Justice Term Limit Extension Signed Into Law






Justice Term Limit Extension Signed Into Law
Term limits have been extended to three terms following significant discontent with the previous one-term limit.

Written by ICH




President Rand granted the People’s Assent to the Justice Term Limit Extension Amendment (2023) on the 1st of June, bringing an end to the month-long saga that ensued over the term limit provision introduced in the revised Bar Association Omnibus Act (2023). The passage of the Amendment, which extends the term limit to three terms instead of the existing limit of one term, follows a referendum where the earlier attempt to extend the term limit failed very narrowly as 40% of the voters opted against extending it, which was just enough to tank it as constitutional amendments require greater than 60% of the votes in favor.

On the 5th of May, former President Lloenflys petitioned for a referendum on the passage of the Bar Association Omnibus Act (2023), believing that “the region as a whole should have a chance to weigh in” on the “significant structural changes” proposed by the Act. Furthermore, Lloenflys noted the lack of discussion that took place among the citizenry after the bill, which was earlier vetoed by Lloenflys himself during his Presidency, was revised. With the petition reaching the required number of signatures on the 7th of May, Vice-Chancellor Maowi opened the referendum debate, and it did not take long for both sides to present the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed term limits.

Opposition to the proposed term limit of one term was shared by many notable citizens including Lloenflys and McEntire, who were vocal in explaining the reasoning behind their opposition to the idea. However, the idea received strong backing from the incumbent President and bill author Rand, Senator Prim, and Sopo. Proponents of the term limits pointed out that with this provision in place, incumbency would not be one of the factors to be considered when deciding on nominations to the Court. They also recognized that it might be politically challenging for Presidents to nominate a fresh face in lieu of renominating a qualified incumbent, which gives way to a concerning lack of political will to nominate different and new Justices. It was opined by them that Presidents would now be forced to think about the best candidate for the role after every 120 days. President Rand also shared a possible scenario where highly-qualified incumbent Justices could still re-enter the Court within a very short period of time (40 days). However, this was met with skepticism from McEntire who questioned whether a highly qualified incumbent “would still *stick* around and wait to be renominated.” Lloenflys pointed out that the historic lack of activity or cases in the Court means that a Justice serving a single term is "more likely *not* to see any action than they are to get a case.” According to him, the judiciary requires some sort of specialized skills, so it would benefit from keeping people with an institutional knowledge base. Recognizing that there was a significant chunk of the citizenry that supported the concept of the overall bill but was concerned with the term limit provision and wanted amendments, Rand suggested that improvements could still be made to the bill after its passage and thus encouraged that section of the citizenry to vote in favor of the bill in the referendum.

The referendum resulted in the bill being passed by a very narrow margin with 62.5% of the citizenry voting in favor of the bill's passage, 2.5% above the required 60% needed for its passage. As was suggested, the Senate began to debate the Justice Term Limit Extension Amendment (2023), ultimately voting for it unanimously. However, its final passage into law was thrown into doubt as Sopo raised a petition for a referendum on the bill, arguing that a three-term limit was not effective enough at bringing in new justices to the High Court and that a one-term limit would work better. This petition was met with significant uproar from the opponents of the one-term limit who characterized it as a "stalling tactic" and "dirty politics." Lime deemed the issue to be "too small" to be decided by a referendum and mentioned that "people voted under the strong assumption that there would be changes to the term." He expressed his disappointment that a minority of the region could use the referendum to break the compromise struck by the Senate. This view was also shared by McEntire who rued that they will "end up getting their way by exploiting the higher threshold" for a constitutional amendment. McEntire also pointed out that, without a promise to pass improvements to the term limit provision, Bar Association Omnibus Act wouldn't have passed. McEntire further implied that the original plan of the proponents was to keep the 1-term limit, a claim which was quickly shot down by Prim and Rand. Prim was also disappointed by the "stalling tactic" claim, as the Senate promptly kept the promise of compromise regarding the term limits, and he provided reassurance of his commitment to fulfilling the promise of getting the controversial one-term limit amended.

Even though the Justice Term Limit Extension Amendment did fail by an extremely narrow margin with 40% of the voters opposing the amendment, the amendment was re-introduced again in the Senate with its language unchanged and was ultimately passed unanimously. The Amendment was then granted the People's Assent, much to the delight of the proponents of a three-term limit, with McEntire telling the EBC, "I am glad to see it come to a resolution. The compromise the senate achieved on the term limits issue was as close to consensus as we are going to get."

 
Great work, ICH! Very informative piece!
 
  • Like
Reactions: ICH
Well written and a fun read, effectively documenting this piece of our history - thank you ICH!
 
  • Like
Reactions: ICH
This is really well-written, awesome stuff ICH!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: ICH
Back
Top