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All ordinary bills sunset arguments for and against
There has been much debate on a proposed change to the draft Constitution (#13) to require all ordinary bills to sunset. This wiki page captures the arguments for and against.
All ordinary Bills automatically expire after two Assembly terms. The Cabinet must reintroduce a new Bill prior to the old Act expiring. The normal process for Bill introduction is followed: a) the Cabinet outlines its intention in the annual speech to the Assembly; b) the Cabinet (re-)introduces the Bill (perhaps with amendments); c) the Assembly votes; d) Citizens have the right to veto per the Constitution.
The motivation for change is primarily in holding a strong level of distrust in both politicians and voters to protect freedoms. We are drowning in a quickly rising tidal wave of legislation that seeks to control all aspect of our lives. There are so many laws now. that nobody knows them and it is said that we all break some laws multiple times per day.
This proposal is the only means that can reverse this situation completely. Instead of the state building collections of legislation to control our lives, the laws must be continually reviewed and renewed.
(This is based on a version of the Constitution valid at the time of writing)
The Cabinet knowing that next year a law will sunset, advises the Assembly as part of its Annual Address to the Assembly where it lays out its legislative program for the current year that it will be reintroducing the expiring law. The Cabinet may look to modify the law in some way as part of this, but for 'good' laws it might be reintroduced without change.
During the course of the year the Cabinet reintroduces the Bill as presented. It gets debated and voted on by the Assembly just as a new Bill would. If the Assembly does not pass the Bill, then the current Act is automatically annulled at its sunset. If the Assembly does pass the Bill, then the Citizenry have 90 days to veto as per the normal process. If the Citizenry vote to veto, then the current Act is automatically annulled at its sunset. If the Veto is not sought or the Veto fails then the current Act is annulled and replaced by the Bill with becomes an Act as per the Constitution.
It takes time to pass laws and if the PA is busy renewing the important ones that have passed in earlier Assemblies then they are less likely to be out looking for more problems to solve and grow the state.
This is very important. To be moral, the laws should be understandable and known by the population. If there are tens of thousands of them going back generations, then nobody can ever know them all. It's death by a thousand cuts. The proposed change requires that everyone know the law since each must renew it ca every eight years.
If the citizenry can only veto new laws then the volume of laws will grow. Changing times will lead to new laws. The Assembly or the Judiciary have no incentive to repeal old ones. When laws come up for renewal then with possible veto in hand the citizens can decide. We think that keeping a politician around just because we liked him 50 years ago is a bad thing, while should we accept this with laws.
No more laws prohibiting the firing of muskets after dark, more than two steam engines per family, or compulsory eye of newt to be taken in event of bad vapours.
This and the former argument both work to strengthen and absolutely legitimise the rule of law. Only the proposed change can both absolutely guarantee that laws are both known to the population and relevant to the population.
Because each legislative year has limited time to pass laws, the Cabinet and Assembly are more likely to use the time wisely and pass laws that maximise value. If passing laws is cheap and easy then the quality is low. Putting a price, in the form of spending precious time, on law making demands that laws be high value and efficient.
Joshmh has a great idea for financing the PA that ties in beautifully with this proposed change. Each Bill (new and reintroduction) must include a budget for the lifetime of the passed Bill. If the Bill passes, then the tax is levied and the legislation is funded capped to the budgeted amount passed with the Bill. PA overhead to run the Assembly etc is also in a Bill similarly which means that the extra Finance Bill in the constitution can removed.
One major advantage of this idea is that taxes become explicitly agreed upon contracts. In fact, it may eventually be possible for a voter to fund the government directly at the time of voting from his voting app, using Bitcoin. The voting app would show a running total of money pledged for all laws the voter is voting on, and he can adjust the numbers as he sees fit.
Each invoice paid by the government would be required to specify the laws which authorize it. The government's accounting software would keep a running total of money paid out from each law.
Agree that if Cabinets and Assemblies look to grow the law books then this might be an issue. We need to make the burden on the politicians much worse than the citizenry.
Possibly creates a situation where necessary laws sunset before they can be renewed leading to lawlessness
Unlikely situation. A Cabinet failing to reintroduce a fundamental law like the Crimes Act, could be threatened with impeachment by the Assembly as they could if at the last second they introduced a trojan horse into fundamental laws. Worst case, the judiciary can rule in the most serious of cases by reference to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution both of which protect property rights.
If you reject the argument that laws that are frequently reviewed tend to be less controversial and therefore less likely to change then you hold this counter argument to be true - that by allowing change, change will happen and knowledge of the law will erode.
Laws must be stable. This is the basic rule. Expiring laws make the whole legal system shaking and training legal staff virtually impossible.
Other states and international organisation will not treat seriously any state whose judiciary might stop exist because the relevant law expires.
The idea is to use an extensive Bill of Rights to restrict the areas which the government can legislate on:
- the Cabinet is the only entity capable of proposing a Bill
- the Cabinet can propose a Bill only once a year upon the State of the Republic speech
- very limited areas of competence of the Assembly
- referendum veto
If every Assembly has to confirm all laws or otherwise they expire, they will be confirming them as a routine, no one will even bother to read what they are confirming or if forced to read, to analyse whether they are well written - because they wont be able to modify them because they do not have power to initiate legislative procedure. In 10 years all that will be left from this idea is a ceremony on the first day of a new term wherein everyone votes 'yes' to confirm all laws in existence.
It is safe to assume that there will be no completely useless laws passed in the future (because of restricted areas of competence), only those which will get partly obsolete but considering the fact that the Assembly has no power to modify, they all will have no choice but to vote yes on all of them, because all of them will still be partly useful - they wont veto laws which are at least partly needed.
No guarantee the Assembly will do the right thing and vote yes on an urgent law that is due to expire. We distrust the government why would we trust that they will be diligent enough to take care of expiring laws which are still important?
Instead of sunset clauses the citizens can be empowered to rescind any law whatsoever in a referendum triggered by a request of 3% of population any time.
Sunset clauses can be mandatory in Bills which levy tax burdens only.