Text:Parliament Act 2023

This act imposes multiple operational requirements on parliament

Article 1 - Ghost Seats

1. Ghost seats will vote proportional to the votes of their party or sitting MP.
   1. If it is impossible to arrange the ghost seats proportionally to to a parties votes then ghost seats automatically abstain until it is possible to do so.

Referenda

1. Any official acts of parliament may be overturned by a referendum in which over a quarter floored of the population voted and over half of voters voted to overturn (explicitly abstaining does lower quorum while abstaining by default does not) lasting at least 3 days.

Old exective orders pertaining to parliament

This bill[sic] revokes all executive orders pertaining to parliament passed up to the passing of this bill.

New executive orders pertaining to parliament

Unless under emergency circumstances Executive orders may not impede or otherwise impact the actions of parliament.

Parliamentary procedure

1. to introduce a new parliamentary action (passing a bill or other such official action) an MP must announce that the debate phase is starting using the following message format
   

"CET [year]-[number] debate phase [short description]" (attatch the bill or any other such documentation) (this message should be forwarded to all official ceticilian main chats)

1. In this debate phase citizens and mps are to discuss changes to and offer comments on the bill, they are to change it as they go. At the end of the debate phase parliament must vote on if they should dismiss the bill, or pass the bill into law. (a motion to extend the debate phase can also be called as long as the total debate phase does not exceed 14 days)
2. At the end of each debate phase a poll is to be created in the parliamentary telegram chat on if the bill should be passed into law. MPs have the options yay, nay and abstain, if an MP neglects to vote they are counted as having "abstained-by-default"
3. A pinned message is to be maintained by the speaker of parliament in the parlimentary telegram documenting what bills are going through parliament and what stage they are in.

Parliamentary offences

Contempt of Parliament

To commit the offence of Contempt of parliament one must

• Interrupt the conduct of parliament.
• Not be doing so for any reason of ethics or morals.

A person convicted of Contempt of parliament shall be banned from holding public office and speaking in parlimentary chats for a period not exceeding 3 weeks.

Speaker election

In order for an election for the speakership to be held the current speaker must resign as speaker, lose their seat or a motion to start an election must be held.

When an election is held the outgoing speaker or president (if the outgoing speaker cannot or delegates the job) must give all MPs 3 days to tell them that they want to run. The other MPs must then vote on all of the candidates (the job of holding the election falls to the MERI and they should hold it in the same manor as a presidential election).

The same procedure shall be preformed for elections for the co-speaker however an election for a new co-speaker will only be held if a motion to hold one is passed.

Matrix

All official business of parliament shall be conducted on the respective matrix room.

Leave

1. An MP may petition the speaker of parliament to request leave at any time, the Speaker is mandated to allow this unless the request is clearly vexatious.
   1. An MP's petition for leave must be treated as legitimate unless the speaker can get 2 judges in writing to state the request is vexatious.
   2. An MP petitioning the speaker for leave should do so stating that they are taking leave "under article 9 of the parliament act 2023" in their petition they should state the expected duration of their leave. After an MP returns from leave they must inform the speaker of this fact.
   3. If the speaker wants to take leave they should petition the co-speaker (or president if the seat of co-speaker is empty) during the time that the speaker is on leave the co-speaker becomes acting speaker (if the seat of co-speaker is empty the speaker must nominate an MP to become acting speaker)
      1. If the nominated MP rejects becoming acting speaker then parliament should elect the acting speaker among themselves.
      2. If no one decides to run for acting speaker then the president is empowered to act as acting speaker.
2. Leave may be granted retroactively by the speaker of parliament for example if an MP undergoes a medical emergency and rightly decides that informing the speaker is a low priority task.
   1. if leave is granted retroactively all Not-Present markings the MP received shall be expunged from the record and if the MP in question was stripped of their seat they shall have the option of it being returned to them.
      1. If the MP in question was occupying a party's seat the party must give the MP the option of having there old seat (assuming there isn't a reason why the MP in question wouldn't have the seat even if leave was never taken).
3. An MP granted leave will be treated as abstaining on all votes taken during their leave and for purposes of the speed up parliament act should be treated as present for every vote that overlaps with their leave. During an MPs leave they are forbidden from participating in the debate phase of acts or voting on parliamentary actions.