Some questions and answers about our government

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Diderot Mirabeau
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Some questions and answers about our government

Post by Diderot Mirabeau »

[b:2g7sbs4y]What is the Representative Assembly?[/b:2g7sbs4y]

The Representative Assembly - or RA for short - is our premier institution of democratic self-government. Basically the RA is our democratically elected government that discusses politics, proposes and votes on legislation and on changes to our Constitution (with a qualified majority). Any citizen can participate and speak at the meetings of the Representative Assembly, which have so far taken place almost every Saturday at 4AM SLT.

Citizens can also propose and present legislation. You can do so by direct submission (typically in a notecard) to the Leader of the Representative Assembly or by speaking to one of your elected representatives.

As long as the population of the CDS stays under 70 there are 5 members of the Representative Assembly, which are elected at bi-annual elections (in January and July) for six month terms.

Members of the RA are: Claude Desmoulins (DPU), Justice Soothsayer (DPU), Pelanor Eldrich (DPU), Jon Seattle (CSDF) and Moon Adamant (CSDF)

[b:2g7sbs4y]What is "The Scientific Council"?[/b:2g7sbs4y]

The Scientific Council - or SC for short - is very different from the Representative Assembly. Its most fundamental task is to look at the new acts passed by the Representative Assembly to ensure that they do not violate our Constitution. Whenever a new act is passed any member of the Scientific Council can "flag" the act for a proper review, which means that it will be discussed and voted upon at the next meeting of the SC. So far the procedure has been that if an act is not flagged for review within 48 hours it can be assumed that it has been ratified by the SC but this process may be more formalised in the future. If a reviewed act does not get a majority vote of approval in the SC it will be sent back with comments to the RA for rewording instead of coming into force.

The SC also has the responsibility to oversee the resolution of citizen disputes (courts and all) and to moderate our official forums.

The SC is however not a democratically elected body. New members are nominated by the existing members and must be confirmed by the RA. Once confirmed they sit for life or until they resign.

So far meetings of the SC have been arranged on a largely ad hoc basis but recently a new schedule has been proposed where ordinary meetings will be held every two weeks on different times. The meetings always take place in the Praetorium in Colonia Nova. As a general rule citizens are welcome and may speak unless the SC decides otherwise for specific items on the agenda.

Members of the SC are: Gwyneth Llewelyn (Dean), Flyingroc Chung, Dianne Mechanique, Patroklus Murakami, Fernando Book and Diderot Mirabeau.

[b:2g7sbs4y]Who and what is the Chancellor?[/b:2g7sbs4y]

The current Chancellor is Aliasi Stonebender. The Chancellor is the head of the government branch known as [i:2g7sbs4y]The Executive[/i:2g7sbs4y]. It is the job of the executive to make and implement decisions related to the day to day operations of running our communities, issuing permissions for events and buildings, addressing transgressions, welcoming visitors, putting out equipment, doing advertising and similar things.

Normally, if you wish to use public land for an event of yours or if you are doing a building that you are not sure will be in compliance with our covenants the Chancellor will be the one to contact for review and permission. You can also contact the Chancellor if you wish to help out with current affairs.

The Chancellor also has the power to veto legislation from the RA if s/he perceives it to be "bad". In that case the RA wil need a qualified majority before being able to pass the legislation.

The Chancellor is appointed by a majority in the RA every two terms. S/he may also hire civil servants to do part of the job. At the moment two civil servants are employed:
[list:2g7sbs4y]Nightwind Leonov is our Public Information Officer[/list:u:2g7sbs4y][list:2g7sbs4y]Antonius Camus is our janitor and visitor greeter[/list:u:2g7sbs4y]

[b:2g7sbs4y]Who are the Treasurer and Estate Owner?[/b:2g7sbs4y]

The treasurer is the government official, who maintains the treasury of the CDS, accepts and performs payments and maintains the accounts of our community. When you pay your land fees the money goes eventually to the Treasurer.

Our current treasurer is Rudeen Edo who is the sister of notable citizen Sudane Erato.

Historically the role of Treasurer has been conflated with the role of Estate Owner, which is the person who is listed as the Linden Lab contact and owner of our sims. This person has the power to divide our sims into parcels and to sell and reclaim land. Since that function is usually quite closely tied to and dependent on the overview of which citizens have paid their land fees or bought and sold land it has made sense to tie the two roles together but in principle this need not be so.

The roles of Treasurer and Estate Owner are formally appointed by the RA.

[b:2g7sbs4y]What is the Guild?[/b:2g7sbs4y]

The guild used to be a government branch that was an eclectic hodge podge of different functions including city maintenance, treasury and responsibility for the organising of our creative class of citizens.

For a variety of reasons the Guild has gradually been stripped of many of these responsibilities, which have been delegated to The Executive, The Treasurer and The Estate Owner respectively. The remaining role to organise the creative class of our community has not really succeeded, which is possibly because of the hierarchical and not particularly democratic way that the Guild is organised according to the Constitution.

In the near future it is envisioned that this last task will be taken away from the Guild and instead delegated to the New Guild, which has been proposed as an NGO/Charity (non-governmental organisation) that builds upon the good team building and learning environment fostered by the ad hoc "Sim Planning Committee" that was responsible for the creation of Colonia Nova.

The current Guildmaster is Sudane Erato.

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