Constitutional amendment proposed

His Imperial Majesty the Emperor yesterday issued an Imperial Decree formally proposing an amendment to the Austenasian Constitution of 2011.

The decree formally proposing the amendment, including the full text of the proposed changes, can be read here.

The amendment is comprised of two parts.

The first would revise the system currently in place for the parliamentary representation of non-residential subjects, changing the geographically-based first-past-the-post Divisions system to a proportional, list-based system.

This means that more non-residential subjects would be able to stand for Parliament and be elected Representatives, and would not be prevented from doing so due to geographical considerations.

This would drastically improve democratic equality for non-residential subjects, who only gained parliamentary representation last year. They are currently represented in Parliament by four Representatives, whereas residential subjects (of which there are roughly the same amount) are represented by ten.

The second part of the amendment would implement various other, relatively minor reforms, mostly relating to the monarchy and Senate. An explanation of what the ten changes proposed by this part of the amendment would bring about can be read here.

Under new rules established in 2021 for constitutional amendments, approval by the Monarch and the House of Representatives – which previously came last – now comes first.

The Emperor has approved the amendments, and the proposals are now before the House of Representatives. A near-unanimous supermajority in support – under the House’s current set-up, 12 out of 14 votes – is required.

The amendments will then pass on to the Senate, where a simple majority vote is required to organise a referendum and arrange for the implementation of the amendments if approved by the people.

The referendum – provisionally planned, if approved, to take place on 12 February alongside the upcoming general election – needs a majority of Austenasia’s subjects to give their support, or a simple majority of those voting if a turnout of least 66% is achieved.

Two constitutional amendments have been enacted in the past, the First in September 2015 and the Second in January 2018.

If passed, the changes proposed on Monday would be jointly known as the Third Amendment, a name originally given to a different set of revisions which were unsuccessfully proposed in 2020.