1st Parliament of South America

[Barnes]

Order! I do usually overlook interjections from the gallery, but I remind Mr. Afleitch that he should take his matter directly to the Prime Minister's office.  No visitor is allowed to participate in any type of debate or proceedings within the House.

[Cranberry]

I believe this is the place (?) to inform you, Mr. Speaker, that the National Executive of the Socialist Party has revoked Mrs. Crabcake's mandate; with the next ranking member without representation in parliament (Mr. Cranberry) taking the seat.

x Cranberry
Party Leader

[Hifly]

No, I am taking the seat as the next person on the Party List. You can't edit the party list used at the last election to your liking. If Crabcake is removed from parliament, and it is not the responsibility of the Socialist Party executive to do this, then it falls on me to take his seat.

[Blair]

Mr Speaker it is my understanding that parties cannot remove honourable members from being sitting members of parliament

[Cranberry]

Mr. Speaker,

adressing the two gentlemen's concerns, since there is no precedent available for this peculiar case, it is up to us to set precedent. The party executive decided in a majority decision that the honourable member Crabcake's mandate - gained through election on the party list - would be revoked and that the mandate would be filled by the next person on the current party list. Thus, it is to our understanding that Crabcake is to be succeded by myself.

[Barnes]

Order, order! I cannot address this issue for the moment but I cannot allow the floor to be used for a private debate between two persons neither of whom are as yet seated by me as a Member of Parliament.

[Oakvale]

Mr. Speaker,

This is a highly unusual set of circumstances, but given that the Socialist Party has passed a motion declaring him inactive and that he has made no appearance in this house, the government has no particular objection to revoking Mr. CrabCake's mandate and replacing him with the relevant candidate on the party list. This may be clarified in statute at a later date.

I do however think it is premature for Mr. Cranberry to be already calling himself an honorable member without any indication of his appointment from your good self.

[Cranberry]

I do however think it is premature for Mr. Cranberry to be already calling himself an honorable member without any indication of his appointment from your good self.

For lack of precedent, I assumed the seating would be automatic. I apologise if I was too fast on this, but clarification from the Speaker would be very appreciated.

May I furthermore wonder why the Mr. Speaker cannot address this issue for the moment?

[Barnes]

I was having the designers in to remodel my en suite bathroom in my private quarters. (Actually I had to get ready for class!)

This is indeed highly unusual and I suppose however par for the course at the beginning of any state. Seeing as this arrangement has the support of both the Government and the Opposition, I feel that there is a strong enough degree of support to proceed.

I will declare that Crabcake has vacated her seat and that said seat has been filled by the Socialist Party with Mr. Cranberry.

I strongly encourage the Government to pursue legislation in the near future to clarify this situation; I further note that until that time I will only act in the way that I have here if both the Government and the Opposition are in agreement to all the particulars.

[Cranberry]

I shall hope you used unionised workers for this task, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you for your swift, and I believe fair ruling!

[Cranberry]

Mr. Speaker, it seems we once again need your judgement.

With the defection of Murica, MP, to the Worker's Party, we have again reached a situation with no available precedent. The question being poised now is obviously whether the seat currently occupied by Mr. Murica can be considered as a personal or as a party mandate, whether Mr. Murica can keep it as member of the Worker's Party, or whether the seat was being vacated by him the moment he left the Socialist Party, and is now up to be filled by the next ranking member (that is Mr. Hifly).

In name of the Opposition of this parliament, I speak in our opinion that the latter is the case. Voters clearly voted for a party, and not an individual candidate - thus, in order to best represent the voters will, mandates should be considered as belonging to the political party or list, and not the individual gaining it through participation in said list. This view is, in my opinion, further supported by the judgement in the previous case regarding Mrs. Crabcake's seat, when it was supported by both government and opposition that the seat belonged to the party, and the party had a right to expel a member from parliamentary representation and fill the vacant seat with the next member on the party list.

[Blair]

We're in dangerous grounds if parties are able to manipulate parliamentary seats

[Murica!]

Mr. Speaker, it seems we once again need your judgement.

With the defection of Murica, MP, to the Worker's Party, we have again reached a situation with no available precedent. The question being poised now is obviously whether the seat currently occupied by Mr. Murica can be considered as a personal or as a party mandate, whether Mr. Murica can keep it as member of the Worker's Party, or whether the seat was being vacated by him the moment he left the Socialist Party, and is now up to be filled by the next ranking member (that is Mr. Hifly).

In name of the Opposition of this parliament, I speak in our opinion that the latter is the case. Voters clearly voted for a party, and not an individual candidate - thus, in order to best represent the voters will, mandates should be considered as belonging to the political party or list, and not the individual gaining it through participation in said list. This view is, in my opinion, further supported by the judgement in the previous case regarding Mrs. Crabcake's seat, when it was supported by both government and opposition that the seat belonged to the party, and the party had a right to expel a member from parliamentary representation and fill the vacant seat with the next member on the party list.

Than what point is it to have people as MPs? If parties control the seats than the members of parliament are useless, and you may as well just let Parties have a certain number of votes rather than seats in parliament.

[Barnes]

Order, order!

I will deal with this matter very quickly and I do not wish for the proceedings of this House to fall into disarray.  I have already suggested that there needs to be a quick enactment of legislation on this matter, and I will ensure that that is achieved.

The decision to declare Crabcake's seat was done with the consent of both the Government and the Opposition and took into account a particularly egregious set of circumstances where the former Member had not posted at all in any business of this Parliament since it first met on August 20 - that is a period of three full weeks from this date. 

Mr. Murica has the full right to change his party affiliation within the House and I will not declare his seat vacant for two reasons:
1. In my previous ruling I stated that until appropriate legislation is enacted, I would not declare a seat vacant.  The Government has not consented to such a course of action; furthermore, now that Mr. Murica is a member of the Workers Party I could not possibly allow for a member of a smaller party in the House to be removed without said party's consent as well.

2. Secondly, the decision to remove Crabcake as I said was made under particularly egregious circumstances where the former Member had not participated in any proceedings of the House -- or indeed the entire Mock Parliament sub-forum -- for three weeks!  Mr. Murica on the other had has been an extremely active Member of this House and such a line of thinking as to why his seat should be vacated could not possibly apply.

Seeing the issues that have become associated with this matter, I am loathe to allow any further attempts to remove Members until there is statute in place.

I inform the House that I will only entertain such a motion only if my proscribed conditions have been met - I will have not patience for attempts to derail proceedings by continuing objections on this matter.

[Barnes]

I present to the House an updated membership list:

Members of Parliament -- As at September 10, 2015
Potus2036 (CON)
Simfan34 (CON)
Oakvale (CON)
Rproyor03 (CON)
Dereich (CON)
Cassius (CON)
Goldwater (CON)
Spamage (CON)
Cranberry (SOC) ¹
Al Widdershins (SOC)
Politics Junkie (SOC)
Xahar (SOC)
Talleyrand (SOC LIB)
Sjoyce (SOC LIB)
Barnes (SOC LIB)
Blair (SOC LIB)
Vega (SOC LIB)
Turkisblau (WRK)
TNF (WRK)
Murica (WRK) ²
ChairmanSanchez (PON)

¹ Cranberry replaced Crabcake whose seat was declared vacant on September 10, 2015
² Murica switched from the Socialist Party to the Workers Party on September 10, 2015

[Cranberry]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your swift clarification. I cannot say I agree with your judgement, but I respect it, and I am grateful for your consideration on the matter.

[Barnes]

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his statement.  He has every right to state his disagreements with my ruling, as does any Member, but I thank him for stating so clearly that he will respect it.

[Oakvale]

Mr. Speaker,

I have today introduced the Resolving Procedural Issues Act to clarify some of the remaining issues surrounding the replacement of Members. I thank the members of the Opposition for raising some of these important concerns, but the government believes that their proposed solution was inappropriate, not least because we believed the restriction were too narrow. I hope this legislation can be brought to a vote speedily.

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[Barnes]

First Reading

Seeing as the Minister for Justice has given his first reading speech, I will ask is if there is a second.

[Barnes]

Title: Resolving Procedural Issues Act
Status: Division on Amendments
Sponsor: Mr. Oakvale (Minister for Justice)
Seconder: Mr. Simfan (Minister for Infrastructure and Transport)
Proposed Amendments:
No. 1 by Mr. Cranberry (Leader of the Opposition)

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[Simfan34]

I will second the motion.

[Barnes]

Amendment Stage

Members now have twenty-four hours to propose any amendments to the bill.  The usual appropriation of amendments applies; that is:

The Socialist Party: No more than two
The Workers Party: No more than one
The Pioneers: No more than one

[Cranberry]

Mr. Speaker,

in name of the Official Opposition I would like to introduce the following amendment.

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Since party list composition could eventually change during a parliamentary term (as seen in the most recent precedent), it is the Official Opposition's belief that this change should be represented in the eventual case of a resignation / expulsion from parliament.

[Oakvale]

Mr. Speaker,

I understand the reasoning of the Leader of the Opposition, but it's my belief that we should try to avoid whenever possible parties "parachuting in" candidates when the people voted on an open list of candidates. It's not difficult to imagine a situation whereby a party runs a list of popular candidates and in the event of a resignation promptly fills the position with a Member more acceptable to the party leadership but with less of a mandate from the public.

[Cranberry]

Mr. Speaker,

to address the honourable members concern:
It still is the party the people elect, not the individual members on the party list; and as long as that is true, it is my belief that the party should be best represented in parliament - and best representation is in our belief the current version of a party list, not the one passed at times even ten weeks before. Imagine a member of the party list has switched party registration in the meantime - since he still is on the party list from at the time of the election, the seat would have to be vested unto this gentleman, and thus to a completely different party.