House of Lords (Themiclesia)

House of Lords 門下省 men-gra′-srêng′
Type
Type	upper house of the Parliament of Themiclesia
Term limits	hereditary or life
History
Founded	February 21, 1845 (1845-02-21)
Preceded by	Council of Ordinary Attendants Council of Royal Attendants
Seats	178
Meeting place
Chamber Ultraporte

The Themiclesian House of Lords (門下省, men-gra′-srêng′) or more formally the House of Princes, Peers, and High Counsellors is the upper house of the Themiclesian parliament. It was created in 1845 from several existing organizations involved in the legislative process on the model of the Tyrannian House of Lords, as a compromise with the parliamentary Liberals, demanding franchise reform, to secure Conservative influence. Its powers originally extended over legislative, executive, and judicial affairs, though its has been considerably restricted in many subsequent reforms. Currently, it consists of around 170 members and primarily exercise an advisory and cautionary role.

History

Formation

Since the Great Settlement of 1801, which established the power of the elected Council of Protonotaries to control legislation and taxation, the Conservatives as a political party dominated the house, with the primary agenda of supervising executive misconduct and preventing immoderate taxation and expenditure. As Themiclesia's merchant class recovered and were saturated with the ideals of Enlightenment, the traditional form of election to the Council was considered arcane and undemocratic. Previously, merchants sought to gain influence in the legislative process through bribery of gentle electors, but due to their financial security and unaccountability once elected, it was rarely effective. By 1840, frustrated at the effective monopoly of representation of established gentle houses, the merchant leagues began several disruptive "trade actions", whereby industrialists refused to process the agricultural products from farms owned by rural gentry as a form of protest. This so greatly injured the commercial interests of the upper class that reconciliation was immediate.

The Liberals proposed to grant the franchise, on the Tyrannian model, to all educated and propertied males. The land-owning, aristocratic Conservatives were concerned that the reform would produce a gross Liberal leaning in the Council. The Conservatives sought to consolidate influence by formalizing a second chamber that retained veto power over bills from the elected house. This second chamber drew on the existing Council of Royal Attendants (侍中省) and Council of Ordinary Attendants (常侍省), which provided advice to the Emperor on how his powers should be exercised. The function of these two bodies, as non-partisan advisors, became already more pronounced when the executive and legislative had become partisan and consistently troubled the throne with conflicting requests. Technically, legislation could not receive royal approbation until one Royal Attendant and Ordinary Attendant had advised the Emperor of the bill; however, as there was no limit to the number of either of them, passing a bill was extremely easy, provided the emperor was inclined to assent. The new house would require the assent of at least half their number in the legislative process, rather than merely any two of them.

To create the widest Conservative bloc possible, the princes and peers were granted the house's membership; formerly lacking an effective way to enter politics, they assented enthusiastically. The Liberals, while not entirely satisfied with the situation, found the compromise acceptable. According to the first Liberal prime minister, the Conservatives lost nothing, and the Liberals gained something (the Conservatives had a veto before and after the reforms, but the Liberals gained representation). The emperor was given considerable control over the membership of the house, still allowed to appoint Royal and Ordinary Attendants and create peers at will. Ironically, the emperor was made more politically important by this change in affairs. Additionally, since the institution of rural election was not abolished, Conservatives still expected to dominate the higher rungs of the civil service, from which most new members of the upper house were expected to be appointed. The bill was passed in 1844 and came into effect after the election of 1845, which, as the Conservatives had feared, produced a massive Liberal majority.

Reforms

As the upper house was conceived as a Conservative body, conflict with the elected house was a constant (and some argue, dominant) theme in its history.

Function

Legislative

The primary function of the House of Lords is as a second chamber in the legislative process, having the power to propose, debate, amend, and pass bills. The chamber initially enjoyed all the formal authorities that the Commons possessed—including the right to propose and amend money bills, or to refuse passage, but this particular right has been curtailed by statute in 1913. The Lords in the house or committees have power to summon experts to acquire opinions on bills.

The Lords maintain the power to refuse passage of a bill from the Commons, until a general election has occurred and it is passed again by the Commons. At this point, the support of any two members of the house will be sufficient to pass the bill, regardless of how the rest of the Lords vote.

Executive

The power of the Lords over executive actions is directly inherited from the traditional powers of the Councils of Attendants. Any act of the government that requires the assent of the crown must be presented to the House of Lords, where it is given a pro forma reading and presented to the sovereign for approval. Generally, little debate occurs on these acts. In recent years, some governments has resented even this degree of scrutiny and sought to abolish this formality, since any speeches made may influence the reputation of the government. The Reductions in Formalities Act of 1975 provides that secondary legislation may be presented to the sovereign directly, without passing the House of Lords; however, both the Liberals and Conservatives have generally sought to follow this custom despite its being non-mandatory.

Judicial

Review of capital sentences

The judicial role of the House of Lords is, again, connected to those of its predecessors. Prior to the abolition of capital punishment in 1853, the Lords retained an absolute veto on its use. After the Exchequer of Appeals and Home Secretary had reviewed the capital sentences meted out during the year, the list of sentences would be read, one-by-one, to the Lords; members would be called by name and declare either "Upon my conscience, this case is satisfactory", indicating that the punishment was justified, or "Upon my conscience, this case is not satisfactory", indicating the punishment was unreasonable. A simple majority in the chamber was required to validate the sentence. Scholars have asserted that, since the lords were called upon, by name, individually to give their judgment, it resulted in a very restrictive use of capital punishment, as few wanted to be seen as profligate with capital punishment. After abolition, this procedure became obsolete.

Impeachment and attainder

The Lords have power to try impeachments that the Commons pass but not to begin impeachment proceedings, except against the house's own members. When impeachment trial begins, the Commons command the President of Tribunes or one of his subordinates to present its arguments to the Lords. The defendant, depending on his identity, can only be arrested by the Commons, if not a courtier, or by the Lords, if a courtier. The royal family, nobility, and civil servants above a certain rank were deemed courtiers. The Lords may summarily refuse to proceed on impeachments if they refused to admit the President of Tribunes. After the defedant has been brought before the house, arguments are heard much as a normal trial. If the defendant was a commoner, he is represented by a member of the house and is not present in person; if no member of the house sponsors the defendant's case, the Lord Speaker is at liberty to appoint a member to do so.

After arguments, the members of the house act as judge of both fact and law; a simple majority is required for conviction. If a conviction is secured, the house also determines punishment by a simple majority. Historically, any punishment found in the law may be imposed, including any form of capital punishment, unlimited fines, imprisonment, and punishments that extended to the family of the convicted. After the establishment of the House of Lords in 1845, this procedure has rarely been used. But after the 1948 and 1950 impeachment trials of Lieutenant-general Kraw and Rear Admiral Tsro, respectively, the question of separation of powers came into public attention and was subject to much criticism. Particularly since Kraw was sentenced, in absentia, to hang himself largely due to public anger in Dayashina rather than any domestic capital crime, the susceptability of the upper house to act impulsively on the perceived prejudices of the upper class was well-articulated by public commentators and members of the lower house. The Limitations on Judicial Powers Act of 1953 limited the range of possible punishments to removal from office and personal debarrment from public service.

Court of final resort

The House of Lords, in a nominal sense, has remained the court of last resort for private and public cases in general. While formerly appeals were tried by the entire house, with all members acting as judges of law, procedures since 1860 legally require that only members who have been Justice of Appeal (since 1920) be involved in deciding each case. These members are customarily called law lords after Tyrannian practice. Since the size of the bench in the Exchequer of Appeal is not fixed, and it was customary to make a judge there a member of the house after 15 to 20 years, the bench of the House of Lords is also not fixed in size, fluctuating between 1 and 17 historically. As the upper house had no original jurisdiction, the bench decided on questions of law by a vote of majority. Trial proceeds very much as in impeachment trials, with both parties represented by counsel, rather than in person. In 1953, as part of the reforms to the judicial functions of the House of Lords, the law lords were deprived of the power to vote on legislation.

Unlike some apex courts, the house had no discretion over the cases it heard. In the 19th century, about three quarters of the house's sitting time was devoted to judicial proceedings, which was considered anomalous. Between 1873 and 1955, in an effort to prevent waste of judicial and legislative resources, the government reserved the right to impose a forfeiture on the plaintiff-in-error, before the case is presented, in case the Lords do not overturn the judgment of the court below. The size of the forfeiture is arbitrarily decided and has been set as high as 100 million m′rjing in the past. Nevertheless, the forfeiture is not considered an illegal barrier to litigation, as the amount does not need to be paid beforehand. In actual practice, the government's imposition of any amount of forfeiture was invariably criticized, sometimes even by the upper house itself. Moreover, the case is seen to have failed if the house was prorogued before favourable judgmet was given. The house sometimes waives the forfeiture for litigants deemed unable to pay or if the case had "legitimate cause" to see further judicial deliberation, even if judgment was not reversed. In 1937, Lord of Snjang-lang castigated the Forfeiture Act in terms of executive infringement on judicial power, stating that the imposition of such a massive and debilitating fine amounted to judicial power, which was exercised without authority and proper oversight. In 1955, the Liberal government abolished the reviled forfeiture system under great public anticipation.

Membership

General composition

The House of Lords, as first summoned in 1845 under the Assembly of Princes, Peers, and High Counsellors Act of 1844, consisted of the following:

1. Royal Attendants (侍中, lje′-trjung)
2. Ordinary Attendants (中常侍, trjung-djang-lje′)
3. Princes (諸王, tja-gwjang)
4. Peers (諸侯, tja-go)

Life members

The Royal and Ordinary Attendants originated as trusted advisors of the emperor that enjoyed a right of entry to the royal bedchamber. As the emperor was usually bound by protocol when holding court, the opportunity to approach him in private was a great political preferrment. High-ranking civil servants who obtained the monarch's favours were the primary population amongst these two bodies. Generally, the prime minister was always a Royal or Ordinary Attendant, with little difference between between the two offices. Other cabinet ministers also typically received one of either title, if only for the convenience of holding meetings before the monarch. This created a problem known as the Upper House Case, which meant the cabinet ministers tended to be members of the upper house and created endless problems in later politics. During the 19th century, the emperor still actively made appointments to upper house, but with the ascension of the famously-indifferent Emperor Gar in 1889, the Liberal government prevailed upon him that making personal appointments would expose him to political liability. As a result, Emperor Gar never made appointments except those recommended by the prime minister.

Today, life members are appointed by the emperor with the approval of the prime minister; while this means the Commons could theoretically threaten confidence if the head of government made too many unpopular recommendations, it has in practice rarely happened, as long as the prime minister confined himself to two recommendations during every year in office, though this is not a firm rule. In the presence of a large majority in the lower house, at least two premiers have gone over the "recommended limit" and made three appointments. In an early case, it was an exceptional appointment for the first female in the upper house, in 1921. While it had once been held that members of the house had to be male, on the grounds that females would be attendants to the empress instead, as early as 1870 this was considered unreasonable and technical. While there is no statutory age limit on life members, no one younger than 32 has been appointed to the house, and there is no upper limit to members until 1981, when a bill required life members to relinquish their vote on completion of their 85th year.

Hereditary members

The hereditary members of the house are Themiclesia's princes and lords, who are collectively called peers in Tyrannian writing. According to the rules of the peerage, the younger brothers and legitimate sons of the reigning emperor and crown prince are entitled to be created princes, and the father and brothers of the empress and legitimate sons of princes are created lords, though neither process is automatic. Additionally, non-royals could be created lords in recognition of exceptional service, though this was traditionally within the gift of the sovereign, on the pretext that this involved alienating the emperor's demesne land. This was long since not a substantive problem, since peers have never enjoyed the right to rule or even directly tax their land in the current millennium. Nevertheless, the peer was still entitled to a vast quantity of private, heritable land, which might not be within his fief, and a share of the taxation income from his fief. A peer is automatically granted a seat in the house upon creation, with no difference between princes and lords in terms of voting power.

The inclusion of hereditary seats in the upper house of the legislature has been a source of acute criticism by Liberals since the establishment of the house, since these seats tended to be ultra-conservatives in terms of policy. Any attempt to raise tax on land or encourage population movement to the coastal, industrial areas would be relentless blocked by these individuals, since it injured their ability to profit from agriculture; if they desired to raise money, it was usually in the form of commercial or income taxes or transit duties, which hurt the interests of the Liberal commercial and industrial classes more directly. These arguments found little resonance in public discourse, and Liberal leaders usually appealed to equality against privilege, especially hereditary privilege. However, the Liberal distaste of hereditary peers was not uniform. As prime ministers were always created peers after leaving office, peerages offered an avenue for Liberals to institute their supporters in the upper house, which otherwise was a very Conservative chamber. Indeed, according to some scholars there is reason to think that the Liberal Party switched through six prime ministers between 1850 and 1859 to gain a foothold in the upper house. While such former-prime ministers were expected to remain loyal to the Liberal cause in the Lords, the performance of their successors was less guaranteed. Of ten Liberal PM seats in the upper house, four had defected to the Conservatives by 1900.

While automatic entitlements have rarely been challenged in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Liberals generated a public outcry when they planned to block the creation of 12 peers on the occasion of the emperor's marriage to Empress Hruh-′an. When the to-be-peers assured the Liberal party leadership that their political views were solidly Liberal, the Liberal PM withdrew his critical speech and instructed his foreign secretary to make speeches in the house defending their elevation, giving Conservatives one of the "greatest victories" in parliamentary politics the party had experienced in decades, ridiculing the Liberal front bench for abandoning all its principles when the new peers would support their platform. The Conservative leader came off smelling like roses when he asserted that his party would back their elevation, regardless of their political views, so that "the upper house could maintain its political dynamy and constitutional function".