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.
