Tepertopian Articles of Union (Pacifica)

Tepertopian Articles of Union
Original title	Tepertopier Bundesakte
Jurisdiction	United Protectorate of Tepertopia
Presented	14 December 1887
Ratified	28 July 1889
Date effective	14 December 1889 (1889-12-14)
System	Federal directorial constitutional monarchy
Branches	3
Head of state	Protector of Tepertopia
Chambers	Tepertopian Assembly
Executive	Council of the Union
Judiciary	High Court of Tepertopia
Federalism	Yes
Commissioned by	Tepertopian Restoration Convention
Author(s)	Treaty Assembly
Signatories	Ferdinand Ⅰ (Grimmen) Viktoria Ⅰ (Lotze) Edgar Ⅸ (Peninley) James Foquet (Pluvy) John Ⅴ (Valetria) Henry Ⅲ (Vickel)
Supersedes	Tepertopian Harmonist Charter

The Tepertopian Articles of Union (Alman: Tepertopier Bundesakte), commonly referred to as the Articles, are a treaty between the Constituent States of Tepertopia that serves as the constitution of Tepertopia. They provide the Protectorate to be governed as a federal directorial constitutional monarchy with the Protector of Tepertopia being the country's monarch.

A reunification treaty was commissioned by the Tepertopian Restoration Convention in early 1887 with the goal to re-establish a Tepertopian federation, after the Tepertopian Harmonist Protectorate dissolved into its federated states after the fall of its government. What would become the Articles were then authored by the Treaty Assembly, which finalised and presented them on 14 December 1887. The six states Grimmen, Lotze, Peninley, Pluvy, Valetria, and Vickel each proceeded to ratify the Articles over the following one and a half years, with Valetria being the final state to do so, finally ratifying them on 28 July 1889. Since the conditions of Article 168, which declared the Articles to attain force of law either on 14 December 1889 ‒ two years after the original presentation ‒ or once all states have ratified it (whichever were to happen later), were met, the Articles became effective as the constitution of the Tepertopian Third Protectorate on 14 December 1889.

The Articles are divided into twelve parts ‒ with a preamble before and the eschatocol after them ‒ which are composed of a total of 192 distinct articles. Fundamental principles for the whole of the constitution are determined in Articles 1 (which declares the Protectorate to be "founded on the principles of freedom, democracy, social solidarity, and the rule of law"), 2 (making the promotion of "the general welfare of its people" the "supreme duty of the state"), and 3 (which demands a separation of powers), with their essence protected from any alteration by Article 105 (eternity clause).

In comparison to earlier governing documents of the Tepertopian Second Protectorate, the authors severely strengthened judicial independence from executive or legislative overreach to prevent the circumstances that originally allowed the Harmonist takeover of the Second Protectorate. Another consequence is the author's attempt to divide power between as many hands as possible, often in the form of consensus-oriented supermajority requirements, which led to severe political deadlocks in the early years of the Articles until gradual rollback of such supermajority requirements finally solved the issue. As the debate over whether to continue the monarchy or to finish what the Harmonists had started and convert Tepertopia to a republic could not be settled finally, the Articles avoided both a declaration of popular sovereignty and assigning sovereignty to emanate from the Protector, instead opting to derive the federal sovereignty from those of the contracting states and simply declare the Protector to be its personification. With Pluvy and Vickel as republican states and Grimmen, Lotze, and Valetria as monarchies, the federal sovereignty remains split in legitimisation to this day.

Constitutional institutions

Protector of Tepertopia

Main article: Protector of Tepertopia

Council of the Union

Main article: Council of the Union (Tepertopia)

Tepertopian Assembly

Main article: Tepertopian Assembly

High Court of Tepertopia

Main article: High Court of Tepertopia

Provisions of special interest

Art. 143–163: The Basic Rights

Main article: Basic Rights in the Tepertopian Articles of Union

Art. 24: Heirless Protector

Main article: Republicanism in Tepertopia § Backdoor Twenty-Four

Article 24, Section 4 reads:

(4) Should the Council be unable to identify an heir when regular succession is triggered and no approved successor exist, it shall instead elect, by consensus, a righteous Tepertopian to the Throne.

This section has been identified by Tepertopian republicans as a possible "backdoor" for a de facto abolition of the monarchy in place of an amendment to the Articles. While the latter would require a two-thirds supermajority in the Assembly, a mere two republican Councillors could theoretically block the election of a new Protector indefinitely, since the consensus requirement allows for only one dissenting Councillor (Art. 165 Nr. 4). During the election period, the Council as a whole would assume the duties of the office of Protector as per Art. 26 Sec. 3, effectively placing the Council as Tepertopia's collective head of state.

In order for this section to become relevant, however, specific circumstances would need to occur. First, a regular succession to the Throne would have to be triggered, which happens by death or abdication of the incumbent Protector. This Protector must not have an heir ‒ determined by (absolute) primogeniture but limited to the Protector's descendants, siblings, and descendants of siblings ‒ or a named successor approved by the Assembly. Finally, the Council would have to remain in permanent deadlock for the election of a new Protector.

Whether following this course of action would be constitutional is disputed. While its supporters cite the wording of Art. 24 ‒ particularly, the usage of the weaker "shall elect" instead of simply "elects" ‒ and the free mandate of Councilors (Art. 32b) in support of the option for the Council to repeatedly fail the election of a new Protector, opponents argue that the monarchical spirit of the Articles constitutes a legal duty for Councillors to make a good-faith effort to elect a new one. Since the section has not been invoked to this day, the High Court of Tepertopia has not yet made any ruling on the issue, not being permitted to rule on hypotheticals. Should it follow the opinion of the monarchists, it would however have the power to remove the blockading Councillors from office and thus force their being replaced by ones supporting an election.

Art. 105: Eternity clause

Article 105 reads:

In no case may the essences of Art. 1–3 and 143–163 be affected. Similarly, this Article may not be altered to circumvent this proviso.

Placed right after the regulation of the procedure by which the Articles may generally be amended ‒ only by a supermajority-supported Act of the Tepertopian Assembly ‒ this article specifically exempts the central elements of the named articles from this possibility of amendment, thereby ensuring their existence in perpetuity ‒ hence the nickname "eternity clause". The contents of the protected articles are the principles of federalism, democracy, social solidarity and the state's duty to support its people, the rule of law and separation of powers, and all of the Basic Rights.

Whether the principle of monarchy also enjoys this protection is disputed. While the covered article 1 mentions that Tepertopia is a monarchy, critics argue that it would have made more sense for the Articles' authors to include article 16 ‒ establishing the fundamentals of the office of Protector ‒ in the eternity clause, should they have wanted to specifically protect monarchism.