The king recently stirred up controversy when he did not proclaim an amendment to the Organic Law referendum 47RZ28. In his statement, he commented "I hereby explicitly refrain from proclaiming [47RZ28] even though I am *authorized* to do so." This unprecedented move by the king created eighteen pages of comments by citizens and has spawned multiple proposals in the hopper to remove or modify this specific power of the king as well as multiple cries of dethroning the king entirely, as discussed in another article.
While the furor has largely died down as the legislative session is soon to begin, there still remain numerous proposed changes. These potential reforms all aim in one fashion or another to change Organic Law Article XV.1 which states, in part, "an amendment to the Organic Law may be made by proclamation by the king where so authorized..."
Some of the bills, such as the assorted and numbered "Massive Reform Amendments," seek to remove all reserve powers from the Crown. Others, such as the "Consent of the People and Balanced Government Amendment" have as its primary goal to provide veto powers to the Ziu and the People via successive (and identical) bills in the Ziu and in a subsequent referendum. Another bill, "The Time Bomb Amendment," proposed by King John, provides for automatic proclamation of bills after a fifteen day period after a referendum if the king fails to act.
"The Democratic Amendment" changes the word "may" to "shall" and adds in a timeliness provision and a somewhat ambiguous clause that states "the King retains the right to reject an amendment that has been approved by the Cosa and the Senats before its ratification by referendum." Similarly yet with certain contrasting provisions, "The How About This? Amendment" seeks to change how Organic Law amendments are presented to the Ziu by increasing "hopper wait time" to 28 days and requires any amendments to have been passed in two successive Clarks.
One particular proposal, "The Two Cents Amendment," removes nearly all the kings reserve powers and increases the governmental authority of the Seneschal. This proposal removes the power of the king to appoint a Seneschal, dissolution of the Cosa, and removes nearly all veto powers. One startling change is the power of the Seneschal to issue Prime Dictates is dramatically revised making the simple issuance of a Prime Dicate enough to put it into enforcement. This legislative proposal raised serious questions and concerns from Dame Miestrâ Schivâ who stated, "giving the Seneschál power to dissolve the Cosâ is a bad move. It would mean the government being able to keep itself in power indefinitely by not allowing the Cosâ to ever remove it."
This spate of proposals in response to a royal action sets the tone for the opening of the 48th Cosa and will no doubt dominate kingdom politics for quite some time to come.
Note: This article did not touch on the legality of any proposals or royal actions. The author is a Justice of the Cort pu Inalt and takes no legal stand either implied or explicit.
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