House of Deputies (Shirazam)
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House of Deputies ཀཏེ ཝཀིལན Take Vakilan | |
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Term limits | 3 years |
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Speaker | |
The House of Deputies (ཀཏེ ཝཀིལན, Take Vakilan), is the Unicameral Supreme Legislature of the Republic of Shirazam. With the exception of checks and balances from the Judiciary, it has complete control over the entirety of the Shirazamite government. The House' legislators are known as Deputies (ཝཀིལ, Vakil).
There are 299 Deputies, each elected by a single-member Delegation (ཏསྒིཟ, Tasviz). Delegations are purely electoral constituencies and do not conform to administrative divisions. the terms are staggered so that approximately one-third of the Delegate seats are up to election every year. Currently Yasmin Azshirah preside over the body as Speaker of the House (Gobat ol Khaneh). The officeholder is usually a member of the largest party represented, assisted by vice presidents from across the represented political spectrum.
The Constitutional powers of the House are enumerated in the "Bill of Rights and Duties of the Citizen" (མདནྕྷིཡོ ཏཀླིཕཡེ ཨཟཏམ, Madanchiyo Taklifa ye Azatana), the constitution of Shirazam. They are also further detailed and limited by the "Instruments of Government" (Apzal ol Sharkar), a constitutional annex based on Precedents that explicit the relationship between the Legislative and Executive branches. As a Parliamentary system, Shirazam' politics are dominated by the House of Deputies who has the upperhand over the government which is mostly contained in its role of executing the decisions taken by the House. To control the activities of the government, the House of Deputies has installed the Public Salvation Committee (ཀོམིཏེཡེ རསྟྒརིཡེ མརྟཞམེ, Komiteye Rastgari ye Martaxme). Composed of twelve Deputies with a year-long mandate, it serve as the link between the Deputies and the Government, regularly interviewing Ministers and producing reports on their activities to the House.
Deputies do not seat by party, but by constituencies: each physical seat in the House being associated with a specific Delegation. Deputies thus may spend a lot of time in the Gallery, to discuss and find agreements with party members. But when a debate or vote is called, all Deputies must regain their seats. The legislature meet in the eponymous House of Deputies of the capital, once an annex of the Skadanshah-Kal, the Fortress of the Skadian King. Like most places of political importance in Shirkal, the House of Deputies is guarded by the Shakara of the Republic.
Government duties
As the Legislature of Shirazam, the House of Deputies passes all laws, elect the Diwan, the executive branch of Shirazam' government, and supervises its actions through its Public Salvation Committee. It also has the power to waive the immunity of its members, remove ministers from office, and to dissolve itself and call new elections.
The House of Deputies has Legislative supremacy and can pass any law by a simple majority. But to amend the Bill of Rights and Duties of the Citizen, the House has to dissolve itself and call for constituent elections. The Constituent assembly thus formed would have the power to amend, change, and modify the Bill of Rights and Duties as it wish. It's only by its own decision that the Constituent assembly would then dissolve itself and call for the election of new Deputies deprived of Constituent powers. The House of Deputies may however, at any point, pass an "Instrument", an annex to the Constitution that explicit practical details of the Bill of Rights and Duties.
A fifth of the Deputies may also call upon the constitutional authority of Shirazam, the Constitutional Council to review to rule on whether proposed statutes conform with the Constitution, after they've have been voted by the House but before they've been signed by the Speaker. The Constitutional Council cannot emit a judgement without a demand from the House.
Committees
The House of Deputies work through a system of committees to which Deputies are assigned. Committees' presidents (Sardar) are chosen by their members. Committees may form sub-committees or establish joint committees for issues concerning multiple committees. They can invite specialists, experts, government ministers or other senior officials to request explanations and information in any matter within their competence. All Committees may be formed or dissolved at will by the House, although certain Committees have become fixtures of the parliament. Important committees include:
- Central Committee
- Public Salvation Committee
- General Security Committee
- Public Finance Committee
- Economic Affairs Committee
- Labour and Pensions Committee
- Public Instruction Committee
- Public Relief Committee
- Petitions and Correspondence Committee
Central Committee
The Central Committee (ཀོམིཏེ མིདག, Komite Midag)
Public Salvation Committee
The Public Salvation Committee (ཀོམིཏེ མརྟོཆམེ oཆཏི, Komite Martoxme Oxti) is the most famous of the House' committees. It's the organ through which the House of Deputies control the action of the Government. Its twelve members are chosen for a year-long mandate. Currently, the Committee' Sardar is Don Kargas. Their role is to serve as the link between the Deputies and the Ministers. The KMO' subcomittees draft legislations including administrative matters, checks and balance to the executive, and other tasks related to the government and the administration of the country. The KMO write notes and reports on public officials that can be presented to the rest of the House. While they do not have the power to dismiss Ministers, they can do so for other Officials, such as Governors or Secretaries. They can also launch inquiries against them or even start police investigations at their own discretion. Only the full assembly of the House can remove Ministers and appoint new ones and their decision to do so depend entirely on the reports they receive from the KMO. Even during times of crisis, when the House has decided to give Emergency Powers to a Rahban (རབྷན), the Public Salvation Committee continue its work of controlling the Rahban and their agents' work, although they cannot start any action against the executive before the end of their six months long Emergency Mandate.
General Security Committee
The General Security Committee (ཀོམིཏེ ཧམནིཡེ ཧསཡཆ, Komite Hamaniye Asaysh) oversees key defense issues of Shirazam, both internally and internationally, including the drafting of legislation, supervision over related government ministries and agencies, and the approval of their budgets. Most of its work is done through its sub-committee who draft legislations who are then approved by the body as a whole. Those legislations include matters of defense, emergency preparedness, emergency recruitment of human resources, intelligence agencies' special operations, and other security and intelligence related tasks. The Seventeen members are appointed by the House from a list of candidates depending on their known specialities and, while there's no legal obligation, there's an attempted parity between partisans of the Majority and the Opposition. The Chairman for the year 2024 is Skandar Watani.
Elections
A Deputy mandate last three years, but deputies don't all start their mandates at the same time. Every year: a third of the seats are up for re-elections. Deputies are elected to represent a constituency called a Delegation (ཏསྒིཟ, Tasviz). Elections are done through a system of universal Majority judgment. Electors, all citizens male or female above 18 years old, grade candidates on how well they think the candidate will do as their representative. Grades from ideal to worst are: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Acceptable, Poor, and Reject. Multiple candidates can receive the same rank, and any candidate not explicitly graded is counted as Rejected. The candidate with the highest median grade win the election.
This system is capable of informing in which candidate the voters saw greater merit, even if they did not necessarily win the election. There are three requirements for entering an election: being a citizen of Shirazam, being legally able to vote, and having your main residence in the Delegation you run for. After the elections are over and the new Deputies have replaced their predecessors at the House, a new Speaker of the House is elected among all of the Deputies, new or not, and the Committees are either preserved, dissolved, or created and the House then assign new deputies to them. A deputy cannot sit in the same Committee twice. Once those elections are done, the House of Deputies is ready to serve for another year.
Medias
Since 1978, the House developed a new internal television channel called House Channel. its goal was to broadcast public sessions and debates to the Deputies' Hotel and other Committee' rooms for those who could not, for one reason or another, participate in-person. In 1981, it was decided to make the broadcast public so that all citizens could see public sessions as well as certain committees meetings. The society Public House Network was created to manage their recording and broadcasting on a new channel: the 13. Since then, Public House Network has kept on expanding with the adaptation to new technologies and the addition of daily political news, live reports, interviews, as well as documentaries. Unique exception in the country, Public House Network is not under the control of the Audiovisual Agency of Shirazam, but of the House of Deputies' itself which decide on its budgets, validate its scheduling, and control its management.