into effect – if it came into effect.

Section I. CITATION

  1. This Act shall be referred to as the “Law Standards Act”.

Section II. DEFINITIONS

  1. “Format of this Act” refers to the section, clause, and subclause style used by this Act.

  2. “Legislative Proposal” or “Proposal” refers to a proposal to exercise legislative action through a Bill.

  3. This Act uses the same definitions for each category of Bill that can be found in the Standing Orders of the Magisterium.

  4. This Act uses the same definition for “Sponsor” that can be found in the Standing Orders of the Magisterium.

Section III. FORMATS

  1. Unless specified elsewhere in this Act, the Standing Orders of the Magisterium, as well as all legislation and amendments thereto, must be written according to the Format of this Act.
    …1. Until it is amended, any legislation that was passed on or before 2025-12-31T00:00:00Z does not need to comply with this Act.

  2. All amendments being brought to vote must be made with the [add][/add] and [remove][/remove] tag pairs to indicate where changes are being made.
    …1. If the amendment is a rewrite, requiring the entire Legislative Proposal to be considered as a whole, then tag pairs are not mandatory, especially if their inclusion impacts on readability or understandability.

  3. Repeals, Removals, and Overrides are not required to follow a particular format. Instead, the Sponsor must clearly identify the target of the Legislative Proposal and why they introduced it.

  4. Resolutions should be written with the first section being titled “CITATION”, the second section being titled “FINDINGS”, and a third section titled “RESOLUTIONS”.

  5. Treaties and Declarations of War must use the Format of this Act where practical.
    …1. Sections may be referred to as Articles instead.

Section IV. RESPONSIBILITIES

  1. The Sponsor is responsible for formatting a Legislative Proposal according to the standards defined in this Act.

  2. The Office of the Provost may, at its discretion, request that a Sponsor reformat a Legislative Proposal to comply with the standards defined in this Act.
    …1. This may be done any time before the vote topic has been created.

  3. The Office of the Provost may reformat a Legislative Proposal to comply with the standards defined in this Act before the Proposal is brought to a vote.
    …1. This may be done before the vote topic has been created.

Section V. ALTERATIONS

  1. A Sponsor may alter their implementation of the Format of this Act as necessary. They must provide justification for the alteration.

  2. The Office of the Provost may alter a Legislative Proposal’s implementation of the Format of this Act as necessary. They must provide a justification for the alteration.

  3. The Office of the Provost must not make unreasonable alterations when reformatting a Legislative Proposal to comply with this Act. This includes changing the intended meaning of a Resolution or the legal effect of a binding Legislative Proposal.
    …1. The Conclave may, by majority vote, reverse any edit that violates this paragraph of this Act.

EDIT 1:

  • Rewrote 3.1.1. to better convey that legislation written in older formats don’t need to be updated until they’re amended.
  • Fixed an error in my transcription of 3.4 by changing the wording from “[…]the second section being titled “CITATION”[…]” to “[…]the second section being titled “FINDINGS”[…]”.