Pursuant to Article C, Section 5 of the Concordat, discussion is immediately opened regarding the reconfirmation of all sitting Arbiters of the Conclave.
This discussion shall have the duration of 3 days ending on 2025-01-05T07:43:00Z
Happy New Year! Please excuse the delay; I was of moderate ill health.
All five of the Conclave’s Arbiters are eligible to be re-nominated, as the most recent promotion, that of Asendavia, occurred back in November.
While I intend to reconfirm for all Arbiters, I do need to ask a question that any Arbiter could answer: could someone elaborate a) why it is taking the Conclave so long to answer Judicial Reviews and b) are there any plans to rectify the situation?
A question specifically for the Viceroy: where are the weekly public updates on Judicial Reviews mandated by the SOC, and do you have any plans to fix the lack of updates (i.e. start posting them or remove the requirement from the SOC (and replace it with what))? See here:
For both questions, see:
What counts as a vote? - Began 11/16/2025, now it is 1/2/2025. No updates from the Viceroy.
WTF is a civil trial - Started 9/3/2025 ended 11/12/2025 - which is decent, but note the lack of Viceroy updates + this was pushed for by interested parties 2x on Discord iirc.
It is clear the Conclave has been dropping the ball regarding getting JRs in a timely manner and the Viceroy(s) have been failing to post weekly updates as required by the SOC.
This does not make any of y’all bad Arbiters, but what I would like to see as a Magister voting for your reconfirmation is how does the Conclave plan to fix these issues. The primary use-case of JRs is to effectively seek Conclave interpretation of law to avoid having to re-write law if possible, but the current reality is that one can pass an uncontroversial concordat amendment in a flat 4wks (2wk drafting, 2wk voting) and it would be faster anywhere from 2 to 7x faster than a JR - making a JR effectively useless for most cases it is used for. Not to mention that in any given year JRs tend to be a majority of the Conclave’s workload (though I understand we had the jo trial this year which could’ve shaken some stuff up - which doesn’t excuse the lack of weekly updates tho)
In a small defense to the Conclave, Automatic Loss of Citizenship is IMO an invalid JR to begin with since I made a mistake on the form due to my being relatively new here. My assumption has always been that it wasn’t picked up because of that mistake. In the same vein though, it would be nice if I didn’t have to assume.
If that were the case, I feel as though you would have been informed of such by an Arbiter by now.
I am hesitant to support re-confirmations without clear answers as to the speed (or lack thereof) at which several of these Judicial Reviews have been handled. Multiple law questions remain unanswered, and I would much prefer this Magisterium not become the avenue by which such questions are by default answered through the amendment process.
I would like at least a brief though succinct explanation as to the delays and the related plans to address them before I can in good conscience sign off on these re-confirmations.
The other thing I’m interested in knowing is how the Conclave plans on addressing the matter of Dremaur being up for reconfirmation as an Arbiter, despite currently serving as the acting Delegate of The East Pacific, when the Concordat is clear that the Delegate cannot serve concurrently as a Magister, Arbiter, or Vizier.
The reason why most if the JRs are taking time simply comes down to lack of concensus. It’s one thing if a simple majority of opinions are mentioned, but in the case of the what counts as a vote, there is disagreement of the bench. JRs require at least a majority and it has been scarce getting opinions on the matter other than Bach and I arguing over the point.
Some of the threads mentioned were by my immediate predecessor and while that does not absolve me of anything, there were a few things that fell through the cracks.
Additionally, I want to push back that Magisters should be waiting for the Conclave to make decisions. We are co-equal branches of government. If a Magister believes something to be an issue, a JR should not a reason for amending laws. A JR is a binding interpretation of a law (or a striking down of a law if is the decision). A JR should not be necessary for the Magisterium to amend laws. but if there is a disagreement on interpretation, that is one thing.
TLDR: between personal lives and the holidays, things have fallen through the cracks. Weekly reminds need to be pushed out and that is an administrative thing.
Acting Delegate =/= Delegate in this situation. If Drem’s appointment was permanent (in regards to AMOM had fully stepped down as Delegate), that is a totally different beast. but this is a temporary measure. Additionally, there is a provision that an Acting Delegate has to be a Vizier, but if an Acting Delegate cannot serve as a Vizier (in this hypothetical), then they cannot be an Acting Delegate, which would mean they would be a valid Vizier who could validly be the Acting Delegate.
I will say that this is not meant to be a loophole. I had expressed similar concerns, but when it was discussed, it makes sense. However, I will be holding Drem to the standard that if a Trial shows up against the government or a JR relating to his powers, he will be auto-benched/recused and I will not take no for answer, unless his no is his resignation from the Conclave
Unfortunately our opinions on that differ – just like if a Vizier / Arbiter / Magister were elected as the Delegate and they either resign or get ejected, the temporary Vizier should be stepping out of an exclusive role as well for the duration of their appointment. In the hypothetical you posed the Vizier should be made the Acting Delegate, and once they’re Acting Delegate they should automatically step out of any exclusive roles that they hold.
I don’t mind if stepping out of that role is being done on the proviso that they will be returning to the role without extra renomination/reconfirmation at the end of their appointment. I think it would be supremely unfair for someone to take over the Delegate position temporarily, especially for a short stint, then have to face additional votes back into a position they’d left to help make sure that TEP continued to run smoothly.
But ultimately, I am of the opinion that if someone holds the authority and decision-making power of the Delegate, they should not hold any exclusive positions at the same time. I am uncomfortable having to rely solely on good judgement in matters like this because while I trust in you, Sammy, and AC, I also know that you won’t be in those roles forever and that despite everyone’s best efforts we can’t always know if someone is going to be a boon or if they’re going to be harmful (Ernest Drake being the most recent example of this).
JRs require at least a majority and it has been scarce getting opinions on the matter other than Bach and I arguing over the point.
That’s fair. One suggestion I have is maybe drafting like a 3-4 sentence summary of your v. Bach’s points and holding an informal poll, and using the poll results to make a JR that attaches the failing viewpoint as a minority viewpoint. If that doesn’t work that’s fine, but I do think a solution needs to be thought up of to address how long they’re taking, even if the issue is lack of consensus.
Additionally, I want to push back that Magisters should be waiting for the Conclave to make decisions. We are co-equal branches of government. If a Magister believes something to be an issue, a JR should not a reason for amending laws. A JR is a binding interpretation of a law (or a striking down of a law if is the decision). A JR should not be necessary for the Magisterium to amend laws. but if there is a disagreement on interpretation, that is one thing.
I mean you can disagree with it, but that’s simply what the use-case of JRs are for. Any interpretation the Conclave makes can easily be inputted or remove by law. JRs are mostly used to prevent legislative work. There are some cases when they’re a check on the Magi (namely nullifying laws), but those are like 5% of all JRs (I think it’s been done 3-4 times in TEP history and 2 of those are AMOM tryna get the Conclave Act nullified haha).
However, on a general note it is concerning that this is occurring. If the Arbiters can’t be active during JRs, it does raise the question if they’d be ready for other more involved matters like a trial. I’d thus like to ask @theclockworkvixen and @Asendavia about how active they’ve been in recent JRs and, if they have been lacking in activity, their plans to rectify the situation.
My honest answer and possibly only defence is that I haven’t found much time to focus on NS stuff, especially this last week with me performing an operating system change on my laptop (I’m still trying to work out the bugs and errors with a lotta my Steam games, plus finding Linux alternatives for some of the apps I used to use on Windows). However, I do make sure to at least try to contribute to JRs whenever they pop up. I don’t like the fact that I’ve been inactive, either, especially considering I used to always have a tab open for these forums (pre OS switch).
I’ve only been an arbiter again for 2 JRs right now, the “WTF is a Civil Trial” one and “What Counts as a vote?” With the former, the vote for it began only a couple days after I became an arbiter and I basically fully agreed with the draft that had already existed when I joined the Conclave so I simply just voted on that one after reading over the thread. With “What Counts as a vote?” I’ve provided my basic thoughts on it in the conclave discord channel, though it is true that I haven’t solidified those thoughts in our closed chambers thread for it yet. I partly blame work because it takes up a good portion of my day and makes me want to do basically nothing else other than game when I go home lol, though that still doesn’t fully excuse me not using the weekend for such things instead (I tend to be bad at managing my time ).
Ultimately, I’ll vote in favor of the reconfirmation for all Arbiters since all answered questions succintly and quickly.
But I still think that JRs not being released in a timely manner (<2mo) and a lack of weekly updates is not good. I’ve made a suggestion on how to fix the former, but ultimately this is an issue the Conclave needs to address somehow.
With the above stated pretense that the Conclave should focus on getting the JRs in question sorted out in a timely manner, I too believe my concerns properly addressed, and will vote in favor of the reconfirmations.
Just to add, I can confirm that the JR’s aren’t wanting for serious discussion internally, but it is a fact that it has taken a while for most of these to get to some sort of consensus on what is the “right” ruling. But I’ll not deny that these JR’s have taken entirely too long and that we should avoid that going forward.
Due to the passage of [N-2026-2/3/4/5/6] Reconfirmation of Arbiters (January 2026) and the successful reconfirmation of all Arbiters, this discussion has been closed in line with the Standing Orders of the Magisterium. Please contact a member of the Office of the Provost if further discussions on this topic are desired.
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