A Gubernatorial NSW Constitution v0.2

An update to the prior gubernatorial NSW constitution . Includes removal of the Governor and what occurs in a vacancy. Also formalises succession from the Speaker and requires an immediate election to replace the Governor. Avo's Bill of Rights have been included. Tampering with the electoral system is now an out on the ear offence too.

It is still a pretty terse constitution. Thanks to Alan and Felix for their suggestions.

Executive

The executive shall, subject to the provisions in this constitution, have the power to execute the laws of the Legislative.

Executive power shall be vested in the Governor, who shall be elected by electors, and hold office for the term of four years with a maximum of two terms.

Judges, ministers and officials of the executive shall be appointed by the Governor upon the advice and consent of the Legislature. No judge, minister or official may concurrently be a member of the executive and another branch of government. Ministers and officials of the executive shall hold office during the Governor's pleasure.

The Governor, upon a resolution adopted with a supporting vote of two-thirds of the Legislative's members, may be removed on the grounds of; a serious violation of the constitution or the law; serious misconduct; or the inability to perform the function of office.

In the event of the Governor's vacancy, the Speaker shall resign from the Legislative and resume the caretaker position of Governor until an election can be held.

The Governor may refuse assent on a bill through veto; by returning the bill to the Legislature with written objection.

Legislative

The Legislature, as a unicameral body, shall, subject to the provisions in this constitution, have power to make laws for peace, welfare and good government of New South Wales.

Every bill shall be presented to the Governor after passage through the Legislature with a majority. Bills shall become an act of legislature when assented to by the Governor; unless the bill is vetoed, in which case, upon a supporting vote of two-thirds of the Legislative's members, the bill shall become an act of legislature.

There shall be a session of the Legislature at the minimum of once in every calendar year such that a period of twelve months is the maximum between sessions.

The Legislature shall be composed of members from electorates where each electorate contains three members.

Members of the legislature shall hold their office for the term of two years and may serve a maximum of twelve terms.

Members may resign as a member of the Legislative by hand-written memorandum to the Speaker. Upon receipt of resignation by the Speaker, the seat of the member shall be vacant.

Upon a vacancy in the Legislature the next candidate in the vacant electorate, who is not currently a member, who has the highest number of votes from the electorate shall become a member of the Legislature.

The Speaker shall be the presiding officer of the Legislature; and shall be elected by the Legislature, through a secret ballot, upon the first assembly after an election. The Speaker shall be recognized as the Legislature's independent and impartial representative. The Speaker shall preside at all meetings of the Legislature.

Judicature

The highest court is the Supreme Court which has the sole judicial authority to interpret this constitution. The relative status of any other court of New South Wales is to be determined by legislation.

The Chief Justice shall be the office of the Master of the Supreme Court.

The Chief Justice shall issue writs for election on the appropriate dates for the Executive and Legislature.

Disqualification

A Governor, Legislator or Chief Justice is disqualified from serving if: the person is concurrently a member of more than one branch of government; the person directly, or indirectly, himself, or by any person whatsoever in trust for him or for his use or benefit or on his account, undertakes, executes, holds, or enjoys in the whole or in part any contract or agreement for or on account of the Public Service of New South Wales; the person is bankrupt; convicted of an infamous crime carrying a term of greater than ten years; or convicted of tampering with the electoral system.

Local Government

The local governments in New South Wales shall make their own charters and constitutions in order to manage their affairs.

Amendment

An amendment to the constitution is passed if; a majority of electors voting approves; two-thirds of the Legislative's members approve; and the amendment has the signature of the Governor.

Exclusions

Exclusions from executive force and legislative intrusion cannot be reduced or suspended; by referendum; by emergency; or declaration of war. The Executive shall execute no law; the Legislative shall make no law; and the Judicature shall endorse no law; that:

    deprives an individual of life; or limits or deprives an individual's; liberty to express their beliefs, opinions or lifestyle; liberty of movement; liberty of association; or liberty of peaceful assembly or protest.

    detains an individual indefinitely without charge; limits or removes an individuals right to have counsel with them upon arrest or questioning; limits or removes an individuals right to a writ of habeous corpus upon detention; back-dates punitive measures for an offence; permits an individual to be detained for longer than six months without trial or resolution; enabling an individual to be tried for an offence more than once.

    limits or removes an individual's right to refuse law enforcement access to their property, or permission to search their person and property, unless there is a warrant issued to search specific property for evidence of a specific crime; limits or removes an individuals choice to divulge no information other than their identity, verbally, when under suspicion from law enforcement for a specific crime.

    limits, reduces or removes an individual's right to own property; deprives the individual of property, or devalues an individual's property without fair exchange or consent.

    on the basis of race, age, gender, sexual preference, wealth, health, religion, associations or prior criminal record; discriminates against an individual; limits or removes equal treatment under the law for an individual; limits or removes access to government services for an individual.

    disenfranchises an elector; denies an elector representation; denies an elector the ability to run for election; reduces or removes an individual the ability to petition their representatives for a redress of grievances.

    abolishes the secret ballot; criminalises, or outlaws a political party; removes access to the Public Service for parties with elected parliamentary members.

The Exclusions section would not be necessary if there was a federal bill of rights. The other thing I added was veto and veto override.

Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments
  • Alan . # .
    executive succession: I don\'t think the speaker is a good choice as the acting governor, especially if you require resignation. Strangely enough it was written up in today\'s Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/02/AR2007030201141.html .
    I would specify a time limit for a new gubernatorial election. The \'until a new election can be held\' language is what allowed a VP to declare himself (probably illegally and almost certainly contrary to what was intended) not acting, but permanent, president in the US. A better choice for a shot-term stopgap official would be the chief justice, or perhaps just the cabinet in orer of seniority.

    Speakers resign in the US only because, as the articles says, their succession act is extremely dubious in constitutional terms because it allows a member of congress to become president. To avoid any doubt the speaker has to resign his seat.
  • cam . # .
    I agree with Truman: from that article it seems, I think the Speaker has greater confidence because they are an elected position, that has the confidence of their electorate and the majority of the House. I am not prepared to accept the party argument - where the House may be a majority of a different party to the executive - especially when the Cabinet is appointed, as it would be in this constitution. Which is why I do not like the idea of cabinet succession or a chief justice. I think the Speaker is the most democratic choice. Since I made it so there is a gubernatorial bi-election (?) on your suggestion, I think the Speaker can be tolerated for a short period after resigning from the House.

    Good point on setting a time limit on the election to stop usurpation. What is reasonable, administratively, but also restrictive enough to stop an executive state of emergency/exception like what Bangladesh is undergoing. 7 days? 14 days?

    cam
  • cam . # .
    The other downside of the Speaker being elevated: is that it can cause turmoil in the House at a time when you want political stability and legislative strength. The Speaker has to be elected from the House in that constitution. Parties cannot always be guaranteed to act in national, stable or common weal.

    cam
  • Alan . # .
    the Pelosi administration: Let\'s imagine that both Bush and Cheney leave office in the near unexpectedly for whatever reason. You would not catch me weeping. However, President Pelosi would be left with an impossible situation, A divided America would then have to face a crisis of legitimacy in which the government changed hands without an election. Although Pelosi is elected as representative and as speaker she has only ever faced election in her own district and was relatively unknown until she became speaker.

    BTW, since you are using the speaker only as a stopgap, what not simply provide that the speaker cannot vote or preside in the Legislature while acting as governor? There is really no reason for the forced resignation, especially for such a short time as interim governor.

    IN France, where the president of the senate becomes interim president of the republic, he happily goes back to the senate as soon as soon a s a new presidential election is copulated.
  • cam . # .
    Cool: That is a probably a better arrangement while still keeping the confidence of the house and having a democratically elected representative. I will do a v0.3 without the forced resignation and a time limit on the transition to the next election.

    cam
  • cam . # .
    Found the relevant section: in the French Constitution :

    Should the Presidency of the Republic fall vacant for any reason whatsoever, or should the Constitutional Council on a reference from the Government rule by an absolute majority of its members that the President of the Republic is incapacitated, the duties of the President of the Republic, with the exception of those specified in articles 11 and 12, shall be temporarily exercised by the President of the Senate or, if the latter is in turn incapacitated, by the Government.

    In the case of a vacancy, or where the incapacity of the President is declared permanent by the Constitutional Council, the ballot for the election of the new President shall, except in the event of a finding by the Constitutional Council of force majeure, be held not less than twenty days and not more than thirty-five days after the beginning of the vacancy or the declaration that the incapacity is permanent.

    It also suggests a window of twenty to thirty-five days for the elections to be held in. It is interesting that the French Constitution allows for temporary and permanent vacancy.

    cam
  • Alan . # .
    ouch: I really need to watch my spell-checker more carefully. You\'ve inspired to produce my own NSW constitution, but without my expansive bill of rights or too much playing around. The language of the NSW constitution is horrendous.

    You should also consider providing:

    who has the right to vote

    how the governor is elected (preferential voting is the obvious choice)

    how the legislature is elected (the 3 member districts are not ideal for proportional representation)

    how distributions are done
  • cam . # .
    Since it is a state constitution: I want to leave enough room for statutorial innovation within the character of the constitution. So the constitution describes the framework but allows permutations outside of the constitution but within the character. So I don\'t want to limit how the Governor is elected, just demand the Governor be elected, so there leaves some room for innovation.

    On who has the right to vote, since this is a conservative constitution, I have left that to an electoral act, where hopefully the act catches up to universal political equality which I think is necessary for good republican governance. IIRC in the CFC I made the defn of an elector anyone above the age of reason under the jurisdiction of the government.

    On the three reps per district, I should mimic the Tasmanian electoral structure exactly, since that is what I want and make it five members per district.

    cam
  • Alan . # .
    minimal rights: The argument for including the right to vote is that it is the people. not their representatives, who should determine who can vote. The same applies to the method of voting. Now, it\'s impossible to imagine that a governor would not be elected by IRV, but again, it\'s an invitation to political manipulation to allow parliament to mess about with that process.

    Once can imagine a governor with who enjoyed a relative, but not absolute majority, in the electorate being very anxious to ensure that preferences do not come into play or that they do not need to face a runoff. It\'s even possible to imagine someone with a track record like Nick Minchin arguing for an electoral college or something equally bizarre.*

    It\'s a short step from there to argue that IRV is a fundamental right that ensures that everyone in the electorate has an opportunity to have their vote counted, not just those who vote for the two leading candidates.

    *Minchin gave us the current felony disfranchisement in the federal act and early closure of the rolls. His original cabinet submission on the republic referendum contained 10 questions and the republican option would have been to vote no to the first 9 questions and yes and to the last question.
  • cam . # .
    I am not so glued on to preferential voting: In certain instances, such as single member districts, I think first past the post is better in stopping a duopoly. Preference voting in the Federal House as effectively made it a non-pluralistic body.

    I am also aware that every electoral change has been to try and game the system so that the current incumbent maintains/keeps their majority (Chifley and the Senate for instance) but they have pretty much backfired (Labor has never had a majority in the Senate since). IIRC only Steele Hall has made an electoral change for altruistic reasons knowing that it would cost him his government.

    I know the current mob in government have used their ideology of \'civic obligation\' to disenfranchise citizens. But that has been covered in the excelusions which make it unconsitutional to disenfranchise an elector. There comes a point where I dont want to load the constitution with so much information/regulation such that it loses its character. Since I have made it only changeable by amendments, it will be slow and hard to change, much more so than if it was a statutory document as most of the current NSW Constitution is, so I dont want to limit innovation outside of the constitution as long as the body retains its constitutional character.

    That will mean some not cool stuff will happen - politicians do tend to be party-machine selfish - but it will allow for any future electoral technology changes to be tried/used/adapted.

    cam