D. N. Vercáriâ
Group: citizens
(4498 posts total)
(last post: March 15, 2008 - 16:51)
Citizen #26:
Dieter N Vercáriâ | It ain't that easy. ;-)
Const. II,1.7: "If the President is not capable of or prevented from exercising his or her powers when required, or if his or her office falls prematurely vacant, his or her powers shall be exercised by the Mençéi for the remainder of the term of office, or until Parlamînt shall appoint a President Pro Tempore by law. The appointment of a President Pro Tempore must be approved by referendum."
One might argue that the Mençéi (the Túischac'h) can't fill the constitutional gap that would open if we won't have elected a new President before June 1, because the abovementioned part of the Constitution is about an absence of an elected President. The paragraph is explicitly talking about a premature vacancy, or circumstance under which the President can't exercise his or her powers; the paragraph says explicitly, that whosoever replaces the President will do this only for the remainder of the term of office.
The term of office of the Presidents ends on May 31, 24 h, and thus the provisions of Const. II, 1.7 will not apply past this moment. We won't have a President, if none is elected to follow suit, and thus the Mençéi (the Túischac'h) can't exercise Presidential powers as a deputy of the President.
I've already been talking to a Court Justice, who agreed on my assessment. We didn't have a solution at hands, were wondering if the Court would have to fill the gap; but the Constitution isn't giving any hints.
So the only real solution is to let the election begin ASAP. And the lawmakers might begin to ask themselves if it would make sense to fix the possible hole in the Constitution, either by introducing a period of grace during which the outgoing President would remain in the office until the successor has actually been elected, or by passing the power to the Court (not a good idea, maybe), or whatever else.
Oh, btw., I've also been talking to the deputy SoS a couple of days ago, to ask him if he could run the election in case of an absence of Jay. He told me that he was in doubt whether he could do this legally, because he is a Minister and thus, strictly according to Const. II, 3.14, not entitled to serve as SoS.
There it is, a big piece of food for thought and discussion and - action, please.
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- Dieter
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