[Potemkin]

The proletariat has no faith in the process of the current bourgeois parliamentary elections.

*slides pistol out of holster and stares at Dr House*

[Dr House]

*Drops to a crouch while simultaneously drawing pistol from a shoulder holster, fires three shots aimed square at Potemkin's chest*

[Brio]

*Brio walks in between Dr. House and Potemkin and gets shot in the crossfire*

With my last dying breath I say "I just came to collect my promised unicorn weed".

[Potemkin]

*the bullets bounce harmlessly off Potemkin's Order of Lenin*

*Potemkin raises his pistol and fires, steely determination in his unflinching gaze*

*the bullets thud into Brio's lifeless body*

[Dr House]

*the bullets bounce harmlessly off Potemkin's Order of Lenin*

Oh shit!

*Picks up Brio and uses him as a human shield, firing several shots at Potemkin before hurling Brio's body at him and charging forward, knocking him down and kicking his pistol away from his hand and applying a sleeper chokehold*

[Demosthenes]

*cracks House on the noggin, while passing Potemkin another fully loaded pistol*

[Doomhammer]

*Plays the piano in the background; occasionally sips glass of martini and watches the spectacle unfold... soon it will be my time*

[Demosthenes]

*Hopefully, its the music from The Sting*

[Doomhammer]

*Franz Lizst, Hungarian Rhapsody*

[Potemkin]

*Potemkin uses his extensive knowledge of the Soviet martial art of Sambo to dislocate Dr House's arm. Dr House slumps to the floor in agony*

[Dr House]

*Groggily awakes several hours later in the hospital aching all over with several friends, family members, and Dave by his side*

[Doomhammer]

*Doomhammer is still curious about what Sambo is*

[Potemkin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_(martial_art)

[Doomhammer]

Cool!

[NYYS]

Ok, so, now that that's over with someone should write up the final rules for how this works.

[Clausewitz]

I'll give it a shot:

Article 1. Elections

1. The Clerk of the Parliament must administer a responsible election and its results must be tabulated and certified by the Clerk no more than one month after the preceding election's results were certified.
2. A simple majority in Parliament has the power to dissolve the government, demand a new election, and/or constitute a new government.
3. Elections shall be conducted, tabulated, and certified by the Clerk of the Parliament, who will be designated by any successful act that forms a government.

Article 2. Convention of Parliament

1. Parliament will constitute 100 seats in a single house apportioned by the D'Hondt method according to the results certified by the Clerk of the Parliament.
2. At the moment the results are certified, the Party Leader holds all the seats apportioned to his party.
3. Each Party Leader after that point will have the option of assigning its apportioned seats to Party members. Party members may be assigned multiple seats. Whether and how such seats are distributed is left to the determination of individual parties.
4. All current Clerks of the Parliament shall maintain, certify, and report the assignment of seats from the parties in good faith.
5. Once the Clerk of the Parliament certifies that a seat has been assigned an MP, that seat may not be estranged from that MP until the next general election conducted by the Clerk of the Parliament, except by the express and public consent of the MP (certified by the Clerk of the Parliament), or by a 2/3 vote of the Parliament to impeach that MP.
6. This document guarantees no relief or arbitration for disputes within parties. Relief and arbitration would need to be sought through further Acts of Parliament and amendments to this document.

Article 3. Legislation

1. Legislation may be introduced by any Party Leader that received seats in Parliament, or any MP assigned a valid seat by his party. Every piece of legislation will be a separate thread.
2. Any piece of legislation that receives more than 1/2 the votes of the Parliament becomes the law of the land.
3. Votes will be placed in the thread as for, against, or (optionally) abstain. Abstaining votes are counted as votes against the legislation. Seats, until spoken for, are presumed to abstain.
4. Party leaders may declare the vote of their party on a piece of legislation. Seats assigned to the party leader and seats assigned to members of his party that did not report their position in the thread will be presumed to vote with the party leader.
5. MPs (that is, people assigned seats in Parliament by their Party Leaders) have the right to break with their party leader if they so choose over a piece of legislation.
6. Legislation may be withdrawn by its author, in which case no further votes on that legislation are recognized.
7. No further votes will be recognized on any legislative thread originating with a previous elected parliament after the election that followed it has been certified by the Clerk of the Parliament. This means that all pending legislation dies when election results are certified.
8. Amendments to this document must receive more than 2/3 of the votes in Parliament to become law.
9. Laws inconsistent with this document (and any successful amendments to it) are prima facie invalid as inconsistent with the basic law of the nation, but this document guarantees no relief or arbitration if a law is challenged on a constitutional basis. The Parliament may ordain and empower bodies which have the power to grant relief and arbitration in disputes as to the constitutionality of legislation .

Article 4. Formation of Government

1. At any time, a piece of legislation may be introduced by a Party Leader or MP which forms a government. This legislation, like any legislation, will succeed if it receives the support of 1/2 of the members of Parliament.
2. An act which forms a government will designate, at a minimum, a Prime Minister and a Clerk of the Parliament. The act of government may designate as many other ministers as it likes. Those ministers will have the power to introduce legislation pertaining to their portfolio, and also the liberty to interpret the legislation passed by Parliament.
3. The first Clerk of the Parliament is The Right Honourable Dan of the Conservative Alliance. The first Parliament will be convened upon the moment of his certification of the election results.

edits:
A clarification on Article 1.1 was made in order to remove a loophole.
Article 2.5 was added, clarifying the rights an MP has to his seat, and establishing a rule for the impeachment of an MP.

[NYYS]

I vote to ratify the preceding PoFo constitution.

[Demosthenes]

As will I as long as Article 4.3 is understood to only empower Dan until such time as elections are held and the normal procedure for selecting a first Clerk can be observed.

[Clausewitz]

Yeah - once Dan certifies the results of the election (which, currently, looks like Monday), there will immediately be a Parliament that can pass an Instrument of Government that can name a new Clerk, so, yeah.

It occurs to me, though, that the PM and the cabinet really don't have many powers, it's all in the parliament...I don't know if we can do something about that.

At any rate, though, I think this would be a decent starting point for the game, and the first Parliament could load up on Presidents, a House of Lords, a Supreme Court, and whatever else using in-game processes once we were in.

[Kaspar]

I don't know if it's just me being OCD, but once we figure out exactly what we're doing (i.e. ratifying the constitution), I think we should really clean up this forum. Would it be possible to create sub-forums within this forum, possibly one for forming new propositions, one for party strategizing, etc. It could get a little over the top with a whole bunch of sub-forums though.


And nice job with the constitution, Clausewitz.

It occurs to me, though, that the PM and the cabinet really don't have many powers, it's all in the parliament

I think PM and other cabinet positions could suffice solely as bragging rights.