Chair of the Assembly
| Chair of the Assembly | |
|---|---|
| Chair of the Assembly of the South Pacific | |
 Seal of the Assembly & the Chair | |
 Flag of the Assembly & the Chair | |
| Assembly of the South Pacific Office of the Chair of the Assembly | |
| Style | Mr. Chair |
| Status | Chairperson/Presiding officer |
| Abbreviation | COA |
| Nominator | Legislators |
| Appointer | Assembly of the South Pacific |
| Term length | No term limit |
| Constituting instrument | Charter of the South Pacific |
| Formation | 10 November 2010 |
| First holder | Todd McCloud as Chair of the Assembly. KISS FANS (as Secretary of the Region)[1] |
| Deputy | Deputy Chair of the Assembly |
The Chair of the Assembly is the government position responsible for administering the Assembly. It has existed in its modern form since 2011.
Powers and Responsibilities
According to the Charter, the Chair is responsible for maintaining order and decorum in the Assembly and helping guide Assembly debate into the creation of bills. Alongside this, the position of the Chair performs various other administrative, maintenance and secretarial functions, this includes, bringing bills to vote, recording votes, maintaining the MATT-DUCK law index, and making records of vote and debate threads. The Chair is responsible for enforcing legislative procedure and law standards, and for determining if bills contradict the Charter or other constitutional laws. If the Chair determines a new bill affects the gameside community, they must ensure the bill is voted on game-side as well as in the Assembly. The Chair may use discretionary powers to correct mistakes in laws such as grammar, formatting, or naming consistencies, if the Assembly does not object to the proposed changes. The Chair of the Assembly may order the Legislator Committee to suspend legislator privileges for disruptive members.
Elections
The Chair of the Assembly is elected if there is a vacancy in the Office of the Chair. The Deputy Chair will take over the position on Acting Chair of the Assembly until a new election is scheduled by the Assembly. Elections last eight days (a five-day period of campaign and debate followed by a three-day period of voting). Candidates must be legislators. The previous term limit of four months was abolished by the Assembly in accordance with vote A2210.01 [2].
History
The responsibilities of the modern Chair of the Assembly were originally administered by the Secretary of the Region.[3] In the Great Council of late 2005 to early 2006, the role of Chair of the Council (now Assembly) was created to administer votes and laws, but the Secretary (then changed to Minister) of the Region also had this responsibility.[4] To reconcile this contradiction, the Minister of the Region was given the role of Chair of the Assembly,[5][6] which existed in the Charter as a set of responsibilities held by the Minister of the Region (who had no other responsibilities).[7] The Minister of the Region was renamed on November 10th 2010[8] and the first person elected as Chair of the Assembly was Todd McCloud on 15 January 2011.[9]
The Chair of the Assembly was part of the Cabinet until the Great Council of 2016, when it became an independent position.
From 26 May 2016 to 10 December 2017, the Chair of the Assembly was responsible for processing legislator applications, a duty previously performed by the now-abolished Vice Delegate. This resulted in a string of resignations and recalls of Chairs, and significant delays in the processing of laws and legislator applications.[10]. In the October 2017 Chair of the Assembly elections, Glen-Rhodes campaigned for the Re-Open Nominations (RON) option, arguing that the position was no longer viable.[11] RON won this election; possibly the first time RON had ever won in the South Pacific.[12] In the second round of the election, Glen-Rhodes successfully ran for Chair on a campaign that advocated the Assembly to focus fully on reform, with Glen-Rhodes as a placeholder who would resign once the position had been reworked.[13][14] The Chair reforms passed, with application processing responsibilities transferred to the Legislator Committee on 10 December 2017.
Further Reading
- The Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific, IV. The Assembly
- Legislative Procedure Act
- CoA Report from the Historical Office
See also
References
- ↑ Tsunamy, 18 August 2003. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespacific/viewtopic.php?p=1535#p1535
- ↑ https://thesouthpacific.org/t/a2210-01-2238-ab-amendment-to-the-charter-section-iv-clause-2/907/3
- ↑ Tsunamy, 15 December 2005. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespacific/chair-of-the-council-t4015.html#p113654
- ↑ Tsunamy, 19 January 2006. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespacific/council-results-t4148.html#p116943
- ↑ Caer Rialis, 31 January 2006. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespacific/amendment-proposal-t4231.html#p119593
- ↑ https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespacific/viewtopic.php?p=120350#p120350
- ↑ The Charter of 2006. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespacific/viewtopic.php?p=123924#p123924
- ↑ https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespacific/viewtopic.php?p=181785#p181785
- ↑ https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespacific/chair-of-the-assembly-t7664.html
- ↑ Roavin, 19 October 2017. https://tspforums.xyz/thread-5589.html
- ↑ Glen-Rhodes, 20 October 2017. https://tspforums.xyz/thread-5592.html
- ↑ https://tspforums.xyz/thread-5640.html
- ↑ Glen-Rhodes, 3 November 2017. https://tspforums.xyz/thread-5650.html
- ↑ Feirmont, 9 November 2017. https://tspforums.xyz/thread-5658.html