Edict of Establishment, 1736

[Icarnus 1669]

 

 

THE IMPERIAL DIET

 

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EDICT OF ESTABLISHMENT, 1736 

10 Harren’s Folly

 

An edict for the establishment of the Imperial Diet, the constituent parts of which being the bicameral houses of the Senate and the House of Lords, and the enumeration of the powers retained by them.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The Diet of the Holy Orenian Empire, known in shorthand simply as the Imperial Diet, is the legislative branch of the Empire. It is comprised of three formal parts - the Senate, the House of Lords, and the Crown. 

 

SECTION I: THE SENATE

 

The Senate, as the lower house of the Imperial Diet, shall be the chamber concerned with matters of active governance and shall sit in perpetuity, until such time as its prorogation by the Crown. It shall pass bills into acts by virtue of a simple majority (excluding those matters that require an absolute majority of two-thirds, enumerated below in section IV) and in the event of a tie, the tie-breaking vote shall be cast by the Vice Chancellor.

 

The Senate shall be comprised of two senators from each Imperial province, elected for four-year terms on the alternate year. Accordingly, senate elections shall be held in the Empire as a whole every two years. Of the two senators from each province, the senator who was sworn in first shall be known as the senior senator, and the other the junior senator. The Imperial provinces shall be initially set as follows:

 

Helena

Haense

Kaedrin

Curon

 

A separate gazette for current and past senators shall be maintained elsewhere from this edict.

No person may sit in both the Senate or the House of Lords concurrently, or be eligible to sit in the House of Lords, such in the case of a landed peer bearing a title such as baron, count, duke, king, etcetera. No person may sit in both the Senate and upon the Council of State. Similarly, no senator may concurrently hold a formal position on the council, in the military or in the government of any province. Upon the swearing-in of a senator, these positions priorly held are automatically considered to be resigned. If this is challenged by the newly-elected senator in question, he is forbidden from taking his seat and it will be considered vacant. A senator may be an untitled member of an aristocratic family, but if he takes letters, he must resign from the Senate immediately. 

 

SECTION II: THE HOUSE OF LORDS

 

The House of Lords, as the upper house of the Imperial Diet, shall exist as a ceremonial body and chamber of review concerned with particular, specific matters within its jurisdiction. It shall be composed of those peers who possess Imperial letters for their titles, who shall all hold equal votes in the chamber. Meetings shall only be convened in extraordinary circumstances, and the House of Lords is only required to vote on the special matters enumerated below. 

 

The initial, grandfathered makeup of the House of Lords shall consist of:

 

The Duke of Helena, a position held concurrently with the Crown

The Count of Harlingen

The Count of Provins

The Baron of Vitzburg

The King of Haense

The Duke of Carnatia

The County of Ayr

The King of Kaedrin

The Count of Kreden

The King of Curon

The Count of Astorga

The Duke of Warwick

The Duke of Eastmarch

 

A separate gazette for those current and past peers with seats in the House of Lords shall be maintained elsewhere from this edict. If a peer retains more than one peerage, he shall only get one vote appertaining to the higher peerage. 

 

Those others who bear lawfully-issued Imperial letters from past governments may also be eligible to take seats in the House of Lords. In this case, contact must be made with the office of the Vice Chancellor in order to determine legitimacy. 

 

As the House of Lords only meets occasionally and shall not be concerned with active governance or legislating, peers with status in the House of Lords may hold a variety of positions concurrently in the military or their respective provincial governments. They hold their seats by virtue of their peerages, and they are transferred according to the transfer of these peerages. 

 

Future recipients of Imperial letters are automatically entitled to a seat in the House of Lords. As previously mentioned, no person may sit in both the House of Lords and the Senate concurrently.

 

SECTION III: THE CROWN

 

The Crown, as the final actor in the Imperial Diet and the executive, formally approves bills that have passed through their respective chambers in a process known as imperial assent. Imperial assent can be either granted, withheld, or withheld conditionally. To withhold imperial assent is an effective veto, and to withhold imperial assent conditionally requires its passage through the respective chamber it is concerned with in an amended capacity, upon which it is presented for imperial assent again. When imperial assent is granted, a bill becomes an act of law.

 

The powers of the Crown in exercising imperial assent can be exercised by the Emperor or his designated regent, such as for example the Archchancellor.

 

The Crown prorogues the Senate before an election, and recalls it after an election. 

 

The Crown is also represented in the Senate by the Vice Chancellor, who serves in his capacity as President of the Senate and hence presiding officer, setting the order of business and casting a tie-breaking vote in the event of an even vote. The Crown is represented in the House of Lords by the Archchancellor, who serves as presiding officer and may also cast a tie-breaking vote, however, as the House of Lords sits only in extraordinary circumstances, this is one of his secondary roles.

 

In the absence of the Vice Chancellor, whose purview extends beyond the Imperial Senate, the chamber may elect from one of its constituent members a president pro tempore to fulfill the Vice Chancellor’s role as President of the Senate ‘for the time being’, thereby presiding over sessions in his absence or indisposal. Unlike the Vice Chancellor, the president pro tempore is a senator who may debate and vote as usual. 

 

The Crown appoints both the Archchancellor and the Vice Chancellor unilaterally, as part of the Imperial prerogative, and these offices serve as the chiefs of the executive Council of State. To appoint the other members of the Council of State (i.e the respective secretaries who head their departments) the Archchancellor and Vice Chancellor give their formal and written advice for candidates to the Crown, who then sends these candidates to the Senate to fulfil their advice and consent role through a Writ of Confirmation, mentioned below. 

 

SECTION IV: JURISDICTIONS

 

The following matters, as the topic of bills, need only to be passed through the Senate:

 

• Bills of Taxation, concerning all matters of taxation and excise within the Empire.

• Bills of Appropriation, also known as budgets, concerning all matters of income and expenditure.

• Bills of Law, concerning the passage of both civil and criminal law, including but not limited to legislation concerning offenses and penalties. 

• Bills of Regulation, concerning the regulation of other matters of import to the realm not aforementioned.

• Writs of Confirmation, concerning the confirmation by the Senate of the Crown’s appointments on the Council of State or the Supreme Court, in conjunction with their role as a body to provide advice and consent for these appointments. 

• Writs of Impeachment, concerning the impeachment of a member of the Council of State for offenses of a categorically serious extent, such as ‘improperly exceeding or abusing the powers of their office’, or ‘using their office for an improper purpose or for personal gain’. These must be passed with a two-thirds majority. 

• Writs of Summons, defined as bills summoning a member of the Council of State to issue a report or testify before the Senate.

 

The following matters, as the topic of bills, must be passed through both the Senate and the House of Lords, in that order, and as the matters of the most significance:

 

• Writs of Ennoblement, defined as bills for the purpose of uplifting an ignoble family to the status of an official noble house within the Holy Orenian Empire, thereby granting them the right to bear heraldry, marry within their status and become eligible for Imperial letters.

• Writs of Elevation, defined as bills for the purpose of the creation of a vassal realm into an Imperial province, thereby entitling it to a representation of two elected senators in the Senate, which must be passed with a two-thirds majority of both houses. 

 

The following matters, as the topics of bills, need only to be passed through the House of Lords:

 

• Imperial Letters, defined as bills enfeoffing a pre-existing member of an official noble house (i.e one bearing a Writ of Ennoblement) with an official landed peerage, i.e the title of baron, count, duke, etcetera, thereby granting them a seat in the House of Lords and recognition as a titled peer. 

 

SECTION V: LIMITATIONS

 

The Imperial Diet’s functions and legislation, as a whole, are prohibited from interaction with the following matters of state, which remain the exclusive purview of the Crown as the executive.

 

• The military and appointment of generals and other commanders. 

• The Crown, its authority, and the Imperial household.

• Legislation pertaining to or targeting a specific demographic or territory and not others.

• The formation of any formal political parties, which are banned and forbidden from any official status in the Diet.

• Diplomacy and foreign affairs, exempting when permitted by the Crown in special circumstances.

 

SECTION VI: LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE

 

A summary of the legislative procedure for the Imperial Diet shall be as follows:

 

1. A bill (a draft of a law) or a writ (a special bill compelling an action) is initiated in the chamber concerned with the subject matter, by a member.

2. The chamber debates the content of the bill, with neither fear nor favour being given to any particular member of the chamber, and all being given a chance to make their case.

3. The necessary amendments are made, or not made. 

4. The presiding officer calls for a division, or a vote, and the votes are tallied.

5. The bill passes.*

6. The bill proceeds to the Crown, which either grants, withholds or withholds conditionally imperial assent. 

7. If imperial assent is withheld, the bill is declared void.

8. If imperial assent is withheld conditionally, the process is repeated from the first step until the process is complete.

9. If imperial assent is granted, the bill becomes an Act of the Imperial Diet, and hence formal law, to be published in the legislative gazette. 

 

*If the topic is a writ of ennoblement or writ of elevation, it must then proceed to the other chamber, and the process is repeated until both chambers pass it.  

 

On an ad hoc (as needed) basis, the Imperial Senate may form internal committees of three from among its member senators. The purpose of a committee is to explore an issue or legislation in greater depth than would be possible with the whole chamber, assisting the relevant member of the Council of State. As they are ad hoc bodies, there may be no committees or several, and all committees are allocated a name based on the relevant ministry their issues are concerned with. For example, a committee concerned with helping the Ministry of Civil Affairs with citizenship law would be entitled the Imperial Senate Committee on Civil Affairs. There can be no more committees than there are government departments.

 

The chairman of a committee is to be voted on after every round of elections i.e once every two years following the swearing in of any new or incumbent senators, and a candidate senator who volunteers himself for a chairmanship achieves this role by virtue of a plurality of votes in the chamber. The elected chairman selects the other two members of the committee, known simply as members. Senators can be members of several committees but may only chair one each.

 

SECTION VII: PROCEDURAL RULES FOR THE IMPERIAL DIET

 

• When a bill or writ is on the floor of either house, it is known under these names. Upon being granted imperial assent, it becomes known as an act. 

• The presiding officer of either house is responsible for the setting of the business of that house, conducting discussion and debate in a meaningful and productive manner. 

• On the floor of either house, members must not be referred to under any circumstances by their names. In the case of senators of the Senate, they are to be referred to as ‘the right honorable Senator for [province]’, or simply ‘my honorable friend’, and in the case of the peers of the House of Lords are to be referred to by the highest peerage titles, such as ‘His Grace the Duke of Carnatia’, etcetera. 

• The quorum for both the Senate and the House of Lords shall be half plus one seat. Without this and the discretion of the Vice Chancellor, these bodies cannot meet. The rules for the whole body still apply in the case of a meeting of only part of the Senate i.e a Senate vote with only five senators attending still requires the vote of a majority of the whole Senate, and all senators, even those not present, should have a fair chance to speak and debate before any vote.

• Weapons of any kind may not be taken onto the floor of either house, except in the case of the presiding officer’s approval. 

• The presiding officer, in the case of the Senate the Vice Chancellor and in the case of the House of Lords the Archchancellor, may evict any member of the chamber from the chamber for violating any of these points of order, thus nullifying their vote for the remainder of the session.

 

 

THIS WE PROCLAIM,

 

His Imperial Excellency, Adrian Leopold of the House de Sarkozy,

Lord Protector of the Holy Orenian Empire, Duke and Governor-General of Helena, Duke of Adria, Baron of Renzfeld