[REPEAL & REPLACE <3] The Executive Government Act

So a foreword:

There were two goals here.

The first one was to bring laws about the Executive Government together into one, but also make them shorter and simplify them. In making them shorter, the second goal will elaborate more. On simplifying them, it was trying to make the wording more readable for those, who are not English native speakers or who just joined the Magisterium (it was simple: “Would I understand this word/wording before I joined Magisterium?”).

Previous laws: 8486 characters
Proposed law: 4419 characters (48% less)

For goal number two.

I’d say “The real merit of a TEP law is in the flexibility to adjust to better and worse times, but also in the simplicity to make it understandable, less conflicting with other laws, and easier to amend, replace or repeal”.

As such, general changes were made:

  • Clauses repeating all over both laws several times (up to about 5 times) were merged into Section II and Section III.
  • Delegate duties and rights were established in two clauses, so they don’t need to be repeated all over the Act.
  • EPSA was far more simplified. Mainly with the statement, that: “In cases undefined by this section, Section III shall apply to the EPSA”. Core goals and setups remained. However many “dead” or “unnecessary” clauses, that didn’t change much/nothing were removed or are a part of Section II/Section III.
  • The Executive needs flexibility and the ability to regulate itself on its own to adjust to current times. Telling the Delegate what offices are needed isn’t the way to go - instead, this act takes a new approach, it tells the Delegate what are their exact “core” tasks. It gets rid of “dead” offices, such as generally speaking Minister of Regional Affairs was for most of those over 3 years. Additionally, we’ve seen shifts in the Government - depending on Delegate goals (outlined in elections), and current times (manpower, NS activity, negative/positive events for the game) Delegates would change what Ministries are there and what “extra” duties the Government is doing, sometimes times didn’t permit it to go for more than core goals, outlined in this act.

Other than goals, there were some “patches”:

  • EPSA is now permitted to grief OOC problematic regions;
  • Outdated clauses (such as referring to the old citizenship system) were removed;
  • EPSA is permitted to use iterations of its emblem (which is a popular thing to do in R/D) or doesn’t use its emblem at all if it’s a joint military operation (as there is usually a neutral or joint flag);
  • Removed clause permitting EPSA to grief a region, that’s being raided (the old clause, or its wording, pretty much permitted f.e. ejecting natives during the raid);
  • Training operations were added to what EPSA can do;
  • Clause permitting Deputy Provost to represent Delegate legally when Delegate is AFK was removed (simply - nonsensical clause, that could cause more damage, than good);
  • Clauses permitting Magisterium to remove OO or Ministers were removed (simply - Magisterium could remove them, but there were no consequences, meaning the Delegate could just hire them back; additionally cases such as crimes or treason are, per our laws, dealt with by Conclave, not the Magisterium; lastly Magisterium may not be aware of circumstances - such as Minister taking LoA or alerting the Delegate of hard life situation for the next few days etc);

If you have any questions or suggestions, shoot!


Changelog:

  • Clause 2.1. changed from “Head of the Executive Government” to “Head of Government” per Shadow’s suggestion

The Executive Government Act

BE IT ENACTED by the Magisterium of The East Pacific:

SECTION I: CITATION

1.1. This law may be cited as the Executive Government Act.

SECTION II: THE EXECUTIVE

2.1. This act, in compliance with The Concordat of The East Pacific, recognizes the Delegate of The East Pacific as Head of State, Head of Government, and representative of The East Pacific to the World Assembly and to the interregional stage.

2.2. The Delegate is granted full executive authority, limited only by laws of The East Pacific. As such, the Delegate is granted liberty to lead the Executive Government; establish, name, and define offices; appoint Citizens to serve in said offices; organize departments; prohibit chosen Citizens from joiningthe Executive Government.

2.3. Upon enactment of this act, the Cabinet is established. The Cabinet consists of the Delegate and offices designated by the Delegate, alongside any other position designed as a Cabinet position in relevant legislation. The Cabinet shall lead the efforts of the Executive.

SECTION III: DUTIES AND MINISTRIES

3.1. The Delegate shall establish appropriate Ministries and appoint Citizens to serve as Ministers to coordinate the efforts of the Executive Government. The Delegate shall, but is not limited to:

— A. Represent regional interests in the World Assembly;
— B. Represent regional interests on the interregional stage;
— C. Maintain diplomatic relations;
— D. Run cultural efforts;
— E. Run educational efforts and administering Bachtendekuppen Memorial Library;
— F. Runmilitary efforts;
— G. Increase engagement in regional matters;
— H. Lead efforts of the Executive Government;
— I. Protect free speech in news, culture, and education.

3.3. The Delegate shall publish a publicly available list of Ministries and Ministers during their Administration.

SECTION IV: EASTERN PACIFIC SOVEREIGN ARMY

4.1. This Act established Eastern Pacific Sovereign Army (“EPSA”) as the sole legitimate military of The East Pacific, which shall execute defensive, offensive, and training operations. In cases undefined by this section, Section III shall apply to the EPSA.

4.2. The EPSA is forbidden from griefing operations, defined as intentional acts to destroy a region and/or its community by irreversible or hardly reversible actions, such as, but not limited to: massive ejections of native nations, passwording a region, or refounding a region.

4.3. The EPSA is granted an exemption to clause 4.3. in cases where a region:

— A. Displays ideologies of hate, such as nazism or fascism;
— B. Has a history of grieving other regions;
— C. Is at war with The East Pacific or its allies;
— D. Attempted to overthrow the Government or damage the community of The East Pacific or its allies;
— E. Is a Warzone without diplomatic relations with The East Pacific.
— F. Has shown signs of hating people, based on characteristics they cannot or shall not be expected to change, such as: racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism.

4.4. The highest rank in the EPSA shall be reserved for the Delegate, who will choose their own title.

4.5. The Delegate shall appoint a Citizen as the Overseeing Officer (“OO”) of the EPSA, who will run military efforts on the Delegate’s behalf and per the Delegate’s outline.

4.6. The Overseeing Officer shall establish the official emblem of the EPSA. Either the official emblem or versions based on it shall be used during military operations on WFE of occupied and/or raided regions. Shall an operation be a joint interregional operation, the EPSA shall use any flag the OO sees fit.

4.7. To hold a rank in the EPSA, one must be a Citizen of The East Pacific and must pledge to uphold the traditions and honor of The East Pacific. The Delegate and/or the OO shall outline details of joining the EPSA for soldiers of foreign militaries.

4.8. Upon permission from the Delegate and/or the OO, soldier of the EPSA may participate on the opposing side of a military operation. However, under no circumstances is the EPSA soldier permitted to share any information gained through the EPSA.

4.9. The EPSA soldiers are granted waiver and shall not lose their Voter Registration, if their Citizenship nation leaves The East Pacific or their WA Nation changes on the orders of EPSA. Citizens shall not loose their citizenship if they leave the region for the same reason.

SECTION V: ENACTMENT

5.1. Upon enactment of this Act via due process of law, the Executive Act and the Eastern Pacific Sovereign Army Act shall be repealed.

  1. In all honesty, I kind of like keeping the EPSA Act separate. It does make sense topically to keep them together, and I can see why this is being done. But one can also argue that the first few sections are regarding general Exe stuff and the EPSA stuff is for the army, which itself is a unique ministry structure and restrictions compared to other ministries.

    But IK you’re probably going to disagree with that point and this is probably gonna pass since no one really cares about format stuff so,

  2. Section 2 seems useless to me and I’d suggest merging it with Section 3 like (with some simplification rewrites):

  1. I feel like core Delegate duties should include raising WA discussion and cooperating with our roleplay communities. The former especially since that constantly gets forgotten for whatever reason, and the latter has defined the office post-coup.

  2. You can probably combine A. and F. of Section 4.3.

1… One of your goals is to remove the CMoRA office. However, the CMoRA office is not mandated by this act, so I think this interpretation lies in not understanding the wording. Under the current act, I’m mandating at least one Minister that isn’t FA, EPSA, or UTEP. Just one. Culture, Hospitality, Information, or what have you. This act has nothing to do with the CMoRA office, and never has.

2… Idk about letting EPSA not use its emblem. I know the intention is for it to do joint flags and memes and stuff, but it allows the EPSA to do false flag ops, and prevents us from mandating that our army identify itself as belonging to us.

3… The point of the during-a-raid griefing exception was so that we could alter the region to help the natives. Under the current wording, we cannot.

4… Minister removal being removed because it had no power, instead of being strengthened is something I don’t particularly agree with, but since I’ve been sitting on a Recall Act idea for months anyway, we’ll see that as a separate issue. I’d just like to note it down.

5… You say “establish, name, and define offices” but then “organize departments” and “establish appropriate Ministries”. I would standardize one word. I would also make that word Ministries, since that’s our brand and has been for years.

6… You say the Delegate can “establish, name, and define offices; appoint Citizens to serve in said offices; organize departments; prohibit chosen Citizens from joiningthe Executive Government.” (ftr, missing space between joining and the) in 2.2 but then “The Delegate shall establish appropriate Ministries and appoint Citizens to serve as Ministers to coordinate the efforts of the Executive Government.” There is significant redundancy here.

7… “The Delegate shall, but is not limited to” is not grammatically correct with the form of the leading verbs in the list, I’d suggest “The Delegate shall:” and then maybe at the end or in a new clause, say “The enumeration of these duties of the Delegate shall not be construed to preclude others.” Ninth Amendment style.

8… I don’t like the wording of “Run cultural efforts” and “Run educational efforts and “Runmilitary efforts” (ftr, another missing space). I’d suggest “Preserve regional culture”, “Oversee educational affairs” and “Lead the military”. Really, I’d prefer “Serve as Commander-in-Chief of the military”, but too American, perhaps. Again with g, “Increase engagement in regional matters” sounds better to me with affairs instead of matters. 4.5 also mentions “run military efforts”, for the record.

9… What does “Lead efforts of the Executive Government” even mean? It is already established that the Delegate leads the Executive branch. Saying it again is unnecessary, and feels out of place with the other items on the list.

10… Idk how I feel about “Protect free speech in news, culture, and education”. Maybe specify “political free speech”. Also, as an aside, this clause, and the enumeration of duties, implies a more rigid structure than my act ever did. I only said “do something regional”, “do foreign affairs”, “do the university”, and “do epsa”. You’re saying “do culture, do news, do education, do military, do engagement, do military, do WA”. There is much less flexibility in that, not to mention how it kinda influences the reader into February 2023’s idea of the government by using the terms and only listing the things that we, right now, believe should exist. I don’t like that subconscious influence and, while I don’t really care about being too rigid, I know most folks don’t like it, and you’re trying to not do it, so probably bad within the context.

11… In 4.3.B “Grieving” should be “Griefing”. “Grieving” is mourning a loved one. “Griefing” is the video game term for destruction.

12… 4.3.F. Nope. I tried that wording. Nobody liked it. It’s too OOC for an IC law. It also excludes transphobia, but that’s not the point.

13… 4.1 says “In cases undefined by this section, Section III shall apply to the EPSA.” I’m not sure what this means. Section III is about what the Delegate does. Why does it apply to the EPSA?

14… “Per the Delegate’s outline” is worded weird to me. Maybe “per the Delegate’s plans/goals/visions/direction”? (I didn’t want to write out the whole phrase four times so there/s some backslash action for ya.

15… 4.6 says the OO establishes the emblem, giving the Delegate no control. I’d mention the Delegate can overrule the OO on everything somewhere here. Maybe in 4.1 or something.

16… 4.8 is too strictly worded, and is redundant with the Treason Act anyway. By this wording, for example, if I learn Osiris has tagged Region A in EPSA chats, I can’t share it. I also couldn’t share this hilarious dispatch that everyone should upvote or the time Dane, Atlae, one or two other people, and I did a tag and I wrote a Piano Man parody. Neither of these silly goofy funny haha moments violate opsec. And in the case of the previous, the OO specifically gave my leave to post. That wouldn’t be possible under 4.8. I think the intention is to replace “may not disclose confidential information that had been gained through EPSA access” but the operative word here is “confidential” and it is important to specify that it means during the course of the opposing operation. Also, for the record, the wording of the first part of 4.8 says “soldier of the EPSA may”. I think it should be “soldiers” but, if not, it should be “a soldier”.

17… Idk about excising legalese. It’s one of the ways Magisters have fun and explore their writing abilities. Kinda sad to see it go. I also don’t think “smaller law” is necessarily “better law”. Upon seeing you say their length was cut in half, my first thought was “What was slashed that could be helpful”, not “I’m glad the fluff is gone”.

18… Speaking of what was slashed that could be helpful: My entire Modern Education Amendment was undone. Nothing about a code of decorum or University publications is in here. Any Delegate, therefore, can decide “No more posting things in UTEP”. While that may be the intention, I don’t like it. The entire point of that amendment was to add more to the law so that our modern university had more support from the law.

19… You removed the definition of griefing. I note that this is not a real word, and thus the removal of the definition makes the law unclear and practically unenforceable, unless the Court stretches it. It’s too important for needing a stretch to function IMO.

20… Treaty military obligations and war declarations are no longer binding to the EPSA. I’d prefer if they were.

It’s not that I don’t like this idea, it’s that I think this implementation of it needs a lot of work to do what’s necessary/desired.

I’d only be for this if they were designated as such by an independent body before operations commenced.