[DRAFT] Friendship Act

Ecclesia Drafts
1

Author’s Note:
The Constitutional amendment will be voted on separately (as it requires 2/3 support). The seperate bill can be found here: https://discourse.carcassonne.site/t/draft-ecclesia-approval-of-treaties/69

Friendship Act

Chapter 1: Definitions

  1. A treaty shall be defined as any binding agreement with a foreign region or organization.
  2. Embassies shall refer only to the embassies found on the region’s World Factbook Entry.

Chapter 2: Treaties

  1. Treaties shall by treated with the same force as any law passed by the Ecclesia.
    1. Should a part or whole of a treaty contradict regional Law or the Constitution, all parts of the treaty in violation shall be null and void.
    2. Should a part or whole of a treaty contradict another treaty, all parts of the text most recently approved by the Ecclesia in violation shall be null and void.
  2. The Minister-President must inform the Ecclesia of all ongoing treaty negotiations.
    1. The Ecclesia may pass resolutions to provide advice to the Minister-President over the course of negotiations.
    2. The Ecclesia may compel the Minister-President, by majority vote lasting 24 hours, to provide information regarding the status and aims of such negotiations.
  3. When presenting a treaty for approval by the Ecclesia, the Minister-President must provide complete and truthful information on the aims, effects, and negotiations of such a treaty.
    1. The Ecclesia may, by majority vote lasting 24 hours, ask questions or otherwise compel the Minister-President to provide further information regarding anything related to the treaty.

Chapter 3: Embassies

  1. The Ecclesia may construct embassies with other regions by majority vote.
    2. No Regional Officer may propose, accept, or withdraw embassies without approval from the Ecclesia.
  2. The order of embassies on the World Factbook Entry may be determined by Act of the Ecclesia.
    1. Unless ordered by Act, the Monarch and Minister-President may determine the order of embassies as they see fit.

Chapter 4: Hostile Regions

  1. The Citizen-Speaker shall maintain an official list of Hostile Regions.
    1. This list shall be publicly available to all citizens.
    2. This list shall include names of regions as well as reasoning for their being on the list.
  2. The Minister-President may propose changes to the list, including adding/removing regions or changing reasonings.
    1. To take effect, these changes must by approved by a majority of at least 60% of voting citizens.
    2. All regions tagged “Fascist” are to be considered hostile by default.
  3. Members of Hostile Regions shall not be permitted to gain citizenship of Carcassonne.
    1. Former members of a hostile region must first obtain permission from the Senate.
  4. It shall be a crime for a Citizen of Carcassonne to be a member of a Hostile Region.
    1. This is not retroactive: existing dual-members of Carcassonne and a Hostile Region shall not be considered to be guilty of a crime when a region is added to the List.
  5. The Grand Army of Carcassonne is authorized and encouraged to take military action against Hostile Regions.
2

What is the purpose of codifying all these different laws into one statute? Except for all being related to foreign affairs, they are all quite different from another.

I am opposed to c. 2. In particular, there is no reason for the Ecclesia to be informed of ongoing treaty negotiations. Indeed, sometimes, announcing that a treaty is under negotiation invites interference by foreign actors. For diplomatic talks to succeed, it is essential that their confiddentiality be respected.

There is no reason that embassies need to be decided by the Ecclesia. That is sheer micromanagement of the executive. I would prefer to leave the matter of on-site embassies unregulated by statute.

3

I have separated the Constitutional amendment into a separate as it has a different requirement to pass. The other stuff is pretty similar imo (treaties and embassies are in essence the same, and the hostile regions list is also related), but if it’d help I could split each chapter into different bills.

How so? If the Ecclesia is to give informed consent and advice to the MP, it needs to know what’s going on. As for foreign interference, I don’t really see how that would be relevant. If foreigners don’t like the treaty under negotation, they won’t like the treaty after it goes into force. So it wouldn’t really change anything (and this all assumes that foreigners will gain access to the Ecclesia’s procedings in the first place).

Not really? Embassies are relatively infrequent and not particularly time-sensitive, so are ideal for the Ecclesia. They also represent an extension of friendship between regions, something the Ecclesia should have input on. It’s not really micromanagement, and has basically no negative consequence (if the other region can’t wait a week to get a response, they probably won’t be good partners) :stuck_out_tongue: