Government of the Principality of Caledon

The Government of the Principality of Caledon is a complex balance between a traditional monarchy and a three-chambered parliament.

The Constitution

The principality is governed by a constitutional monarchy. The Constitution establishes:

• The Sovereign Prince (and his chief of staff, the Regent) as the head of the executive branch, in charge of enforcing laws and carrying out policies
• A three-chamber Parliament responsble for drafting and passing legislation
• A highly decentralized judiciary
• A detailed enumeration of powers
• Certain essential individual rights

The Constitution details and limits the powers of government (and its stakeholders, including the nobility). It says little about individual rights, other than explicitly leaving these to the constituent worlds; the Constitution specifies the right to a jury trial and the right to vote, and a few others; the Rights of Man are left to the bully pulpit at the Principality level - generally with success.

The Monarchy

The Monarchy - led by the Sovereign Prince, the ruler of the Principality - is in effect the executive branch of the Caledonian government.

The Monarch is both the titular head of the executive branch and, via his Cabinet, the head in fact as well.

The Cabinet

The Prince's Cabinet is the group of Delegates - appointed by the Prime Minister - who serve along with their staffs as the Parliament's overseers rather than the day-to-day managers of the departments. Each Department has a "Minister" (an appointed legislative overseer) and a "Secretary" (the department's ranking civil servant); for example, the Ministry of Trade will have an appointed "Trade Minister" and a civil service "Trade Secretary".

The Cabinet includes the following departments, with their ministers:

• Ministry of War - This is the civilian management body for the Caledonian military. The War Minister and the Secretary of War manage the Ministry.
• Ministry of Trade - This ministry mainly oversees trade treaties, as well as the Customs Department (and its operations at all of Caledon's starports).
• Foreign Ministry - The Principality's diplomatic corps, and support services, including a small fleet of diplomatic transports and diplomatic security personnel.
• The Exchequer - the Principality's civil treasury, as well as its tax-collection body.
• The Crown Prosecutor - the monarchy's civil and criminal prosecution arm. The appointed minister is called the "Bar Minister"; the civil service leader is called the "Bar Secretary".
• Civil Ministry - This ministry handles all of the crown's social service efforts - although most of these efforts are undertaken at the system or local level; the Civil Ministry largely concerns itself with funding local efforts.

The Cabinet also includes the First Lord from the House of Lords, the Chief of the General Command Staff, and the Lord Regent, who is in effect the executive assisting the Sovereign Prince in the management of the executive branch departments - effectively the Prince's chief of staff for government operations.

The Parliament

The Caledonian Parliament has three chambers - the House of Delegates, the House of Lords, and the Grand Senate. Each has different powers and roles in the legislative process.

Parliament meets annually in two 16-week sessions, followed by breaks where the members return to their home worlds and constituencies.

House of Delegates

The House of Delegates is composed of the elected representatives from the Principality's 575 "Shires". Delegates are elected to five year terms; there are no term limits. Elections - and the campaigning for the elections - is done during the two-month inter-session breaks, subject to every world's election laws. There is no uniform principality-wide "election day"; roughly a tenth of the chamber is up for election between each session, so the chamber is in a constant state of churn, although generally the advantage of incumbency makes the churn fairly slow.

The Delegates are responsible for all appropriations and tax legislation.

The House of Delegates meets in the "Chamber of Delegates" at the Parliament Castle in Caledon.

The leader of the House of Delegates is the "Prime Minister", elected by the majority party (or, if there is no majority, by the ruling coalition of parties). The Prime Minister appoints the "Ministers" who serve on the Sovereign Prince's "Cabinet".

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the chamber of the nobility. In the past, the chamber was open to all members of the Caledonian Nobility; depending on the interest in current legislation, the "chamber" would either be (usually) nearly empty or crammed with thousands of nobles.

Today, the House of Lords comprises 101 nobles, elected by other nobles to one year terms. The elections are held every three years; the entire nobility votes for the entire House of Lords at the same time. The 101 seats are allocated in a complex formula designed to ensure all the various branches of the nobility are represented. While the terms are one year, if no noble challenges a given seat, the incumbent will pass into the next term without a vote (which means in a given election year about 30% of the seats are uncontested).

The House of Lords elects a "First Lord", who sits on the Cabinet, and a "Chieftain", who chairs the chamber's proceedings.

While the nobles can not originate legislation (other than non-binding resolutions, of which they produce many), the Lords must approve (by 50% plus one vote) any bills coming from the other two chambers, meaning that the Lords is essentially a vetoing body. The Lords use this power judiciously; they rarely stop legislation from the other chambers, but when they do it's frequently a matter of great contention. This ensures that the Parliament is fairly conservative in terms of intervention in civil matters; the Lords serve as a moderating force.

Grand Senate

The Grand Senate is composed of three Senators from each world. The Senators are elected according to individual world election laws; some are elected by popular vote, others appointed by planetary governments or rulers, others by vote of representative bodies, and some by a combination of several of the above.

The Grand Senate is where all treaties with other states originate.

Process

A piece of legislation - a "bill" - may start in either the Grand Senate or the House of Delegates (exceptions: bills pertaining to appropriations or taxes started in the House of Delegates, and those relating to treaties with other states start in the Grand Senate; non-binding resolutions can start in any of the bodies).

To pass into law, all bills must be passed by all three chambers of the Parliament. The Prince has no "veto" power per se - his closest approximation is to go to one of the chambers, usually the House of Lords, to get them to vote a bill down.

If a bill is voted down by one of the chambers (frequently but by no means always the House of Lords) the vote can be "Recommitted"; a majority in the other two chambers can move to hold an override vote; if the override garners a supermajority (2/3) vote of the other two chambers, the bill passes into law. This is a very difficult standard to overcome, and Recommittals rarely succeed; when they do, they usually bespeak a great rift between the Monarchy (acting with majority support in the House of Lords) and the rest of Parliament.

Bills that pass from Parliament are always signed into law by the Sovereign Prince; failure to sign a bill is considered an incredibly aggressive act on the part of the Prince, which always provokes a constitutional crisis. It has not happened in recent memory - the parliamentary process serves to balance power fairly effectively.

The Crown Courts

The Crown Courts are the state's justice system.

Most criminal and civil jurisprudence is handled at the local, Shire, or system level - although all laws must pass Constitutional scrutiny. Contracts are litigated in the district in which they were executed.

The crown appoints (and the Grand Senate confirms) a "Crown High Court" for each system - a group of three judges whose jurisdiction is limited to crown affairs, meaning matters related to the principality's bureaucracy and Constitution, as well as Constitutional issues and, in special annual session, Peerage cases (related to matters dealing with squabbles between members of the gentry over matters pertaining purely to peerage and its entitlements).

The crown also appoints a "Crown Bench" of 11 judges that meet annually to resolve constitutional issues.

Seat of Government

The seat of Principality government is in the Capitol on Caledon, in a complex of buildings arranged around the "Prince's Heath", a mile-long grassy mall lined with decorative floral arrangements and monuments.

On the north side of the Heath is the "John's Keep", a castle that serves as the political seat of the monarchy (although the Sovereign Prince, his family and retainers actually live at other palaces in the area), Cabinet offices and support staff and guarded by the Prince's Own Corps of Guards. The guard, in modern times, has been largely ceremonial.

At the south end of the Heath is Parliament, housed in "Parliament Castle". This is three buildings (one for each chamber) surrounded by a wall and guarded - again, purely ceremonially - by a unit of the Army; Army battalions vie for the honor of a one-year rotation guarding Parliament, partly as an honorific, partly because being stationed in Caledon for a year is the highlight of the lives of many a young soldier from one of the outlying systems. The division of guard duties is symbolic; the Guards "belong" to the sovereign, while the Army "belongs" to the Parliament.

The Crown Bench resides in a building atop a 50-foot-high plinth in the middle of the east border of the Veldt. All five structures are, symbolically, of equal overall height.

The Heath and main structures are surrounded by a myriad of government office buildings.