Free Duchy of Anglien

Government of Anglien

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First Boerhaaf government
Free Duchy of Anglien
Date formed XIII.1759 AN
Date dissolved
Government head Klaes Boerhaaf
Government head title Prime Minister
State head Edgard III
Political party te Landbond-led coalition (te Landbond, te Verzetsbond, te Eilanderbond)
Legislature status Coalition government (45 / 84), with reserved-community confidence and supply (16)
Election Anglien general election, 1759
Legislature term 1st Diet (from 1759 AN)
Previous Transitional government (Eduard Vogt)
Successor
Members 8
Female members 2

The Government of Anglien is the executive authority of the Free Duchy of Anglien. Under Chapter VII of the Constitution the Government consists of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Free Duchy, and the ministers, who together form the Council of Ministers.[1] The Prime Minister presides over the Council, directs the general policy of the Government, and answers for it to the Diet.[2]

The Government is formed by and answerable to the Diet. The Diet elects the Prime Minister by a majority of its full membership and elects the Chancellor of the Free Duchy separately, on the Prime Minister's nomination; a Prime Minister may be removed only through a constructive vote of no confidence.[3] The Sovereign Duke is the ceremonial head of state and takes no part in forming a government.

The Constitution entered into force on 1.VIII.1759 AN and replaced the transitional arrangement of the Charter of Anglien, under which the ministries had answered to a Transitional Prime Minister appointed by the Duke. The Government in office is the first Boerhaaf government, formed in XIII.1759 AN after the first competitive general election, at which the interior agrarian league te Landbond led a three-league coalition.

Constitutional basis

The Government is established by Chapter VII of the Constitution of Anglien, which was ratified at the national referendum of 1759, by 79 percent to 21, and entered into force on 1.VIII.1759 AN. Article VII.1 defines the Government as the Prime Minister (Premierminister), the Chancellor of the Free Duchy (Kanzler fonn der Frii Ataltom), and the ministers, who together form the Council of Ministers.[4] Membership of the Government is incompatible with membership of the Burgenraat, with judicial office, and with any other public or private employment.[5]

The permanent Government succeeded the executive of the transitional period. Under the Charter of Anglien the ministries had answered to a Transitional Prime Minister, held from 15.X.1754 AN by Eduard Vogt, who chaired the Council of Ministers by ducal delegation rather than on the confidence of the Diet. When the first elected Diet chose a Prime Minister, the office of Transitional Prime Minister and the caretaker provisions of the Charter lapsed under Section 7 of the Constitution's Schedule of Transition.[6]

Formation and confidence

The Diet elects the Prime Minister by a majority of its full membership. It elects the Chancellor of the Free Duchy separately, on the Prime Minister's nomination, and the two offices are removable independently of one another.[7] The confidence of the Government rests with the Diet alone; the Burgenraat, the thirty-six-member second chamber, has no part in the confidence relationship.

A Prime Minister may be removed only through a constructive vote of no confidence, in which the Diet must elect a successor by a majority of its full membership in the same vote. The Constitution sets no fixed term for the Government. A Government that has resigned, been removed, or seen the Diet dissolved continues to conduct current affairs until a successor takes office, and in that period may take no measure of major policy that can be deferred.[8]

The Prime Minister, the Chancellor, and the ministers may each be impeached by a two-thirds majority of the full membership of the Diet and tried by the Constitutional Court sitting as a full bench.[9]

The Council of Ministers

The Council of Ministers is the collective executive of the Free Duchy. The Prime Minister chairs the Council, directs the general policy of the Government, and is answerable to the Diet for its conduct as a whole.[10] Ministers are appointed and dismissed by the Sovereign Duke, but only on the binding proposal of the Prime Minister, so that the choice of ministers rests with the head of government while the ducal act remains formal.[11]

Within the Council the Chancellor of the Free Duchy holds a portfolio entrenched by the Constitution and exercised independently of the Prime Minister's direction: constitutional affairs, the civil service, the prevention and prosecution of corruption, oversight of the Ducal Police Service, and the State Audit Office, which examines the accounts of the Free Duchy and its bailiwicks and reports to the Diet.[12] The Chancellor answers to the Diet for the portfolio, and the Prime Minister can neither direct it nor dismiss the Chancellor at will. The arrangement keeps anti-corruption enforcement, the audit of public spending, and oversight of the ordinary police outside the control of the government of the day.

Relationship to the Sovereign Duke

The Sovereign Duke is the ceremonial head of state and takes no part in forming a government. Most acts of the Duke require the countersignature of the Prime Minister or the competent minister, and the ministers answer to the Diet for the resulting acts.[13] The Duke retains a narrow set of reserve powers, exercised on his own authority and without ministerial countersignature: his personal appointments to the Constitutional Court and the dissolution of the Diet.[14] The proclamation of a State of Vigilance is likewise a reserved act; in a State of Vigilance the Duke, as Lord Protector, consults a Vigilance Council that includes the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.[15] Outside the reserved matters the Duke acts on advice. The narrow compass of these reserve powers is one of the two contested settlements the Constitution entrenched, the checked crown; the other, the duchy's permanent non-alignment, underlies the first government's undertaking to complete the garrison withdrawal.[16]

The administration and employment of the armed forces, the Anglian Ducal Guard and the Anglian Maritime Service, belong to the Government under law, while the Sovereign Duke holds the supreme command in a ceremonial capacity. The forces answer, through the competent minister, to the Diet.[17]

Relationship to the Diet and Burgenraat

The Government answers to the Diet, the eighty-four-member first chamber of the legislature and the seat of the confidence power. The Diet is composed of thirty-four members returned from single-member constituencies, thirty-four allocated to make the chamber proportional, and sixteen reserved for the protected communities.[18] It elects and may remove the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, votes the budget, and holds the Government to account.

The Burgenraat, the thirty-six-member second chamber, is composed of three members from each of the twelve bailiwicks, chosen by the bailiwick councils. It is a continuous chamber that cannot be dissolved, and it has no part in the confidence relationship, so a Government is made and unmade in the Diet alone.[19]

The Diet is presided over by a Speaker whom it elects from among its members. In the first elected Diet the office is held by Marta Svensdottir of te Verzetsbond, who was elected Speaker after serving as Deputy Speaker and chair of the Committee on Fundamental Rights in the transitional Diet. The Speaker is a legislative officer and not a member of the Government.[20]

First Boerhaaf government

The first Government formed under the permanent Constitution is the Boerhaaf government, in office since XIII.1759 AN. It was formed after the first competitive general election, held on 12.XII.1759 AN, at which the eighty-four-seat Diet was returned on a turnout of 81.8 percent.[21] Te Landbond, the interior agrarian league led by Klaes Boerhaaf, won twenty-two seats and formed a coalition with te Verzetsbond and te Eilanderbond, the three leagues together holding forty-five of the eighty-four seats. The sixteen members returned for the reserved communities sat on the cross benches on terms of confidence and supply, in exchange for guarantees on the entrenched community protections. Eduard Vogt, whose transitional office had lapsed, became Leader of the Opposition at the head of te Herstelliberalen.

When the first elected Diet convened it chose Boerhaaf as Prime Minister and elected Hendrik Braam of te Verzetsbond, the transitional Minister of Justice, as the first Chancellor of the Free Duchy on Boerhaaf's nomination. Edmund Hale of te Eilanderbond became Deputy Prime Minister, a political designation within the coalition rather than a constitutional office.

Composition

First Boerhaaf government, from XIII.1759 AN
Office Minister League
Prime Minister Klaes Boerhaaf te Landbond
Chancellor of the Free Duchy Hendrik Braam te Verzetsbond
Deputy Prime Minister Edmund Hale te Eilanderbond
Minister of Finance and Reconstruction Joost Veenstra te Landbond
Minister of Justice Willem Doornbos te Landbond
Minister of External Affairs Sanne Okkerse te Verzetsbond
Minister of Defense Marten Dijkstra te Verzetsbond
Minister of Territorial Affairs Femke Ravensbergen te Eilanderbond

The Chancellor's portfolio is exercised independently of the Prime Minister, and the Deputy Prime Minister holds no separate department. Among the reconstruction portfolios, Veenstra took Finance and Reconstruction from the transitional minister Catrin Halvordssen, Doornbos the Ministry of Justice vacated by Braam, and Okkerse External Affairs from Anneke Brandsen. The Ministries of Defense and Territorial Affairs, held in the transitional Council by Alice Steinbach and Torsten Eriksson, passed to Marten Dijkstra of te Verzetsbond and Femke Ravensbergen of te Eilanderbond. Dijkstra was charged with completing the withdrawal of the Natopian garrison, provided for by the Treaty of Johannsessbuurg and wound down as the Concord Alliance Military Assistance Mission to Anglien closed, and with maintaining the duchy's entrenched non-alignment; Ravensbergen with the bailiwicks, the heritage registries, and the protected communities.

Program

The first Boerhaaf government organized itself around three priorities: accountability for the reconstruction period, the future of the Bliven Fund, and the withdrawal of the Natopian garrison.

Te Landbond had campaigned in the lagging interior on the charge that the metropolitan establishment had captured the duchy's reconstruction money, and the government made accountability its first priority.[22] It undertook to carry that accountability to a settled conclusion through the transitional-justice machinery, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Anglien and the Special NKR Tribunals of Anglien. Alongside them, the State Audit Office in the Chancellor's portfolio would lay a review of transitional reconstruction spending before the Diet. The second priority was the future of the Bliven Fund, the Concord Alliance endowment named for the first word of the ducal motto, Wii Bliven, Wii Stans. Under a plan the Concord Council approved on 24.XI.1759 AN, Natopia was to supply most of its capital and four other Concord states the rest; Nouvelle Alexandrie had declined to subscribe. Its first transfer, due in 1760 AN, would fall to a government led by the party that had campaigned against it.[23] The third was to complete the withdrawal of the Natopian garrison within six months of the election, ending the stationing of foreign forces on Anglian soil in keeping with the Constitution's guarantee of non-alignment; the drawdown proceeded as the Concord Alliance Military Assistance Mission to Anglien closed its mission.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. VII.1.
  2. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. VII.2.
  3. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. V.9.
  4. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. VII.1.
  5. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. VII.5.
  6. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Schedule of Transition, s. 7.
  7. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. V.9.
  8. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. VII.6.
  9. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Arts. V.10(3), IX.1.
  10. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. VII.2.
  11. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. VII.4.
  12. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Arts. VII.3, XIV.3.
  13. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. IV.7.
  14. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Arts. IV.4, IV.15.
  15. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. IV.14.
  16. ^ Constitution of Anglien; Anglien national referendum, 1759.
  17. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Arts. XIV.5, XIV.6.
  18. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Art. V.1.
  19. ^ Constitution of Anglien, Ch. VI.
  20. ^ Diet of Anglien; Anglien general election, 1759.
  21. ^ Anglien general election, 1759.
  22. ^ "Anglien's first competitive election seats a Boerhaaf government", NBC Newsfeed, I.1760 AN.
  23. ^ Bliven Fund.
  24. ^ "The Natopian garrison winds down in Anglien as the Concord Alliance closes its mission", NBC Newsfeed, II.1760 AN.
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