Kalistan

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Empress Addresses National Assembly ahead of Elections
Lays out agenda for regulatory reforms
Kaliburg, Grand Duchy of Ananto
December 12, 5700


Empress speaks to assembled Deputies before the election

The Empress spoke to a joint session of the National Assembly this week. She appeared on the floor of the Chamber of Peers, where all Peers and elected deputies were assembled to hear the speech. Below is a transcript of her address to the National Assembly.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Chancellor of the Empire Reginald Hanson, Members of our Government, seated members of the Peerage, elected Deputies and members of the Institutional Party, members of the Press, invited and honored guests, we welcome you to our National Assembly, and thank you for attending. The agenda for this speech shall be short, so we shall get to it.

We would like to first of all wish the Institutional Party luck and fortune in the conduct of the election next month. This will be the first truly competitive election to be held in the Empire since 5659, and as you can imagine, leaves everyone with some apprehension. Kalistan has had a long history with even modest amounts of democracy, and it has almost always ended, sooner or later in a disaster for the people of our nation. But we also notice that there is some demand for more options: A factional internal contest, contained within the Institutional Party framework could be an appropriate compromise to allow people to express their opinions, both as a referendum on the current composition of the Chamber of Deputies, as well as the direction of our nation's single Party while preventing the rise of demagoguery, chicanery around electioneering, or ideological entrepreneurship.

Internationally, we would like to report that the tensions of last year in our immediately adjacent ocean has almost entirely dissipated. Hence we have ordered our Defense Minister to return the First Regular Navy to Bozo River, except for the garrison and logistics detachment stationed in Luncasi. The Northern Army has also returned to their barracks across Vrassa and Ananto. We has asked the Institutional Party to keep the Militia activated and training across the nation for some time yet. We are continuing to monitor the situation in Dovani and depending upon the outcome, we will adjust relations.

We are also watching developments in Seleya. As Tukarali reactivates, they are making a shift to the left, and the situation there remains fluid. If there is a strong lurch toward revolutionary socialism or communism, this may require a response from our nation, as Tukarali borders the Constituent Nation of Gaduridos, and it may be incumbent upon us to encourage our viceroy to take steps to prevent contagion. Communism itself may not be the threat itself: the real challenge is the demonstration effect that we seek to mitigate. We are paying very close attention to it.

We also see a far more concerning issue arising in Macon, adjacent to the realm of our brother, The King of Hutori. In Telamon there is an explicitly redistributionist, explicitly anti-elite regime that has taken hold. While Kalistan does not have any direct interests in Telamon specifically, and have not been directly affected, we have communicated with both His Majesty, King William XVII, who is currently in Green County in National Service, and with the His Highness, Prince David Alvarez-Ananto, the Regent in Hutori, to make our assistance and support available to help them secure their nation against communistic contagion. Containment of totalitarian ideology is in Kalistan's National Interest, especially if those ideologies spread near the nations for whom we are sympathetic toward. Next Spring, it is our intention to make a trip to our estates on the Isle of Sutton, and to begin consultations with the Regent concerning this issue as well as starting the preparation for the transition of His Majesty, the King back to his homeland.

Domestically, our desire is to continue our work to build rural infrastructure. To date, we have paved more than 1000 miles of rural roadway across Vrassa, Odufaray and Nevaras, connecting more than a dozen outlying villages to County seats via rural roads and Duchy Highways. This access brings the the services provided by County and Free Cities closer to hundreds of thousands of our People in the rural areas of the nation. We still have significant work to do on these projects across the Nation. Many of these projects are in hard to access areas, or areas which have been isolated by terrain or climate. While that will slow progress, we would like to thank our Transportation Minister, Mr. Michael Johnson, for his diligence and attention to the needs of the people in our rural districts.

We also would like to Charge our Government and the Deputies both here and who will be elected next month, to begin working on wide scale administrative reform. This includes increased transparency for Ministry operations to help promote oversight, and judicial reform to speed up the court process and make our courts more understandable for the common person. We have come through a major corruption scandal around the private sector management of both the Bank of Suldanor, and the Bookmakers' Syndicate. This also touched the AYIC, a civil society institution which is so important in representation and advocacy for Yeudis in Kalistan and across the entire Diaspora. That scandal could have been either far less serious or avoided all together if basic transparency had been part of the institutional regulation of any or all of those organizations.

The last thing we would like to see is that sort of corruption in Imperial Ministries. We would like to see, presented and then moved through the Assembly, to allow oversight of the Ministries, and the creation of a Ministry ombudsman whose job it will be to receive information on fraud, waste or abuse, and whose job it is to publish, for public information information on compliance with ethics and best practices within each ministry. With this policy, there should also be meaningful paths to accountability, and sanctions against corruption and unethical behavior. A public official who misappropriates public funds is the worst sort of criminal, and we need steps to not only identify violators and punish the corruption, but also to discourage corruption to begin with.

But we would also like judicial process reform. We would like to reduce adversarialism in our trials. When a district attorney beings charges, he or she should have enough evidence to convict. If a conviction is not assured by the evidence available, or what can be reasonably expected through discovery, we would like to discourage charges from being brought by a Grand Jury. We also would like to avoid technicalities throwing a case one way or another. The aim is to move from procedural justice to substantive justice. How many actual guilty men and women have bee released based on a technicality, some form was not signed, some word was not said at the right time. We would much rather give the defendant an opportunity to mitigate an evidence-based verdict than to allow lawyers to play tricks in the courtroom and free an egregious criminal on a technicality.

We would also like to see sentencing reform, specifically in classification of certain crimes. Our current criminal law code is based on the ancient Prison Reform Act. We would like to see that updates, with a specific process for court procedures added, as well as more specification on criminal charges and penalties. Kalistan does not have intermediate penitentiaries for violent criminals outside of a term on Kings Rock. Nearly all of the penalties are based on restitution and rehabilitation. But we would also like to make it explicit which crimes will land a person on Kings Rock, and which one will be resolved with restitution and probation. Currently there is far too much discretion being exercised by our judges, and this leads to inconsistency in sentencing, and court chopping by lawyers. We would like to encourage more faith in the consistency of the application of justice in our Empire.

This is a very ambitious agenda for the coming few years. We have faith that our Government will oversee its implementation and our Deputies will work diligently to both carry out our fiat as well as the ensure that the interests of stakeholders in their respective constituencies will be represented in the final policies. Thank you for your attentiveness, Good luck in your elections in January, and we look forward to getting back to work as soon as the new Deputies are seated. We expect our Peers to continue to offer the Chamber of Deputies their advice and to bring their influence to bear, as per usual in our service. Good evening to you all, and Happy Yule to those who celebrate it, and Happy New Year to all."

Following the speech, the Deputies rose to their feet, and bowed their heads, as the Empress descended from the Rostrum and exited the Chamber. Following her departure, the Deputies were called back to order by the Chancellor who accepted a motion to adjourn the Chamber of Deputies for the remainder of the Calendar year, and send the Deputies home on Season Break. The motion was seconded and the Deputies voted to adjourn until after the elections.

@TheRepublic