The Romanoffian Recallby mcmasterdonia, Political Reporter
The North Pacific was fortunate to take part in two of its favourite pastimes recently - court drama and a recall motion. This came after a tumultuous week in court, where Chief Justice Romanoffia was presiding over a criminal trial against Durkadurkiranistan. During the trial, Romanoffia failed to maintain order in the courtroom, accusing the defence counsel of badgering and trolling, and varyingly commenting against criminal legislation, the judicial system in general, and forum administration for not invervening. This culminated in Romanoffia dismissing all charges with prejudice, in a manner that was widely regarded as a fit of rage and inappropriate conduct for a judge.
Prior to the case dismissal, Romanoffia's behaviour during the trial had not gone unnoticed. Abbey Anumia, herself a former attorney general and chief justice, had introduced a proposal to recall Romanoffia from office, citing previous instances of inappropriate behavior and actions demonstrating insufficient knowledge of the regional law. This proposal had laid dormant for a couple of days and it appeared that the Regional Assembly (RA) members would not be taking further action to remove Romanoffia from office. In the meantime, and while the trial was ongoing, senior members of the region had reached out to Romanoffia in private, in an attempt to restore calm and advise caution and sensibility. This advice, however, appeared to have had no effect.
The situation changed as soon as Romanoffia dismissed the case: the recall of Romanoffia became the most actively debated topic in the RA. Delegate r3naissanc3r advised Romanoffia to resign, in order to allow the court to return to its duties and to give the chief justice a graceful exit from his position in the Court. Romanoffia refused to do so, leading the delegate to express his support for the motion for recall. Commentary among other members was also strongly in support of the recall, with Flemingovia calling it "a no-brainer".
When the motion was moved to vote, preliminary voting indicated that the motion would be successful. While the votes were still coming in, however, Romanoffia decided to resign from his position. Before resigning, he amended his earlier decision and changed the dismissal of charges to be without prejudice, providing the opportunity for another future indictment against defendant Durkadurkiranistan. SillyString has replaced Romanoffia as chief justice, and Kiwi was elected in a special election to fill the vacant spot on the bench.
North Pacific Army Intensifies Workoutby Kiwi, Military Correspondent
Following the general election of May, Delegate r3naissanc3r stated that the North Pacific Army (NPA) will continue to be a military operating outside the raider/defender dichotomy, maintaining capability to conduct both defensive and offensive operations, and acting in whatever capacity is required to best serve the regional interests. Towards this end, the delegate announced an agenda of frequent training operations, with an emphasis on joint exercises with allied militaries, increased military recruitment, and more effective military command. To implement this agenda, r3naissanc3r appointed Gladio as Minister of Defense. This appointment came as no surprise, following Gladio's service as Deputy Minister of Defense in the previous government and in what was widely viewed as a successful term.
During Gladio's first month in office, the NPA has already executed a plurality of training missions. Jointly with the East Pacific Sovereign Army (EPSA), the NPA captured and held Warzone Asia, in an operation that was shortly followed by the ratification of the North-East Pacific Security Treaty. Warzones are particularly attractive for training exercises, as the NPA's governing doctrine permits the ejection and banning of nations in warzones. The NPA and EPSA also unsuccessfully attempted to liberate the region Free Reynolds, which was being occupied by the group Sicarius.
The NPA additionally joined forces with the Europeian Republican Navy, to conduct training exercises in Former United States and Warzone Africa. While both operations were foiled by the Rejected Realms Army, they provided valuable training experience for NPA members. Finally, the NPA on its own successfully completed training missions in Warzone Airspace and The Cold War Relics. In all of these operations, the NPA has consistently provided more than five updater and more than ten reinforcement units, demonstrating its military prowess and strong operational capability. The positive results of the training program have also been seen in the recent NPA-led operation against Nazi Europe, the first deployment of the NPA this term that was not a training exercise.
Gladio has further undertaken an extensive revamp of the ranking and command structure of the NPA, with the primary objectives being simplification and flexibility. On the recruitment side, Gladio has initiated a large-scale telegramming campaign, in order to tap the vast pool of World Assembly nations in The North Pacific for recruits. Along with other recruitment initiatives run by the government, this has already resulted in 15 new privates joining the NPA.
First Impressionsby PaulWallLibertarian42, Game-side Reporter
First impressions are very important and they may set the tone for future interaction. The Regional Message Board (RMB) and the engagement of the delegate are both important factors in creating a positive first impression for new nations.
During the recent election for delegate, a few Regional Assembly members, most notably Alunya, expressed concerns about the candidates' activity on the RMB. All candidates promised that their activity would improve significantly following their election.
A week after the election, when asked about Delegate r3naissanc3r's activity on the RMB, Alunya stated the following: "It's still early in HMS Unicorn's administration, so it may be a bit unfair to comment on the game-side approach. The good thing is that there is an outreach effort on the regional message board and that the game-side is not being ignored."
Alunya went on to comment on the need for changes to the regional forum, to help retain new nations that register there. "We don't recruit, so retention ought to be our goal," Alunya said. "Make friends and then suggest the off-site forum when it is a little easier for a newcomer to navigate. And when it is ready, then a marketing blitz for the "New and Improved" forum would be appropriate."
The North Pacific has traditionally placed a strong emphasis on the welcoming and integration of newcomers to the region. This is in part reflected on the significantly larger World Assembly (WA) population TNP has compared to other game-created regions, and the comparatively large base of forum citizens that also have WA nations in the region.
Delegate r3naissanc3r has rolled out ambitions plans for his Ministry of Home Affairs, to build and expand upon the already existing infrastructure. Multi-layered telegram campaigns, both automated and manual, have been implemented, and the RMB frequently features posts highlighting government activities. On the forum-side, the introductory section has been revamped to be easier to navigate, and with the creation of Executive Staff new members are presented with a wealth of job opportunities as soon as they join. Several other initiatives are in the works, but in the meantime these changes have already resulted in a surge in the number of newcomers: since the beginning of the term, the regional forum has been receiving an average of four new members per day, while more than 40 Regional Assembly applications have been submitted.
Hypercorrectionby SillyString, Legislative Reporter
Alunya recently introduced a modest proposal to the Regional Assembly (RA). After noticing that the Legal Code referred, varyingly, to a Minister for Defence, a Minister of Defence, and a Minister of Defense, Alunya proposed replacing all references with "Minister for Defence".
The bill resulted in an RA argument between proponents of the American and British spellings, which led a frustrated Alunya to withdraw it. It was then reintroduced nearly verbatim by Democratic Donkeys, while two further alternatives were suggested. The first, from Crushing Our Enemies, proposed holding simultaneous votes on all possible title variants. The second, from r3naissanc3r, proposed replacing all titles with generic references to an executive officer. The RA eventually rejected Democratic Donkeys' bill and passed r3naissanc3r's.
This is not the first legislative treble to occur - the previous one took place barely a month ago, and also dealt with a minor corrective issue. After it was discovered that a previous amendment had left two successive legal clauses numbered the same, a debate erupted on how to best handle similar issues in the future. The main point of contention was ensuring legality: The regional court had previously struck down a legislative shortcut for correcting "minor errors", as a violation of the constitutional mandate that laws be passed by majority vote of the RA. The RA sought to ensure any new proposal would not face a similar fate.
First came PaulWallLibertarian42's proposal, requiring that all bills be proofread by the author and speaker before going to vote. Second was a bill by Grosseschnauzer. It circumvented legality issues by adding constitutional provisions for a procedure to correct "non-substantive errors", then established one in the Legal Code. A third proposal, from Crushing Our Enemies, amended the Legal Code so that clause numbers would not be considered part of the law. The RA passed this final bill and rejected the other two.
Both situations arose out of relatively minor errors, which functionally have no effect on the interpretation of the law. On one level, such small concerns do not merit this level of response. But underlying each fork of an existing proposal is a fundamental disagreement about legislative approach and an unwillingness to reach a compromise. And counterintuitively, these small issues are ones where stubbornness is tolerable: At the end of the day, a failure to pass any bill results only in the retention of a typo.
The Importance of WA Forumsby Treize_Dreizehn, WA Correspondent
In a recent article, Gruenberg, World Assembly (WA) regular, asserted that the WA forum community have little actual effect on the voting habits of WA members. This article takes an investigative look at this assertion, by examining the voting trends of some of the regions with the largest of voting power in the game, the nine game-created regions (GCRs). Collectively, the delegates of these regions represent more than 1,800 votes. To put this into perspective, most votes are decided by fewer than 10,000 total votes, meaning that GCR delegacies account for more than 20% of the voting tally.
In most of these regions, the delegate's vote is determined by an offsite poll. While it is true that the many of the delegates and a large portion of the poll participants are not involved in the GA or SC forums, very frequently the response of the poll aligns with the views of WA regulars that participate in the respective regions.
To provide some examples, the author is the WA Minister for two GCRs, The West Pacific and Osiris, where he places resolutions up for discussion and vote, and he is given wide latitude to express opinions on them. His opinions are based largely on the drafting threads in the WA forums, and are valued largely because of his own long history in those forums. The same is true, e.g., in The South Pacific with Glen-Rhodes, in The East Pacific with Ramaeus, and in the region with the biggest delegacy in the game, The North Pacific with Abacathea.
When asked about the subject, Delegate r3naissanc3r stated that "Abacathea is very knowledgeable on WA matters, and a prominent author himself. His reviews are always helpful in making an informed decision." Abacathea estimated that the region aligns with his recommendations roughly 90% of the time, while stating that the WA forums are the primary formulating factor for his reviews. "Everything I know came out of those forums," he said characteristically, while claiming he would likely not be WA Minister were it not for his own experience in the WA forums.
The discussion so far has focused on voting, but it is worth also considering drafting. It is almost universally accepted that posting drafts in the WA forums is beneficial for the quality of the final proposals. Not submitting proposals to the WA forum drafting process is widely frowned upon, and such pieces are very likely inferior pieces that will be voted down by the assembly itself.
If posting a thread in the WA forums so dramatically improves chances of passing a piece of legislation, the idea that those forums are meaningless in the grand scheme of things makes little or no sense. And likewise, if 20% of the voting tally is strongly influenced by the opinions of WA forum regulars, it is hard to argue that those forums have little impact on WA voting. The WA forums matter. And the people discussing things there are not just shouting into the void. They matter.
SillyString's Silly Adviceby SillyString, Advice Columnist
This column does not represent the views of the Government of The North Pacific.
Hullo again, gentle readers, and welcome to SillyString Little Advice on the Prairie. These
are prairie lands we're standing in, right? No matter. I think you'll really love this week's column!
"How do I pass a law in the RA? Why do we have a Constibillocode? Is the Court any important in TNP?"
-Ebul Imperialist
Those are wonderful questions, EI, and a great way to follow up on the last column's advice.
It is a little-known bylaw in TNP that only members of the Oligarchy or the IRCabal have the legal authority to propose and pass laws. While there are no formal penalties imposed on people who violate this, severe ostracization and catastrophic bill failure is generally applied to anybody who steps out of line.
So you really have two options if you don't want this to happen to you!
[1] Either you can join one of the aforementioned groups and use your status as a member to validate the bills you want to right, or you can seek out an existing, high-ranking member to act as a prominent supporter. After all, the RA will often turn a blind eye to such lawbreaking if there is a risk that pointing it out will anger one of the two cliques.
After that, the
content of your bill doesn't really matter. You would, however, do well to seek a divination from the region's Chief Augur. Woe betide anyone who pushes to vote a bill doomed by Flem to fail!
As for your second question, we have a Constibillocode (for new readers, that's Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Legal Code) because it's a great way to keep the population under the iron boot of authority. Naturally it has no
real power, but nevertheless nobody is ever happy with any sentence of any part of it. They expend all of their energy attempting to fix it, over and over and over again, and fail to notice the Oligarchy and the IRCabal climbing on their shoulders to hit at each other with frozen baguettes.
[2]And finally, the Court is many important in TNP. The three people on the Court are the most trusted members in government, burdened with the great responsibility for making sure that the common folk never find out that the Constibillocode is all a sham. They keep people's attention focused on the law and how terrible it is so that the powerful cliques can get down to the actual running of the place in peace.
[3]Seriously Silly,
SillyString[1]You don't.
[2]Swords, of course, are customary, but after it was determined that there was "too much risk of actual injury, and not enough chance to whack each other", the two unanimously amended the rules of engagement to forbid sharp weapons. Frozen baguettes are now preferred for the nice, thuddy sound they make when you connect with your foe.
[3]This is, of course, comparable to the flight attendant who eagerly points out the exciting landmark being passed on the left, so that passengers do not notice the passing ICBM on the right.
The Northern Lights: Beauty in Truth
Publisher: r3naissanc3r :: Executive Editor: Crushing Our Enemies :: Managing Editor: mcmasterdonia :: Graphic Artist: SillyString
The Northern Lights is produced by the Ministry of Communications on behalf of the Government of The North Pacific and distributed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Except where otherwise indicated, all content represents the views of the Government of The North Pacific.
