Legal discussion - Election Laws Article H

I propose the following needed changes to Article H.

H. Elections, Deputies and Vacancies
1. Nominations and Debate
a. Nominations will be created by the Election Office 7 days
prior to the end of the month. Citizens may nominate
themself or another citizen in this thread. Citizens may
also post pre-nominations in the Election Office thread if
they will not be present during the nomination period.
This nomination thread should contain a description of the
office,
b. All debates will be within the nomination thread, and will
continue through the end of the election cycle. Any citizen
may post questions for the candidates to answer. Candidates
may answer or not answer as they wish.
c. A nomination is not considered Accepted until the candidate
makes an explicit post. All self-nominations are considered
Accepted unless otherwise stated.

2. Election Polls
a. Election polls will be created by the Election Office 3
days after the Nomination threads are created. These polls
will contain the names of all Accepted candidates for the
office, a description of the office, a link to the
nomination thread, be set to run for 3 days and be marked
private.
b. Should a citizen Accept multiple nominations, and does not
explicitly clarify which office they wish to run for, the
Election Office will use the first office they Accepted.
c. The citizen with the most votes at the close of the poll
is the winner of the election. Should two or more
candidates tie at the end of the election poll with the
same number of votes, a runoff election of two days
duration will be conducted with the tied candidates only.
This process shall continue until one candidate receives
the most votes.

3. General
a. The Election Cycle will run from the first nomination thread
is opened until the last runoff poll closes.
b. All threads and polls should be posted at approximately 00:00
GMT on the correct day.

4. Deputies
a. For all positions with deputies, the leader may appoint the
citizen of their choice as their deputy.

5. Vacant Offices
a. An official or Justice may declare themselves to be
Absent for a period of time. This period may not exceed 1
week. During this time, the deputy or pro-tem will act
with all power and duties of that office, surrendering
them to the official or Justice when they return or at
the end of the planned absence, whichever comes first.

b. Should an official fail to post in the DG forum for 3
days in a thread related to their area without prior
notice, the Judiciary may declare that office Vacant.

c. If a Justice has not posted on any active Judicial matter
for three days, the remaining Justices may declare the
Justice Vacant. If all three Justices fail to post on
any active Judicial matter for 3 days, the President may
declare all Judicial offices Vacant, and immediately
appoint a new Chief Justice.

Proposed Change

H. Elections, Deputies and Vacancies
1. Nominations and Debate
a. Nominations will be created by the Election Office 7 days
prior to the end of the month. Citizens may nominate
themself or another citizen in this thread. Citizens may
also post pre-nominations in the Election Office thread if
they will not be present during the nomination period.
This nomination thread should contain a description of the
office deadline for posting nominations and acceptances in GMT
Time, as well as the prerequisite of the citizen registry is
required..
b. All debates will be within the nomination thread, and will
continue through the end of the election cycle. Any citizen
may post questions for the candidates to answer. Candidates
may answer or not answer as they wish.
c. A nomination is not considered Accepted until the candidate
makes an explicit post. All self-nominations are considered
Accepted unless otherwise stated.
d. A nomination or appointment, or acceptance of nomination or
appointment must be answered and accepted within the stated
nomination deadline or be considered invalid.
e. The Vicepresident should as the 2nd in the Chain of Command be
nominated as the nominal Presidential running mate on the same
ballot as the Presidential candidate.

2. Election Polls
a. Election polls will be created by the Election Office 3
days after the Nomination threads are created. These polls
will contain the names of all Accepted candidates for the
office, a description of the office, a link to the
nomination thread, be set to run for 3 days and be marked
private.
b. Should a citizen Accept multiple nominations, and does not
explicitly clarify which office they wish to run for, the
Election Office will use the first office they Accepted.
c. The citizen with the most votes at the close of the poll
is the winner of the election. Should two or more
candidates tie at the end of the election poll with the
same number of votes, a runoff election of two days
duration will be conducted with the tied candidates only.
This process shall continue until one candidate receives
the most votes.

3. General
a. The Election Cycle will run from the first nomination thread
is opened until the last runoff poll closes.
b. All threads and polls should be posted at approximately 00:00
GMT on the correct day.

4. Deputies
a. For all positions with deputies, the leader may appoint the
citizen of their choice as their deputy.

5. Vacant Offices
a. An official or Justice may declare themselves to be
Absent for a period of time. This period must not exceed 1
week. During this time, the deputy or pro-tem will act
with all power and duties of that office, surrendering
them to the official or Justice when they return or at
the end of the planned absence, whichever comes first.

b. Should an official fail to post in the DG forum for 3
days in a thread related to their area without prior
notice, the Judiciary must warn the missing person within 24
hours and with no response from the missing person declare that
office Vacant within 48 hours or be mandated to set up a mid term
election within another 48 hours. If the Judiciary fail to replace the
official, the President must declare all Judicial offices Vacant, and
immediately appoint an interim Chief Justice, subject to an approval
poll.

c. If a Justice has not posted on any active Judicial matter
for three days, the remaining Justices must warn the missing
Justice within 24 hours, and with no response to warning declare the
Justice Vacant within 48 hours, or be forced to set up a mid term
Judicial election within another 48 hours. If all three Justices fail
to post on any active Judicial matter for 3 days, the President
must declare all Judicial offices Vacant, and immediately
appoint an interim Chief Justice, subject to an approval
poll.

This amendment proposal guarantees the citizens that the Judiciary must not may replace the leadership in vacant offices. This will remove the incentive for preferential treatment inherent in the "may" term, and it guarantees the replacement of an official within a defined period of time, not an arbitrary period of time.

Furthermore, this proposal makes it clear that the Vicepresident as an official
in the CoC, must be elected alongside the President, making all "elected officials in the CoC" to become truly elected not appointed as such.

Deadlines for nominations and appointments are carved out in stone, so no citizen should wonder if an office is up and running or not.

Finally, the intent of this proposal is to make effective deadlines and democratic replacement mechanisms assure equal treatment and operational offices, and to make sure no-one fills a position without legitimacy.

A little harsh towards the judiciary don't you think? Read the first part of H1A, it says "citizens" so you would indeed HAVE to register, because that is the only way to become a citizen, no need for the redundancy.

We shouldn't subject people to harsh laws and deadlines. This is a game, and important matters in our lives precede the game.

This proposal is not about citizenship.

This proposal is not about citizenship.

Proposed changes in H1A reads

"...deadline for posting nominations and acceptances in GMT Time, as well as the prerequisite of the citizen registry is required..,"

which is redundant because the earlier states

" a. Nominations will be created by the Election Office 7 days prior to the end of the month. Citizens may nominate themself or another citizen in this thread."

There is no vagueness in this, it clearly states citizens, not legal alien residents.

This was only stating required information in the nomination thread, so one one makes the mistake of nominating a non-citizen. This is about the right to information, not about citizenship and wording. This has to be written as a standard in the nomination thread.

Is this in the constitution? :eek:

Let me reiterate the point in bold and italics.

H. Elections, Deputies and Vacancies
1. Nominations and Debate
a. Nominations will be created by the Election Office 7 days
prior to the end of the month. Citizens may nominate
themself or another citizen in this thread. Citizens may
also post pre-nominations in the Election Office thread if
they will not be present during the nomination period.
This nomination thread should contain a description of the
office,

It is clear so that a blind man reading braille can understand this (just a hypothetical, no offense intended). You can only nominate other citizens, only citizens can be nominated, so, therefore, nominating a non citizen results in that nomination being null.

Is this in the constitution? :eek:

It is in the Code of Laws, Mr Vice President.

Let me reiterate the point in bold and italics.



It is clear so that a blind man reading braille can understand this (just a hypothetical, no offense intended). You can only nominate other citizens, only citizens can be nominated, so, therefore, nominating a non citizen results in that nomination being null.

The amendment is not handling this point at all.

basically you changed all of the "may"s to "must"s... bad idea
the judiciary can see circumstances a person may not post, along with the president
I am not a fan of the changes, mostly redundant and strict...

Those circumstances are the base for preferential treatment.
Laws must be fair and objective, and this law still gives the Judiciary 48 hours to post a vacancy, so we can be guaranteed against gross neglect.

Those circumstances are the base for preferential treatment.
Laws must be fair and objective, and this law still gives the Judiciary 48 hours to post a vacancy, so we can be guaranteed against gross neglect.

Preferential treatment, circumstantial treatment, there's a difference. Laws MUST be fair, but objective? In some cases yes, but not to the point that the law becomes inhuman, or to the point that it doesn't take into account certain circumstances. Where would the situation be when gross neglect comes into play? Are we so distrusting of our officials that this would be needed? You can have all the laws you want to tell people when to get up, when to eat, when to sleep, but then what would be the point of that (note: overexaggeration).

I would say 5 days to a week to call an office vacant is plenty of time.
If the Judiciary is not bound to replace people within a deadline, then the nation is not guaranteed working and effective offices. Calling this "inhumane" is a gross exaggeration, and does not make any sense. We are basically two wings here, one wants to give a lot of powers to the Judiciary for wide ranging interpretation, giving room for preferential treatment, and the other wing wants to remove loopholes in the constitution and make it clear everyone can expect the same treatment.

Finally, if an office is not filled, it needs to be refilled within a deadline, or we get anarchy and preferential treatment. That may got to go, or we can delete the entire law.

This will never get a sufficient number of votes, so it probably isn't worth the effort to even comment on the contents. If by some miracle you convince 20 or so citizens that they actually want to show people the door after 3 days with no further warning, then we can mobilize the voices of reason against this.

Allegations of preferential treatment have the potential to lead directly to breaking the same forum rule again. I recommend you don't go there.

There is added 24 hours for the Justices to warn the missing official. This means an early warning is given to the official, securing that officials rights. Then the Judiciary is given 48 hours to declare the office vacant. This gives a total of 6 potential missing days unannounced absence. If we cannot regulate the deadlines and amount of days as a maximum, with a processual flow of absence, warning and replacemement, we will see a system where the reaction becomes arbitrary, not time sensitive.

I will refrain from discussing the handling of forum rules, and these should not be abused by citizens to dominate legal and political debates or subsidize shenanigans.

All I want to achieve with this amendment, is predictability and equality in these processes, where we all agree how long a vacancy is accepted.

Otherwise, I suggest 5 days unannounced absence automatically calls for a replacement, since no one seems capable or interested of enforcing the 3 day limit.
We should not have laws which have no real enforcement, that is.

I fail to understand why the Judiciary must declare an office vacant. I also fail to understand why the Judiciary will get hammered if they fail to notice that some official hasn't posted for several days.

Let's suppose, in the next DG, our civ is on an island without any neighbors. We're exploring, settling new cities, etc., but we don't find another civ for the entire first term (all suicide galleys sink). Does it really make a difference if the External Affairs Consul is posting every three to five days? According to this amendment, the entire Judiciary are tossed out of office because they didn't notice that the Foreign Minister wasn't periodicially popping up to say that he had nothing to do.

In principle I agree with Provolution. A rule stating that the Judiciary may declare an office vacant after 3 days is no rule at all. The rule may may as well be " the judiciary will decide who and when officials will be thrown out of office at their discretion". A little facetious maybe - but I'm making a point.

I also take the point that it shouldn't be the judiciaries job to play mother and keep track of who is posting and who is not.

My position on this is simple -- trust the Judiciary to do the right thing.

If you miss school because you're sick, would you rather have the principal automatically suspend you for a month, or cut you some slack? If you're late for work because your car breaks down, should you be summarily dismissed?

Do we really want to slap around the few people who are actually willing to volunteer for leadership roles in this game? Do we want that when half the elections go uncontested? No, I say make arrangements for the area to be covered, and welcome back our MIAs with open arms when they do return. Don't brand them with the stigma of being expelled from office. Or at a minimum don't do it the first time they're absent.

I see no move to a compromise counterproposal, so I wait for people to add their inputs, and we will make the proposal ready for an amendment poll.

Honestly we need to shape up the laws so we are assured replacement of non-acting leaders. That the Cabinet has been designed in a fashion to leave some leaders without tasks is another inherent problem. I think we need orderly rules and deadlines for vacant leaders, so we are assured immediate replacement on an agreed timeframe.

If there is a valid need to remove someone from government then the CC process should be used to impeach them. It is longer winded than that which is proposed here, but ultimately more democratic.

The only other mechanism for removing a leader which I would be prepared to condone would be that of a "vote of no confidence", but I do not really consider the issue sufficiently pressing to warrant the institution of such a measure.

I see no move to a compromise counterproposal,I see no need to make a counterproposal. I see no need for this entire controversy. If this proposed change is polled, I will vote against it and I will try to persuade others to vote against it as well.

I don't think that anyone is advocating a Judiciary that is monitoring threads waiting for a deadline so that they can remove someone from office. That is not my intention at least.

My concern is that if functions are not fullfilled in time for a turnchat, and the instruction thread is not fully populated for the President, then the will of the people cannot be implemented.

My alternative would be this:
When an election is held, then the winner takes the position and the second place takes the deputy job. Accepting a nomination means accepting the top job or the deputy job depending on the result. If the leader goes AWOL then the deputy takes over. This can be an automatic process (which can be 3 days not posting or whatever). When the leader reappears then the Judiciary can decide if he should resume the leadership position, or assume the deputy role.

The thing is Mr President, that there is an official absence thread. It takes a minute to post in it. Sure there may be exceptional circumstances where it is not possible to post, but in general it should be possible. Leaving people hanging is not nice, and the law needs to protect the people more than the individuals in office. Offices come with responsiblity to the playing community, people should only take up those offices if they can shoulder the responsibility. A bit hard maybe, but to reiterate, all I want is that the will of the people is implemented. :)

I agree that we need officials to be performing their duties and the other citizens will suffer if an official allows his functions to lapse. My objection is to the draconian "you ain't shown up for five days, off with your head" and "you judges ain't noticed XYZ ain't shown up for five days, off with your heads" parts of this proposal.

I find it discouraging that a number of people simply accept the 3 day arbitrary vacancy act without finding ways to make this predictable and fair. As the law stands, the Judiciary is technically free to call any office vacant after three days at their discretion, with or without warning. They got no duties, only rights to oust someone from office, if they may feel inclined to do that on that day.

Having such an arbitrary law is quite "inhumane" as the Judiciary can dispose of unwanted leaders at their discretion. With no warning procedure or deadlines in place, all there is left is the opportunity of will, intent and the time to call for the vacancy, and no due procedure, deadlines or replacement mechanism to handle a full weeks unannounced absence. I am amazed that only some of us see the futility of the present arbitary 3 day limit, and want to replace that with a more fair and transparent trial, not to mention a fair and speedy trial, as written in our constitution.

I am amazed that only some of us see the futility of the present arbitary 3 day limit, and want to replace that with a more fair and transparent trial, not to mention a fair and speedy trial, as written in our constitution.
From what I see, you're replacing the present 3 day limit with a 5 day limit and then punishing the Judiciary without a trial for failing to prosecute someone who violates your new 5 day limit. You want to trade one arbitrary situation for a harsher arbitrary situation.

I really do not know why we are still playing while there are so many issues with the Constitution. We need to work out the Constitution so that it is workable and clear for everyone to understand. It does seem like it is tradition to start without a working constitution and do our best to work around the mess we created and in the we finish the game quickly in the end because we have had enough with the last DemoGame and hope that the next one will be better. We need to stop the game so that we can fix the constitution.

I agree that proposed ammendment is too draconian, and people should be allowed some slack. Heck, I'd need it. I will vote against this ammendment; I just agree in principle that the current section of the constitution leaves a lot to be desired. Just imagine - the Commander of the Armed forces is a really nice, extremely competent and popular guy. His modem breaks and he can't post. We're in the middle a huge war which will determine the outcome of the game. Are the Judiciary going to sack him? Nah. They won't because of the backlash that comes with HAVING to make that decision. So what happens then? Do we stop the game until pay day? If the decision was effectively taken out of the hands of the Judiciary, so there is no decision to make, then no backlash, the function is fullfilled and when pay day arrives and the commander of the armed forces can get to PC World he can be reinstated. Happy Days.

If, on the other hand, he goes on holiday to Bermuda for 3 weeks without posting in the Official Absence Thread first, then the Judiciary could then have the option of saying "Hey, that was a little irresponsible Commander. You didn't fulfill your obligations and by law you must be demoted to the deputy position for the remainder of this term."

"My modem Broke" will then become Item 1 on the official list of excuses. :D

We need to stop the game so that we can fix the constitution.This game had an arbitrary start date which was forced on us. As a result, we didn't have a finished consitution when the game began. However, most of the arguments about the constitution seem to come from two or three people. These people appear to be saying "we need to rewrite everything because these situations might possibly perhaps maybe happen and I don't like whoever wrote this originally."

I don't see the need to stop the game and go back to where we were last month. We are, after all, the English, so our tradition is to "muddle through."

"My modem Broke" will then become Item 1 on the official list of excuses. :D
:lol: Yeah, that's my excuse too, your honour.

The word "may" is in there to allow some flexibility. For example, if a citizen is banned for 3 days - they are obviously not going to post for three days - this proposal would require the Judiciary to toss them out.

If power goes out (remember the hurricanes in Florida), sorry fellow citizen - that's too bad.

Justice must always be tempered with compassion. The three days allows the Judiciary to talk to the citizen involved (or try to), and see what the circumstances are. If there is a good reason for the absence, why remove a good leader from office?

-- Ravensfire

My concern is that if functions are not fullfilled in time for a turnchat, and the instruction thread is not fully populated for the President, then the will of the people cannot be implemented.

We do cover that though. We explicitly allow deputies to post instructions if the official does not post in the instruction thread.

-- Ravensfire

There seems to be a broad agreement that people do not want the stricter solution.
However, if this is the concensus, I suggest we simply add in a back up mechanism and a five day timer from last posting to replace the candidate in question. Since one Term is only one month, there is no need to make too much out of it before election time. However, one could say that two consecutive missed turnchat instructions disqualifies the candidate from office. We simply we need to agree how much slack we want, and how much guarantee we want. We never had this discussion before, which is why we have the arbitrary 3 day limit. I proposed a harsher system to show how it could be done compared to the present one. However, I see no personal gain in all this, the debate would make me look like a constitutional troublemaker, but as we all see, the present law is indeed poor. How we fix it and who does it does not matter.
Appointments and vacancies have the largest conflict potential, which is why we need a much better law here.

5 points for the law

The new law needs a reliable back up mechanism to get the work done in vacancies
The new law needs a fair method of time defined absence, warning and then removal
The new law needs a citizen based action procedure as a back up to the Court
The new law needs a set of time specific deadlines for each procedure
The new law needs a balance of slack as well as real enforcement of written law

The Judiciary may not need to be included in this law, this will most of all impact the credibility during Judicial elections

I know this is a tricky law to make, but it is doable as long as people recognize that going into denial and defending the present one change their minds and propose better mechanisms. Again, all offices do not always have operating deputies, and maybe we could allow the Vice President to fill in missing instructions, as well as the President.
We should give some powers to the VP for that sake.

... These people appear to be saying "we need to rewrite everything because these situations might possibly perhaps maybe happen and I don't like whoever wrote this originally."

... We are, after all, the English, so our tradition is to "muddle through."

The British use a system of common law, and do not have a written constitution. As issues are raised, the judiciary make the law up based on what has happened before, and based on what the judges concerned think is most just. The British then use acts of parliament to make specific laws to cover particular situations. If we were very brave, then we could do this.

I do not want to rewrite the constitution, I just want a say when proposals for changes to the law arise. ATM I have a problem with unelected people taking positions of influence, and I have a problem with positions being vacated and leaving the rest of us in the lurch. If ravensfire is correct in saying that transfer of power is automatic, and that no position is ever vacant, then my only issue is with who fills them. That is not to say that deputies are bad people, or incapable, just that they haven't been elected. I have the same issue with the CoC where the (appointed) Vice president is Second in command. He should be - but the position should be elected IMVHO.

So, at the risk of being really boring.... I reiterate. IMO there needs to be a legal device to protect the game from people who go missing. That device needs to ensure an elected representative of the people is fullfilling the role necessary to ensure complete instruction to the president at the time of the turnchat. It should be a requirement of office that absence is notified in advance in the official thread for that purpose, and the Judiciary should have the power to consider extenuating circumstances when this duty is not fulfilled. In other words if someone goes AWOL it should be assumed they have gone for good. If they come back, then the Judiciary can decide if they should resume their old position or not. In this way the emphasis is on protecting the game and the people (real people who invest time and effort into this enterprise) instead of the official involved. Each case should be treated with understanding and compassion and in the light of what is best for the game. The Judiciary are best placed to do this, and have been elected to do it.

If somebody disappears from the game with no provision for a deputy or other pro-tem to take over his duties, then obviously the situation has to be dealt with. But if I'm the Grand Poohbah of Sliders and get hospitalized because of appendicitis, it's not fair to strip me of my office because I couldn't post.

but as we all see, the present law is indeed poor. How we fix it and who does it does not matter.I don't see that the present law is poor. There's a mechanism already in place to deal with absentees. I don't see that the mechanism is broken.

It is not even broken, or hardly a mechanism, it is a very organic arbitrary 3 day rule, which can be used in hundreds of ways. I want to preempt future problems with a proper law, not to wait for a situtaion is taking place and we got to declare the law "broken".
In sum, we need to shape up this law, instead of jealously protecting it.

It is not even broken,

Then don't mess with it.

-- Ravensfire

It is not even broken, or hardly a mechanism, it is a very organic arbitrary 3 day rule, which can be used in hundreds of ways. I want to preempt future problems with a proper law, not to wait for a situtaion is taking place and we got to declare the law "broken".
In sum, we need to shape up this law, instead of jealously protecting it.

You can't prepare for every possible situation, there's no point in trying to. The constitution is flexible just because of that, so people and government can react and adapt to the circumstances of the situation, not have scripted actions which don't fit.

Provo, you don't seem to recognize that we need need draconian laws, or what a draconian law is.

I agree that although this isn’t a perfect law it’s hardly broken. I can conceive of situations in which his law could be abused, but those situations are fairly remote. In fact I think some of the suggested wording changes (from “may” to “must”) pose a higher risk of causing harm to the citizens of Fanatannia. For example, I don’t think it’s farfetched to think that RL occasionally may make posting impossible for someone. This happened during the elections for this very term: one of the candidates for the Command of the Armed Forces was unable to post for a few days because of a hospitalization. I believe it would be unfair to remove someone from office under such circumstances, particularly if there is an able deputy to step in and perform the duties of office.

With that said, if I were tasked with changing this law, I’d wonder why it’s the Judiciary’s responsibility to initiate action if an official goes missing. I usually think of the judiciary as being responsible for interpreting laws and adjudicating disputes; and as such is more of a responsive branch of government rather than a proactive one. Let’s say the Judiciary does remove an official from office under provisions of the current law. And then let’s say the missing official turns up with the explanation that his dog ate his modem. What recourse does that official have? How can he make the case that his absence was warranted by the circumstances? To whom does he appeal? The Judiciary? But it’s the Judiciary that removed him from office! They’ve already acted as prosecutor, judge, and jury.

It would seem better to me that the Judiciary not be tasked with initiating action against the missing official in the first place. Rather any citizen could make the complaint, which the Judiciary would then hear and decide (presumably after giving the missing official an opportunity to make his case). That would seem a more fair and, well, judicial way of handling the whole thing. I’m a n00b at the Demo Game, however, so I’m probably missing a completely obvious reason why this duty should belong to the Judiciary.

I’m a n00b at the Demo Game, however, so I’m probably missing a completely obvious reason why this duty should belong to the Judiciary.

At the moment, it sort of doesn't. With our current laws citizens file CCs to get someone removed from office due to absences. The Judiciary rarely removes someone on their own (it's not a bad thing, leaves the responsibility up to citizens).

Bertie, I do agree 100 % on that argument, it is all about checks of balances.
We could remove this law and allow citizens to post a Citizens Complaint after 5 days unnoticed absence, and if the official shows up in time to do his duties, the Judiciary can call it off and declare the CC to have No Merit. However, if the accused does not respond in his threads, but shows up in the last minute for the sentence poll, he can turn the tide there. This will give sufficient guarantee that arbitrary Judicial Law Enforcement will not take place, checks of balances is restored, enough slack is given (5. days to 2 weeks with the absence and CC process combined).

So basically, we should only have a clause saying that after 5 days unannounced Vacancy or 7 days announced vacancy, a CC may be filed against the non-operational official. The Judiciary will be spared for any risks, and the risks for the official will be quite marginal, in fact almost non-existant. However, such a solution would remove the Judiciarys opportunity to give preferential treatment after only 3 days of absence, and in a way give room to a much more fair, transparent, as well as flexible system.
However, it will not be fast and efficient as a replacement mechanism, but a fair conflict resolution one.

Finally, as a replacement mechanism, I would rather suggest giving the now powerless VP the privilege to post missing instructions prior to the turnchat, and possibly place a 12 hour before turnchat deadline to post Consular and Directorate Instructions.
The VP would then serve as a British Style Prime Minister resolving workflow deficiencies and adding good leadership as a last vestige. Finally, the President would as DP fill in the very last decisions not instructed. With a lack of Deputies, it makes sense to nominate a crafty and well written VP as a all-round Deputy, yet 2nd in Command Leader of the Nation.

I think this compromise solution sums up Eklektikos reference to the CC mechanism, the stated interest in 5 not 3 days before noticing absence, and taking away the Judiciarys role as arbitrary prosecutor and making it a conflict mediator instead.
Citizens should file the complaint after 5 days, Judiciary should only respond on the complaint as a neutral party.

Why is the VP (a NON ELECTED position) going to get so much power when you want to add checks and balances for elected officials?

The VP has absolutely no powers as it stands, and we need someone to put the instructions if someone does not show up. I think the VP could be a useful position.

The VP has absolutely no powers as it stands, and we need someone to put the instructions if someone does not show up. I think the VP could be a useful position.

This is my point. You want to give the VP a lot of power in your proposal, yet the VP isn't popular elected, it's an appointed position. And in all of your current proposals, you're trying to add accountibility of sorts from leaders, this is quite contradictory.

I will kindly ask to remove the Judiciarys option to call an office vacant unless a citizen requests it with a CC. I also do want to extend the number of days before a CC can be filed on unnoticed vacancies to five days, as no one wants to enforce the 3 days written in the code. A non-enforced law is a poor law. There we have our fix.

If the sorry person pops up last minute, the Judiciary can then decide on their discretion to call the CC a non merit or merit.