An Act to regularize the implementation of treaties ratified by Act of the Cortes Federales, to vest the power to make implementing regulations in the Council of State, and to confirm the constitutional basis of treaty ratification under the Proclamation of Punta Santiago; among other purposes.
The Treaty Implementation and Ratification Reform Act, 1750 (Alexandrian: Loi sur la réforme de la mise en œuvre et de la ratification des traités, 1750; Martino: Ley de Reforma de la Aplicación y Ratificación de Tratados, 1750) is an Act of the Cortes Federales that regularized the way treaties ratified by Act of the Cortes Federales are implemented, vesting the power to make implementing regulations in the Council of State rather than in H.M. the King personally, and confirming that such treaties are ratified under Article 35 of the Proclamation of Punta Santiago. It passed its final reading in the Federal Assembly on 11.IX.1750AN by 738 votes to none, with 11 abstentions, and received Royal Assent from King Sinchi Roca II on 18.IX.1750AN.
Passed in the first full year of the Montero administration as part of its program of legislative and administrative tidying, the Act was a technical and largely uncontroversial reform. It corrected a longstanding defect in a number of the Federation's older treaty ratification Acts, which had conferred a personal regulation-making power on the Crown and had recited the ordinary legislative formula in place of the treaty procedure required by the Proclamation. The Acts it amended are listed in the Schedule.
Several of the Federation's treaty ratification Acts, a number of them dating to the first decades after the Proclamation of Punta Santiago, shared two technical defects. First, each provided that, once the treaty had entered into force, "H.M. the King shall have the power to make regulations via Royal Decree for the implementation of the Treaty." Under Articles 27 and 28 of the Proclamation, however, the King is a ceremonial head of state whose acts are invalid unless countersigned, and the making of implementing regulations is a function of the executive, exercised by the Council of State. A personal regulation-making power vested in the Crown was inconsistent with that scheme. Second, the Acts recited their authority as the "advice and consent of the Cortes Federales," the ordinary formula for legislation, rather than the distinct treaty procedure of Article 35, which requires the advice of the Council of State and the ratification of the Federal Assembly.
The defects were of long standing and had attracted little attention, as no Crown had ever attempted to exercise the personal power the Acts purported to confer. The Montero administration, which had taken office in 1749AN on a platform of clean and orderly governance following the Federal trust crisis of 1749, undertook a review of the statute book in which the Department of State identified the treaty Acts as a class requiring correction. The resulting bill was drafted by Deputy Daniel Valkory, Jr. (FHP) and Secretary of State Jean-Michel Durand as a single reforming statute rather than as a series of separate amendments, and passed with broad cross-party support.
Key provisions
The Act makes two substantive reforms and applies them both to the Acts named in the Schedule and to future treaty legislation. It starts by providing that the power to make regulations for the implementation of a ratified treaty is vested in the Council of State and is to be exercised by Royal Decree countersigned in accordance with Article 28 of the Proclamation of Punta Santiago. Any provision of a scheduled Act conferring that power upon the King personally is amended to that effect.
It further affirms that each treaty ratified by a scheduled Act was ratified under Article 35, Clause 3 of the Proclamation, upon the advice of the Council of State and the ratification of the Federal Assembly, and provides that every Act of the Cortes Federales thereafter ratifying a treaty shall recite that authority.
Affected legislation
The Acts amended by this Act, listed in its Schedule, are:
TREATY IMPLEMENTATION AND RATIFICATION REFORM ACT, 1750
Ordered, by the Cortes Federales of Nouvelle Alexandrie,
to be Printed, 1750AN.
_______________________________
BE IT ENACTED by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Cortes Federales, in this present 12th session assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-
PART I GENERAL PROVISIONS.
1. CITATION.
This Act may be cited in all purposes as the "Treaty Implementation and Ratification Reform Act, 1750".
2. PURPOSE.
The purpose of this Act is to bring the implementation and the recorded basis of ratification of the treaties ratified by the Acts listed in the Schedule into conformity with the Proclamation of Punta Santiago.
PART II IMPLEMENTING REGULATIONS.
3. VESTING OF THE IMPLEMENTING POWER IN THE COUNCIL OF STATE.
In each Act listed in the Schedule, and in every Act of the Cortes Federales hereafter ratifying a treaty, the power to make regulations for the implementation of the treaty is vested in the Council of State, and shall be exercised by Royal Decree countersigned in accordance with Article 28 of the Proclamation of Punta Santiago.
Any provision of an Act listed in the Schedule conferring that power upon H.M. the King personally is amended accordingly.
PART III CONFIRMATION OF RATIFICATION.
4. CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY.
Each treaty ratified by an Act listed in the Schedule is affirmed to have been ratified under Article 35, Clause 3 of the Proclamation of Punta Santiago, upon the advice of the Council of State and the ratification of the Federal Assembly.
Every Act of the Cortes Federales hereafter ratifying a treaty shall recite that authority.
PART IV CLOSING PROVISIONS.
5. COMMENCEMENT AND SEVERALTY.
This Act shall apply to all of the Federation of Nouvelle Alexandrie.
This Act shall not become law unless it has been given Royal Assent.
In the event any provision or part of this Act is found to be invalid or unenforceable, only that particular provision or part so found, and not the entire Act, will be inoperative.
The Act attracted little public attention, consistent with its technical character, but was cited approvingly by constitutional commentators as an example of the Montero administration's methodical approach to the statute book. Its form was followed in later treaty legislation: the Treaty of Preplava Ratification and Application Act, 1752 set out its constitutional authority under Article 35 in the manner the Act prescribed. The reform also established, in a single instrument, that the making of regulations to implement treaties is an executive function of the Council of State rather than a personal prerogative of the Crown.
