Dear fellow CDS citizens,
the next campaign for new elections for the Chancellor and the Representative Assembly (RA) comes closer and we are currently experiencing a term with a chronical "short-handed" RA. After only three candidates had declared their willingness to run for one of the five RA chairs, only one of two yet vacant RA chairs could be filled with another candidate by a by-election. The word "election" was in all mentioned cases actually not appropriate anymore, because in the recent three terms, there were not more candidates than open roles to be fill with citizen willing and qualified per census. All candidates were simply been appointed. That alone is actually alarming enough.
All this led the SC in their most recent meeting (see https://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9717) to think about an adaption and amendment, respectively, of the Constitution and the Code of Laws that reflects the current situation better than the current legislation. As the RA Leader Pro Tempore, I take this as an obligation to make this an urgent topic of the legislative work in the RA, and I'm awaiting the SC's announced "to-do list" anxiously.
To (re-)open this discussion we once already had here when I was a "young" CDS citizen wonderering about the not-conducted elections, I propose to revive this thread for finding better, more up-to-date solutions to face the situation outlined above.
Rosie Gray wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:56 am
Almut it's all in the code of laws.
Rosie was so kind to post a number of links to the Constitition and the Code of Laws which exactly points on what we need to adapt, change or amend. This bouquet of legal texts, however, shows also how widespread the bits and pieces are placed whose sum makes up the election system of the CDS. Maybe an Election Act that clusters all these rules and regulations could be the way to make the election process more transparent especially for new citizens, because I can imagine that not everybody loves to examine not less than 5 legal texts plus the announcements by the SC right before and in the course of a running campaign. Even true CDS lovers and veteran citizens use to state their distance to everything that looks too "political" in the sense of troublemaking and time-consuming. So when there is a way to draw down the first step contributing to the political life in our community, we should really not only think about it, but also act accordingly as soon as possible.
However, that is more a structural question which cannot be worked off in short time and surely not in this term anymore. The point to start should be to focus on two central questions:
The conditions and amount of by-elections to be held by the SC when the regular campaign for an election has less candidates than roles to be filled, and
The minimum size of a RA which can be still regarded as capable of acting.
I'm going to start going through the existing laws and proposing changes here. Please don't stay back to contribute to this important discussion for the CDS's political life with your own thoughts and comments. Thank you!
Almut