Luthori

[Ligbruderkrieg]

Editorial: The Prime Minister is right, we need a real reform of our institutions.
September 11th, 5673 (backdated), by Margaret Harper.

The Senate was a place of cautious leadership, not anymore - how did Labour destroy parliamentary democracy?

As everyone would know, the Labour Party was in office from 5660 to 5673, where they were replaced by a right-wing government led by my friend and colleague, and someone that I am proud to call “Leader”, even with our ideological differences remaining, that man being: Prime Minister Joseph Alfred Brooke. But, during their 13 years in office, the Labour-led administration led the charge towards both the weakening of our global presence and the dismantlement of Luthorian parliamentary democracy as we knew it. For the first, the government directly announced cuts into the military, which left it underfunded to carry out its duties effectively, moreover, it allowed the Foreign Office’s workforce to be cut by 10% according to estimates, leaving the government without the necessary experience and cautious leadership skills that these government employees had. While studying the matter of how Labour did destroy our credibility on the world stage and studying ways to restore it would be interesting, it isn’t, unfortunately, the main topic upon which this editorial will be focusing upon.

For centuries, Luthori has had one house, the Imperial Diet, after some changes to our constitutional order, Parliament was split between two Houses of Parliament, the first being the Imperial Diet (now Chamber of Representatives) aimed at representing the people through direct election of their representatives using the first-past-the-post electoral system, the other, becoming the Luthorian upper house, was the Imperial Senate (now Senate), it was aimed at being an House of Parliament focused on reviewing the actions undertaken by the then-Imperial Diet and act as the representative of both provinces and other important groups in Luthorian society. Thus was born Luthorian bicameralism, a form of parliamentary governance that would grow the seeds of current constitutionalist ideological philosophy. Today, the Senate has been “reformed” into an “undemocratic institution” according to former Prime Minister Miles, whose government spearheaded the dismantlement of Luthorian institutions for political gains, into a “new, representative, people’s house”, except using this gross populistic language to describe their fault, the Labour Party admitted that they wished to destroy Luthorian culture entirely, first by striking into her political roots, then by acting in other sectors of society too.

We’ll now look into why the Senate was so necessary for the preservation of the Luthorian democratic process and why its dissolution into a mere “Chamber of Representatives 2.0.” means for our nation.

To begin, an argument that I see being thrown a lot of time when debating this topic, is that the Senate was somehow “inherently undemocratic”. Unfortunately, this argument holds next-to-no value in terms of proper parliamentary and judicial terms. The Imperial Senate Act, 5430, stated that the Senate was composed of 200 peers, 40 bishops and 300 elected representatives. These representatives were elected, but not directly. Through the provinces, these representatives were aimed at representing Luthorian principalities, grand duchies and autonomous regions. The Act stipulated that the Senate was aimed primarily at granting representation to the Luthorian provinces through enabling their respective parliament to elect representatives to serve in the Senate. These parliaments were, first and foremost, elected by citizens of these provinces, the Orange Assembly is elected by the people of the Principality and then would, as the representative of the province’s population, accordingly to the law, elect, through proportional method to ensure relative fairness and ruling out the potential for a majority to be drawn in the Senate, their Senators. So, in a way, this argument falls flat as we’ve seen here that, although indirectly, Senators were in fact elected by the citizens. But, even if these Senators were elected, isn’t the fact that the Senate was unelected its greatest strength?

Arguably, it can be seen as that. The Senate was unelected, so wasn’t responsible directly towards the electorate, allowing for further scrutiny towards the Chamber of Representatives, where most Members of Parliament (MPs) were mostly concerned about scoring political points to strengthen their re-election bid. Due to this, numerous laws were proposed to the Chamber of Representatives, passed the House and then, when sent to the Senate, were either heavily amended, or outright rejected. The Senate was filled with people that didn’t have an electorate to please, so was more able to “check” the abuses made by the Chamber of Representatives in terms of legislation. The existence of this neutral and unelected body created stability in a heavily unstable political environment, with numerous Prime Ministers pushing through “reform” Acts to our political institutions, that in their mind, both strengthened our democracy and our institutions, but in fact, they were wrong. Luthorian democracy wasn’t strengthened by the fact that Luthorians could now vote in one more election, hell, most of them don’t even care about the Senate election, for most Luthorians, they vote primarily for the Chamber of Representatives while the Senate is an afterthought. How can we reasonably say that our democracy is in a much better shape than it was in the beginning of the century? We cannot indeed.

The thing is, through this opinion piece, I am seemingly one who opposes reform, one who wishes for the establishment of an absolute monarchy like in Kalistan or the one advocated by the extremist Orange Order. But no, I am a sensible conservative and I am not opposed to the concept of reforming the Senate, but I am heavily opposed to the weakening of our democratic institutions and to the destruction of traditional Luthorian culture. From this piece, I am not merely criticising how the Labour Party completely destroyed the parliamentary dynamic that had been standing since 5430, I am also proposing another solution. As it stands now, the Senate is full of politicians, elected directly by the people, with most Senators actually dreaming on entering the Chamber of Representatives as an MP instead of focusing on their Senate career, for my part, I propose that, first, the Senate be made completely unelected and restored to its pre-SAEA status, from there, I would propose that all MPs entering the Senate be made unelected, not even by the legislature, so as to have a completely unpartisan and unbought House of Parliament. From there, the system of appointment as a Senate peer would be simple. 100 Lords would remain hereditary - with sons and daughters eligible to succession of their parent’s seat in the Senate, from there, a minimum of 200 representatives would become Life Peers - appointed by the Emperor through advice of the Prime Minister and acceptance from a Senate committee dedicated at looking through an impartial arm, the nominations made to the Senate through the Prime Minister. Moreover, no official political party having a delegation in the Chamber of Representatives would be granted official recognition as a Senate parliamentary party, basically, it means that no political party would be able to form a group in the Senate, weakening party affiliation and strengthening cross-partisan groups and collaboration between different and ideologically divergent Peers. Finally, to reflect on these new changes, as the name “Senate” became a synonym with “instability”, I would propose the renaming of the Senate as the “House of Peers”, where its members would non-partisan, impartial, unelected and would be able to successfully audit the Chamber of Representatives upon its behavior and conduct.