The Westminster system of the Executive Cabinet being embedded in Parliament grew from the need to route executive power away from the monarch while leaving the King with ceremonial authority. This is in contrast to the Washington system which separated the Executive entirely from Congress. The Westminster system, as practiced in Britain, also contains the upper house as a left over from the period when the King-Lord-Commons form of political philosophy dominated. Wentworth proposed this model for NSW when the colony was seeking self-government. Deniehy famously pilloried this illiberal model of government. Reform for the House of Lords in Britain is a common form of discussion, a new think-tank and advocacy group for a modern House of Lords has recently been formed, the Lords Reform Institute. They are proposing a sortitionist model.
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The first biannual
CFC/NaCoWriMo fun challenge
brought forth four constitutions in various states of completion. Pretty good effort for a first run. We got three that included sortition, three that were parliamentary based and one that separated out the Executive. Lots of diversity there.
The time has come to cast your vote for the constitution you favoured! Poll inside.
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We would be a republic now if the elite and the people could agree on a way to appoint the president. The polls consistently show that the Australian people wish to elect the president. Repeated statements by the government and opposition show the elite rejects the idea of popular election.
Looking for a way to resolves this, I thought about British Columbia, Ontario and the Netherlands. All of them are using Citizens Assemblies, randomly elected, to deal with electoral reform.
My idea is to elect a ceremonial president by the same process. Chapter 4 is part of a complete constitution which is still a work in progress. So is the explanatory memo, but that's another story.
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A sketch of a new Queensland constitution. The main change is the revival of the Legislative Council (Upper House) as a jury selected by lot from the population at large. The constitution is divided into two elements, a static constitution changeable only by popular referendum, and a dynamic constitution changeable by a supermajority of both houses of parliament.
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My entry into the Constitution Fun Challenge. It has three separate branches and attempts to divide any power structure under a principle of elected, specialist and sortitionist.
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In a few hours it will be June 1st, which is the closing date for the Constitution Fun Challenge (NaCoWriMo). There will be a week for the different constitutions to be published on SSR, then I will post a wrap up with a poll.
Don't worry if your constitution is not finished (mine isn't) post it anyway, as we will do another CFC later in the year and you can continue on/revise your constitution.
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Remember folks, end of May is the deadline for the
Constitution Fun Challenge
slash NaCoWriMo.
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A common cry is that the judicial, rather than interpreting the constitution, is activist and making judgements that are more legislative than juridical. The judicial is treated as a specialist position and given tenure to hide it away from political or populist influence. Unfortunately the judicial often takes matters into its own interpretive hands and expands the power of those that appoint them.
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Another site that many of us frequent has held MFCs (music fun challenge) and WFCs (writing fun challenge). The equivalent in the political sphere is constitution writing. It is also an area that Australia has not excelled at. So in the interests of increasing Australian constitution writing skills, South Sea Republic is holding an informal and friendly competition to write a constitution, or part of a constitution.
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