Chapter 4.3.

Chapter 4: Organization of the Commons' Convention -part 2-

4.3. Administrative Functions of the Commons' Convention

As we have already emphasized, the Commons' Convention is not merely a legislative body, but a comprehensive administrative body. Therefore, it does not have a governmental (cabinet) structure, and it also serves as an administrative organ in its own right. The Political Council plays a command post role in the administrative functions of the Commons' Convention.

As explained in the previous section, the Political Council is the executive branch of the Commons' Convention, and at the same time, it is a decision-making body that functions like a cabinet in itself. However, unlike the Cabinet, it is not an executive body independent of the legislature, but is solely an internal organ of the Commons' Convention.

The Chairperson of the Commons' Convention presides over the Political Council, and there is no separate presiding position equivalent to that of the Prime Minister or President. This is because the Political Council system emphasizes consultation. The Political Council consists of the chairpersons of the standing committees and special committees, in addition to the chairpersons of the regular and vice chairpersons.

The Council has the authority to enact decrees by delegation of law, but it also has the authority to enact independent orders without delegation of law in certain urgent cases. This is because the Political Council is an internal organization of the Commons' Convention , and therefore, independent orders are also guaranteed to be democratic in nature as decrees of the Commons' Convention itself.

On the other hand, for the Commons' Convention to properly fulfill its administrative functions, it is essential to have individual and specialized administrative executive agencies. Therefore, various administrative executive agencies are established as subordinate bodies of the Commons' Convention. Each of these agencies operates under the supervision of the appropriate standing committee.

In the Commons' Convention system, in which the government is abolished, all administrative agencies are law enforcement agencies whose main duty is to apply laws and regulations, and are not involved in policy making. Therefore, the policy research organizations (think tanks) mentioned in of this chapter are not administrative agencies, but merely research institutes that assist the Commons' Convention in policy making and legislation.

In the case of local Commons' Conventions, instead of the government offices in the current local self-government system, a local service agency under the jurisdiction of a standing committee, such as the Residents' Service Committee, is assigned to each district and is responsible for day-to-day service operations.

👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.

Chapter 4.2.

Chapter 4: Organization of the Commons' Convention -part 2-

4.2. Legislative function of the Commons' Convention

Since the Commons' Convention is a comprehensive governing organ, the classification of the attributes of power as legislative, executive, and judicial is not originally appropriate, but there are functions corresponding to these three and the corresponding internal organizations. Among these, the legislative function is the most important. The committee is the internal organization that forms the core of the legislative function of Commons' Convention.

In legislation under the separation of powers, although the parliament is positioned as the legislative branch, the majority of bills are actually submitted by the executive branch, and usually have the hand of the relevant administrative agencies. In contrast, under the Commons' Convention system, there is no such thing as a government, and all bills are naturally proposed by the Commons' Convention itself.

Specifically, bills are proposed by delegates, but it is also permissible for a committee as a whole to propose a bill (See my article for details on the process of initiating and deliberating bills.) The deliberation of bills in the Commons' Convention is centered on committees, and the policy research organizations and the Commons' Convention Library mentioned in the previous article play an assisting role in legislation.

On the other hand, the functions of the plenary session, which in the current parliament is often turned into a final voting ritual, are also emphasized in the Commons' Convention. However, as pointed out previously, the number of delegates to a Commons' Convention is much larger than the number of the current parliament, which makes it more difficult to hold effective plenary sessions.

Nevertheless, in view of the importance of plenary sessions as a forum for general deliberations, it is possible and necessary to ensure effective deliberations at plenary sessions, for example, by rotating the delegations that attend plenary sessions by the season in which they are held.

In addition, based on the unique principle of semi-direct representation, the Commons' Convention is open to citizens’ initiatives, as ordinary people are directly elected as delegates without going through an election process. Thus, a separate route of legislation (or policy guideline formulation) based on citizens’ Initiativess is guaranteed (for details, see my article). 

👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.