The Bastion: Government and Voting Laws

Day 2,398, 12:29 • Published in Netherlands Netherlands • by Spir Tus

In this column, The Bastion, I will take a look at the political system of a country/community and I will expose the conspicuous things. This column is written from my point of view, the view of a noob in eRepublik and the community. Probably I will miss a lot of facts and legislation, but this is how I see things and how noobs who want to learn to know the community and the game, will see things. The aim of this colum is to enlighten people, give them food for thought and make them aware of certain worrisome situations.

This first article of this series (hopefully) is about the Upcoming Law Change in eNL. The focus of this article will be on the representative democracy (which is doubtful), especially on the voting laws. The content of this article may contain sensitive information, but there are no media legislation in eNL (not yet 😛) so I will give you all the information I have gathered. This will contain information about voting in congress, debates in congress and the Law Book of the eNetherlands. These sections are accessible for all eNL citizens, and I will publish this on eRepublik to support transparency and thereby hopefully put pressure on the community and the system (and getting answers on my questions xD)

Who is the Government?

As a new player in eNL, the first thing you see is the map, where half of the surface of the Netherlands is occupied by Poland. This situation is good for the activity for new players, who will immediately fight for their country. But by some new players, like me and I hope a lot others, questions will rise. Why is the Netherlands occupied by Poland, Who is responsible for this misery and Why is the government not doing anything. A closer look will learn the government is trying to solve all political problems, including the occupation by Poland. But it will raise new questions. Who is the government? It's hard to find out for a new player who is part of the government and who isn't. Of course, you need a little bit political knowledge to understand the differences between government and congress, but if you know the difference, and have a lot of political interest, you'll see a page with the president of eNL, and the ministers. A closer look to the law will learn this isn't the government. Chapter III, article 1.1: The Government consists of the Country President, the Vice President, the Ministers, and the State Secretaries. According to the Law Book of eNL, it seems there are more people then on the country page in eRepublik. Also State Secretaries seems to be part of the government, so the next question is: Who are the State Secretaries? The next part is very confusing. On the Cabinet page of the eNL forum, is a form of all Cabinet Members. On this form, there are not only Presidents, Ministers and State Secretaries, But also Partners, Commanders, Representatives and Advisers.

I assume these people are not part of the government, because the law should be the leading source of information about the composition of the government. In the near past there were debates about the role of the Advisers. According to that debate, Members of government are not allowed to become CoC, without resigning. The debate was about the question of Advisers can be CoC and Adviser at the same time. Congress decided to maintain the Advisers as no part of the government. Obviously, they still remain on the Cabinet form, to make it simple for new players who want to understand the government.

It looks like there is a lot of uncertainty about the government. That's a problem that needs to be solved, and congress is planning to rewrite the Law, so there is more clarity about this kind of things. I will evoke congress, to not only pay attention to the rewriting of the Law, but also, together with the whole community, take a close look to the whole system and the organisation of information. Another problem, is the terminology of the law here above. Cabinet and Government are two terms for two different things. It has to be clear what is the government (In RL in NL, the king and the ministers) and the cabinet (In RL in NL, the ministers and the state secrataries), because this distinction will be important for other laws. This will lead to my next point.

Voting Laws

The fact that there is no clarity about the government, has big consequences on the casual decisionmaking process in eNL. According to the Law Book, Chapter II, article 1.8, Members of the Government (President, Vice-president, Ministers and State Secretaries, according to the same law), have all rights mentioned above, except for the rights mentioned in Articles 1.3 and 1.4. This means they have the following rights:

1.1. The right to open debates in the Debating section of Congress.
1.2. The right to read and write in the Debating section of Congress.
1.5. The right to start discussions, read and write in the Private section of Congress.

They don't have the rights in Articles 1.3 and 1.4, which are:

1.3. The right to start votes in the Voting section of Congress.
1.4. The right to vote on proposals in the Voting section of Congress.

This means, government members can NOT Vote or start votes. If we take a look at the past voting procedures, something disturbing is going on. Members of Government (excluding the CP, he has the right to vote) are voting on every voting procedure, I have seen. This include votings for more then a half year ago, and i think there are a lot more. This are only the voting procedures on the eNL forum. All the votings, that have been held in at least, the past half year, are not legitimate. In the past couple of votings, there are no striking consequences. There is obviously a big difference between the real results and the results congress has been using, but no differences in conclusions (apart maybe from votings where an absolute majority of 75% is needed or something). If we take a look at the votings of a half year ago, there will be also differences in conclusions.

This is a disturbing conclusion. The causes of this misconception, is the fact people can be Congress Members and Members of Government at the same time. For instance, the current goverment consist of lancer450, NoTie112, epix, Willem the Conquerer, Athena the Great, Lord Jale, Odan, Tim Veltkamp, GEN. DE LA REY, Aries Prime and The Valeyard. Only lancer450, NoTie112 and epix are not a congress member. All the rest is member of congress and of the government and making the laws and supervising themselves.

However, some remarks have to be made. First, some would say the voting procedures are legitimate, because some Members of Government, are also Congress members, and Congress Members have the right to vote. This is true, but the conclusion will be that the law is not well written and the Members of Government are supervised by themselves. Secondly, some people could say there is no connection between government and congress. This is also true. In the Law Book you can't find any connections of relations between the congress and the government. Congress only makes the laws, and the Government is only in charge of the daily tasks. However, in-game and in the law, there's a relation between congress and government. There is a possibility for Impeacments of the CP, the government etc. This is the only connection, and has nothing to do with the relation between congress and government (like the supervising function).Thirdly, this whole article is based on voting at the forum of eNL. Because I'm no member of Congress myself, I don't know how voting in-game is like. I don't know if the Members of the Government who are also Members of Congress, can vote ingame.

Concluding, a remake of the Law Book is neccesary. The people who will plunge into this task, need to consider more then only the badly written laws, like the system in general. Do we want to have Members of Government, who are also members of Congress? Voting against the government, will always lead to advantageous voting results. In my opinion, Congress members have to supervise the government, to promote transparancy and againt corruption. Congress has failed this job in the last couple of months. It shouldn't have been me, a noob with 9 days experience, to discover this weird situation. At last, there are a lot of other consequences. For instance, the CoC and vCoC are voting as well, and according to the law they can't. I won't deal with the other consequences. The article will be too long if I need to describe them as well.

If you have any questions or comments on the article, please leave them below, or send me a PM.

Yours Sincerly,

Spir Tus
Owner of A Bastion of Truth