NationStates Jolt Archive

The Drapeur Government was elected in the second Pantocratorian national election in 2004, the elections for the 107th Imperial Parliament. No single party could form a majority in the 540 seat Imperial Parliament, although Dr Thibault Drapeur's Pantocratorian Socialist Alliance came very close with 269 seats in its own right. The PSA formed a coalition of convenience with the Constantinople Party with its 94 seats, a party representing the interests of Pantocratoria's Greek speaking rural minority.

On all motions of confidence and supply, the Drapeur Government has enjoyed the confidence of the house with 363 votes. However, not all legislation, especially the more contentious parts of the Socialist agenda, has successfully made its way through the Imperial Parliament. The Constantinople Party has abstained from voting in favour of unpopular legislation such as the Imperial Marriage Act, which would've allowed secular civil marriages to be entered into in Pantocratoria, leaving such bills without the requisite number of 271 votes. The relationship between the Socialists and the Constantinople Party is often strained.

Related wiki articles provide more detail about Pantocratoria's Imperial Government:
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Pantocratorian_Imperial_Government
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Pantocratorian_Imperial_Parliament

Some politicians:
-Imperial Chancellor Thibault Drapeur: http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Thibault_Drapeur
-Deputy Chancellor Spiro Bolkus: http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Spiro_Bolkus
-Treasurer Isabelle Folquet:
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Isabelle_Folquet
-Foreign Minister Demetrios Raoul:
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Demetrios_Raoul
-Opposition Leader Prince Basil:
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Basil_Capet
-Deputy Opposition Leader Isaac Comnenus:
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Isaac_Comnenus
-Shadow Minister for Public Safety Prince Constantine:
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Constantine_Capet
-Former Chancellor now opposition backbencher Princess Irene:
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Irene_Capet

Political parties:
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Constantinople_Party
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Pantocratorian_Socialist_Alliance
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/United_Christian_Front

This thread exists for posts related to the Drapeur Government from mid-2006 onwards, which do not better belong in other threads. You are welcome to post in it if you feel it necessary.

Palais du Parlement, New Rome
The Imperial Chancellor, Dr Thibault Drapeur, had called an urgent press conference at the home of the Imperial Parliament on the eve of the final votes being cast in the forum of the United Nations on the proposal "Individual Working Freedoms". The Chancellor looked physically tired, as he had done for some time now, but still with some spark of intellectual energy in his eye. He gave the conference from behind a podium between two Pantocratorian flags, standing and leaned over the lectern slightly.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press," Drapeur began. "I called this conference to inform you, and through you, the people of Pantocratoria, that if the present Resolution at Vote before the United Nations carries, as at this stage we expect it to, the Imperial Government will recommend to His Majesty the Emperor to recall his Ambassador to the United Nations, and to withdraw Pantocratoria from the United Nations. I have discussed this with the leaders of all parties, and it is my understanding at this point that all of them will support such a move."

The press corps was fairly stunned and cameras flashed while an excited mumbling spread about the room. Drapeur paused for a few moments and pressed on.

"Speaking for the Pantocratorian Socialist Alliance, we condemn the apparent neoliberal drift rightwards of the United Nations." Drapeur began. "The resolution currently at vote is a barefaced assault on the rights of working people, disguised with misleading language to the effect that it's about individual choice. Repealing the international 40 hour working week wasn't enough for the ideologues behind this latest attack, they seek to go further still. They seek to stop reasonable nations like Pantocratoria from enacting equivalent legislation on a national level, with an argument based entirely on deception painted to look like..."

http://members.optusnet.com.au/a_marrington/ns/pantocratoria.jpg
A Decree Withdrawing Pantocratoria from the United Nations

Upon the advice of Our ministers and in response to a series of United Nations resolutions come to by that body contrary to the best interests of its members and especially of the Empire, We hereby withdraw Our ambassador to the United Nations, and repudiate all treaties hitherto agreed upon in Our name and the names of Our predecessors, whether signed by Us or by Our predecessors or on Our behalf or the behalf of Our predecessors by such ministers as enjoyed the Imperial Pleasure, which affected the membership of Pantocratoria in the United Nations and its constituent organisations and bodies and other such appendages.

We command the Imperial Parliament to consider as a matter of urgency such legislation as may be required to bind in Pantocratorian Law those principles and effects of benefit to Our people which until this decree held force in the Empire by virtue of their being codified and enforced by United Nations resolutions.

Issued under Our Seal at the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator on the feast of Saint Veranus in the thiry second year of Our reign,

ANDREUS I IMP.
By the Grace of God, Emperor of Pantocratoria, Autocrator of the Romans, Caesar Augustus, King of France and Navarre, Equal of the Apostles, God's Vicegerent on Earth, et al

(Refer to The Pantocratorian Criminal Code ( http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Pantocratorian_criminal_code) to see what is being changed)

An Act Reforming the Imperial Criminal Code

Whereas His Majesty commanded this Parliament to consider as a matter of urgency such legislation as may be required to bind in Imperial Law those principles and effects of benefit to His people which until this decree held force in the Empire by virtue of their being codified and enforced by various United Nations resolutions; and

It being noted by the Parliament that there are diverse parts of the Criminal Code affected by such resolutions, and various parts inadequate in their precision, as the Honourable the Attorney General informed the Parliament, rendering some aspects of the Criminal Code unenforceable;

Let it henceforth be enacted by the Emperor's Most Catholic and Imperial Majesty that:

CLAUSES XIV thru XXVII, LII thru LIX, and CCXVI thru CCXXXIV of the New Constantinian Code of 1650 issued by decree of the Emperor Constantine XX,

SECTIONS 54, 72, and 108 of the Imperial Crimes Act of 1712, and

THE SODOMY ACT OF 1892 all be repealed forthwith, and let this act serve in their place, the which, in summary, shall have the following effect:

1. The crime Consensual Rape be removed.

2. An age of consent for sexual relations be imposed, that age being sixteen years.

3. The crime Statutory Rape be introduced to render criminal the act of an adult (being defined as a person over the age of consent) having sexual intercourse with a person underneath the age of consent, punishable for the adult by the same penalties as those by which Consensual Rape was punishable.

4. The crime Sexual Contact with a Child be introduced to render criminal any sexual act other than intercourse between an adult and a child being initiated by the adult, or which the child initiates which the court finds was reasonable for the adult to break off as soon as possible, with adults and children being defined as being over and underneath the age of consent respectively, punishable for the adult by the same penalties by which Consensual Rape was punishable.

5. That the sentencing recommendations by the Attorney General to the Lords of Justices include heavier sentences for sexually based crimes committed against persons under the age of consent, at the discretion of the Attorney General.

6. That consensual sexual penetration by a man of any person over the age of consent be permissable under the law, as it was when Pantocratoria was a member of the United Nations.

7. That any non-consensual sexual penetration by a man of a person within the purview of the law in question, no matter the form of the aforementioned penetration, be added to the definition of the crimes of Rape of a Worthy of the Empire, Rape of a Nun, Rape of a Citizen and Rape, with the effect being to regard non-consensual sexual penetration of any part of the body as the equivalent of non-consensual vaginal penetration under the law.

8. The crime Incest be introduced to render criminal for both participants any consensual sexual contact between siblings or between any person and his or her direct descendants.

Thus let all that follows in this Act be admitted into the Criminal Code... (snip)