Act to Protect Political Expression
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Cllr. Becker stood to speak.
"I am deeply, deeply sorry for the time you have had to waste, my colleagues. However, on the behalf of my country, Eastern Haane, I would like to make the following addition to this travesty, as to make what was once a travesty something actually useful:
PREAMBLE:
With the recent revolutions and coups throughout the European Union, there has been a distressing trend toward authoritarianism. However, the European Council is thoroughly unequipped to adequately deal with such a thing, as it does not have the capacity to compile information on nations as to have a full understanding of nations in which there has been a radical political change and to ensure that those nations which are democratic can prevent slides toward authoritarianism.
As such, in the interests of protecting free political expression everywhere, the following act proposes the following:
Section 1: The Commission on Political Freedom
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A Commission on Political Freedom shall be established
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It shall be headquartered in the Free City of Europolis.
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said Commission shall be comprised of five members, elected by the European Council on a yearly basis.
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This Commission shall have the responsibility of rating political freedom in the constituent states of the Union.
Section 2: The Workings of the Commission
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Member states of the European Union must submit, on a yearly basis and when deemed necessary by the Commission or the European Council, a report on their respective political situations, in the following format:
Parties represented in legislative branch:
Number of seats held by each party:
Number of opposition parties:
Number of seats held by opposition parties:Electoral system:
Number of polling places per square km:
Turnout last election (percentage):
Percentage of votes for all parties:List all major media outlets, as well as their political biases:
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If a member state or the European Council as a whole has evidence of widespread electoral fraud, voter suppression, or undue influence on political or news organizations by others or by the government, it is obliged to report it to the Commission.
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The European Council or the member states may provide additional information or suggestions to the Commission.
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Using all information available to it, the Commission is to, on a yearly basis and when needed - a condition to be decided either by the European Council or the Commission itself - issue ratings based upon the following guidelines:
Full democracy: There exist opposition parties well-represented in the legislature. Turnout exceeds 70%. Representation in the legislature corresponds to vote percentages, within 2 percent. Media outlets ae diverse in ideology. There exist no allegations of election fraud, voter suppression, or undue influence on politics by a power.
Flawed democracy: Opposition parties are well-represented in the legislature. Turnout exceeds 60%. Representation in the legislature is within 5 percent of vote percentages. Media outlets are diverse in ideology but skew one way. There exist less than two major allegations of election fraud, voter suppression, or undue influence on politics by a power; however, none of these allegations come from the council as a whole.
Anocracy: Opposition parties have little representation in the legislature. Turnout exceeds 40%. Representation in the legislature is within 20% of vote percentages. Although there exists a small diversity in ideology, media outlets are heavily skewed toward one. There are more than two but less than five allegations of election fraud, voter suppression, or undue influence on politics by a power; however, none of these allegations come from the Council as a whole.
Autocracy: Opposition parties are not represented in the legislature. Turnout, if elections are still conducted, is consistently within 0.05 percent of 100. Representation is entirely of one party, or of several parties that are affiliated or influenced by one. There exists no diversity of ideology in the media. There are more than five allegations of election fraud, voter suppression, or undue influence on politics by a power, or an allegation from the Council as a whole.
8a. Not all of these attributes need to be in place for a regime to be classified as such, however. Because political conditions can change from year to year, it will be the Commission who will decide the extent to which each of the listed criteria will be considered, in addition to additional information provided through the ways previously described.
8b. The Commission must provide a detailed plan on how it is to weight the information it receives in making its future ratings to the European Council for approval on a yearly basis before it begins work on ratings.
Section 3: Accountability of the Commission
- Before ratings become official, they must be presented to the European Council. If any has an objection, they will too present it to the European Council for debate.
- If the European Council approves an objection, the Commission must again rate whatever has been objected to, using a new formula that must be submitted to the European Council for approval.
- At any time, the European Council may recall members from the Commission. It may also dissolve the Commission as a whole, thus calling new elections.
- Such an action will be accomplished through majority vote.
- If the Commission is dissolved while it is working on developing ratings, its responsibilities will not temporarily be passed to any other Union organ; rather, its work will remain in the state that it was in at the time of dissolution until elections take place and a new Commission can convene.
Unfortunately, it is at this point that I must present the previous travesty. I give the most sincere of apologies to those who had to respond to it.
What is this? What is this? Perhaps it is warranted, with the recent coups and revolutions; but that is no matter, for this is a disgusting subversion of political freedom.
How can we even consider such a thing, somehow eradicating communism and all other ideologies that we dislike from the European Union? Do we not realize that this is an authoritarian act, one which would silence the voices of far, far too many?
We must understand that although we may not like an ideology, the people have the right to choose it.
Yet it does not seem that we do. We cannot continue in these ways, cannot risk the loss of our political freedoms. As such, I propose the following:
that we respect the results of all elections, provided that they are free and fair.
that we respect revolutions, if they are supported by the people and establish clearly democratic governments that themselves respect the Constitution and Acquis Communautaire
that we judge all governments not by their ideology but by the amount of political and civil liberty they afford to their citizens.
A clarification: this act was not meant to chastise the Council but rather to, in a way, regulate condemnations. In recent times, we appear to have been reacting to revolutions and similar political events not with evidence but rather with emotion. Examples of this can be found in the premature condemnation of the UNSR, made at a time when the regime appeared to have been moving toward democracy.
My intention was simply to stop a thing from happening again; if we were to strictly follow the guidelines above, we would be compelled to wait, to investigate, before making a condemnation, for we would have to have concrete evidence to know whether a regime is democratic or not, to know whether it was installed with popular consent, and could not simply act on a sort of political bias.
I implore you, Councillors, to look beyond your political biases and see the devastation that could come to this Union if we continue in our ways, a devastation we have already seen in Icholasen.
Vote not based on your personal interest, but on that of liberty, for we have already seen what happens when we do not.
The above - that is, the monstrosity written by former Councillor Comtois - is complete nonsense, and is in no way representative of my views or those of Eastern Haane.
Helga Becker
Interim Councillor for Eastern Haane -
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Debate on this starts now and will last until 05:30 GMT on April 25th, 2020.
Edward Firoux
Council Speaker and Councillor for Inquista -
Councillor Tevfik stands up somewhat perplexed.
I must say to the Councillor, what do you exactly propose we do about these perceived injustices? The European Council has already debated and voted on measures on this particular subject. I see no point of this Act other than to scold the Council for things not going your way. In fact, I don't see an actual act. Madame, it is your freedom to express your opinion by all means. But surely, you can agree that this council meeting can be utilized better than to chastise fellow Councillors.
So I ask you again, Councillor-- what exactly is your Bill?
Su Tevfik
European Councillor from the Court of Osman -
@Ottoman-Empire I have made the necessary changes, Cllr. Tevfik, to respond to your question.
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I fail to see any real course of action for this Council in what the Councillor from Eastern Haane is proposing. It seems to me like a superfluous and impassioned tirade that is no basis for an act to be passed by this council. No real evidence or an actual plan of action for the Union to take, just directionless posturing. I urge the Councillor from Eastern Haane to propose a true plan of action for this body to address, or, at the very least, provide a clear set of quantifiable arguments for this council to debate. While I myself am in favour of the concept of freedom of political expression, in terms of personal freedoms, national governments should not be afforded such luxuries, and even then such abstract ideals must be quantified if they are to be set forth as law.
Furthermore, need I remind the Councillor that the salient reasoning behind the condemnation of the coup in Icholasen: the change of government was not an action taken or endorsed by the people. Though there are many in the Union that recognise the legitimacy of the UNSR, Fremet and this Council do not. The UNSR has brazenly subverted the will of the people and such acts must not be tolerated by the council. The UNSR has yet to establish a "clear" democratic government and has made little effort to allow foreign election observers to that end. The condemnation of the UNSR was not premature, and there was never any clear move towards a democratic government, in spite of what Nicoleizian propogandists would have us believe.
You cite "guidelines" above, but I see none. What I see are subjective points and unclear propositions. No litmus tests, no clear regulatory path, no actual restrictions or regulations. The council acted in this manner to protect the freedom and democracy of European citizens, not simply because we dislike any one ideology. There are fine examples of communist nations thriving within the Union and upholding the values and principles of this body.
What you are proposing sounds not like a protection of individual freedoms, but a freedom for governments to act or express themselves without fear of retribution from this council. The Constitution of the European Union protects the absolute sovereignty of members, and the provisions exceptional to this have already been set forth and allow for this council to speak for the majority of Europe. The majority of members voted for this condemnation of what is, in my government's opinion and the council's, an illegal government.
In short: We need real evidence, not sensationalist appeals.
Cllr Charles Michel
Councillor to the European Union
Kingdom of Fremet -
I'd like to take this time to say that Ms. Comtois, who proposed this travesty, has been recalled. I deeply apologize to those who were forced to waste their time on this. However, to ensure that something good comes out of this, I would like to propose the following:
To ensure a greater fairness in the judgement of nations, a commission should be established to rate political freedom in the constituent nations of the European Union, basing such ratings on the following:
Were the members of government elected through free and fair elections?
Is it possible for opposition parties to increase their power and support?
Can an opposition be organized?
How easily can the people form political parties?
Can citizens express their political beliefs without fear of reprisal?
How difficult is it to declare candidacy for elected government positions?
Is governance under the undue influence of an external, unelected power?
How transparent is governance?
Do safeguards against corruption exist?
To what extent does corruption exist within a country's government?
Are all allowed to vote, regardless of their personal characteristics?
Does there exist opposition media?
Can the people petition their government? If so, how easily?
Do the people have the right to assemble and protest?
The ratings of the commission shall be issued on a yearly basis, or when needed, and will be used, if available, to judge states, as to avoid poor decisions.
A benefit of such a commission, other than allowing for a more fair judgement of states, is that it galvanizes states to improve the current political liberties they offer to their citizens - if a state receives a poor score, said score will be known to all. As a result, they may lose some of their influence and standing, pushing them to improve.
Helga Becker
Interim Councillor for the Confederation of Eastern Haane -
First, I would like to welcome the Councillor to this Chamber. I'm sure the Councillor will be a valuable member to this Council and I look forward with working with her. Particularly so since she has presented a bold idea. A bill that I, in principle, support.
Yet there are objections I have for this Bill. The first of which is there is no mechanism in place to ensure that this Commission will not biased towards certain groups of countries. Such regulatory systems will need to be debated extensively and will likely be difficult to implement. Metrics that keep track of corruption and other related (and might I add) complicated phenomena are known to not be as effective as they are designed to be. And perhaps the most important of the problems is, I have serious doubts that this rating system will in any way change the behaviors of any government that is determined to stay in power. We all know that the UNSR is an undemocratic regime that violently took power, they decry us as imperialists that use "democracy" as a means to take over their country. I assume similar outcomes will happen in Inquista as well. It will be no different with the implementation of this system. And we did not need measured statistics to know that is a reality.
With that said, I do feel that this bill has potential and I certainly do hope my fellow Councillors will concur.
Su Tevfik
European Councillor from the Court of Osman -
I would like to also welcome Cllr. Becker to the European Council. I am always happy to see a new face, especially one who is eager to legislate.
In the future, please take a look at the Acquis Communautaire and use the formatting and style of past pieces of legislation to inform your own. There is a learning curve with everything, including with writing legislation, so I am more than happy to be patient with you, Councillor. This is just a piece of advice and isn't meant to try and discourage you. After all, I appreciate a passionate and active legislator such as yourself more than anything else!
I'm not entirely sure if you're proposing to have discussion on such a commission, or if you're proposing such a commission as a piece of legislation. For now, I'm treating it as the former.
My main problem with the proposal is that is filled with qualifiable, value-laden terminology that really ought to be defined. For instance, what is a "free and fair election" and how could that be defined? Otherwise, whoever inevitably sits on this commission - and that hasn't been laid out either - will get to define and interpret each of those questions to their liking. As an example, in the Elected and Accountable Council Act, we used six defined metrics to qualify what it means to have a democratic process so as to lessen the ambiguity of the term.
The actual logistics of this commission also really ought to be fleshed out more. Who sits on this commission? How many members are there? Who oversees them?
All in all, I don't dislike the idea and premise of this proposal. In fact, I actually really like it. I just think it requires much more development and thought.
Edward Firoux
Council Speaker and Councillor for Inquista -
I congratulate Coun. Becker for joining us in this institution and that I hope we can make better progress as nations.
So far, I applaud the idea of this act. But, I agree to Coun. Firoux that this must follow the formatting from our other acts. And I am willing to help in the codification of this act.
All in all, I am impressed. God Bless!
Yuridiana Yahontov
Deputy Councilor, Kingdom of Reitzmag -
May debate on this legislation be extended?
Helga Becker
Interim Councillor for Eastern Haane -
Since the previous Councillor withdrew the original piece of legislation and the new Councillor put forward another idea, this legislative session effectively ended. However, we are free to discuss the merits of the second proposal. If Councillor Becker wishes to legislate their commission, then they ought to re-propose as a new piece of legislation altogether ((OOC: in a new thread)).
Edward Firoux
Council Speaker and Councillor for Inquista
