Parliament (Caropsyne Pontanore): Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 23:28, 16 March 2021
Parliament of the Caropsyne Pontanore | |
|---|---|
| Bicameral | |
 | |
| Type | |
| Houses | Pontiana Fostana |
Term limits | 5 years (Pontiana) Lifetime (Fostana) |
| Leadership | |
Speaker of the Pontiana | Elias Galpha |
Premier | |
Opposition Leader | |
| Structure | |
 | |
Pontiana political groups |
|
 | |
Fostana political groups |
|
| Elections | |
Pontiana voting system | First-past-the-post voting |
Fostana voting system | By Appointment |
Pontiana last election | 3 March 2020 |
Pontiana next election | 2 March 2025 |
| Website | |
| parliamenta.po | |
The Parliament of the Caropsyne Pontanore consists of an upper, appointed house, the Fostana, and a lower elected house, the Pontiana. Both bodies sit in the capital of Fornænda.
The Pontiana
The Pontiana is the elected lower house of Parliament and has always been the chamber of precedence since 1843 (including over the Cadriana when it existed). The only exception was over a sixty-year period between 1933 and 1993 in which the Fostana overthrew the elected Premier, seized complete control over the Pontanore by declaring a National Emergency, and shut down the chamber. The Pontiana is the second-largest legislative body in the world with a total of 840 members drawn from single-member constituencies.
Members are elected by receiving a pluarity of all votes cast at an election. Each Pontanore State is allocated a certain number of seats based on its total population and constituencies are drawn to be roughly equal in size relative to the respective state. Elections occur every five years or sooner if so ordered. Several political parties are represented in the chamber. By law, the Premier is the leader of the single largest political party in the Pontiana. This position is currently held by Ilmer Yutrias since 3 March 2020.
Day-to-day administrative matters of the chamber are handled by the Pontiana Executive Committee. This includes determining rules and procedure for legislation, whether to take disciplinary action upon members, overseeing member privileges, and setting dates for elections. The Chair of the Executive Committee serves as Speaker.
Bills passed by the Pontiana cannot be vetoed by the upper chamber but they can be delayed or sent back with amendments.
The Fostana
The Fostana is the unelected upper chamber of the Caropsyne Parliament. It is made up 60 appointed Pantolaré (singular Pantolaro/a) led by a Chair, currently Haldric Jarvalde. The other officers of the chamber are Dr. Baras Alpa (Secretary), Dr. Gethman Tormian (Treasurer), and Dr. Olimand Harriman (Master of Ceremonies). The passage of the Fostana Reform Act 2020 in the early days of the Yutrias Government has replaced the previous medieval domination of historic landowners and religious officials with noted individuals from the political bureaucratic, and academic spheres of Pontanore society.
The Fostana scrutinises, and in some cases amends, bills that have been approved by the Pontiana. Although they cannot prevent bills from passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, they can delay bills and force the lower house to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the Fostana acts as a check that is independent of the electoral process. Besides its legislative duties, the Fostana has limited executive functions, fulfills prescribed ceremonial roles as dictated by historical precedent, and by law, serves as the Pontanore's highest judicial court. Members of the Fostana are immune from prosecution unless the rest of the body votes to remove it.
The body has held an important place in Caropsyne history and has been a part of the political fabric of the nation for over seven-hundred years. From its creation in 1281, the monarchy often relied upon it for legal guidance and the levying of new taxes. The chamber consisted of 60 members made up of complex mesh of political, aristocratic, and religious appointments. The Fostana also had been given the power to select its own membership by a majority internal vote. Their power was drastically curtailed when the elected lower chamber was constituted in 1843 at the same time King Olimand agreed to the downgrading of the monarchy from a Royal Family to merely a Royal House. Relations between the two chambers immediately started off tense.
For the next 90 years this would persist until the upper chamber overthrew Premier Dorias Rormold in 1933, proclaimed a national emergency and closed the Pontiana. This would be the beginning of 60 years of Fostana rule, a period of time which is regarded in different ways by different people. The majority of Caropsynes today see it as a generally negative period in history but one where the Pontanore was prouder and more assertive than it is today. During this time, the Pontanore was in conflicts with many different powers: Loslakia and its bloc during the Great War and Ardalia in the early eighties. It did successfully keep the Pontanore intact.
Fostana Rule ended and the reopening of the lower chamber occurred in 1993 following a number of controversies and damaging policies including the Hermalas socialist uprising of 1992. Over the course of the remainder of the 1990's, the chamber would slowly witness their power weaken until in 2000, where the future of both the chambers and that of democracy were put into doubt when the Fostana caused a constitutional crisis when they invaded the Pontiana in protest of Maldian's methods of goverance and the belief that the Damosca was actively involved in planning and executing the nation's foreign policy instead of Maldian and his minsters. This crisis, also known as the Damosca Coup, led to calmer relations between the Pontiana and the Fostana in the name of combaing Dormondism.
Miria Seranoda was elected Premier following Maldian's suicide. Desiring to reform the Fostana, she had plans of creating a meritocratic body but neither she nor her successors would be able to achieve this because they all believed they needed the upper chamber's support to help extinguish those who threatened the Pontanore. The Fostana would not be reformed until current Premier Yutrias came to power in 2020.