February 2, 2015
Throughout the month of January members of the Amigard Parliament met for the first legislative session since the inception of the Parliament. More than two dozen bills that had been introduced were debated throughout the month of January and the Parliament also reviewed previous legislation that had been adopted by the Cardinal and the Council of Bishops in years past.
With the adoption of the new Constitution in which Parliament is now acts as the primary legislative body the Amigard Parliament now faces the daunting task of sifting through massive tomes of law that had been introduced and adopted by the Council of Bishops and the Cardinal over the years in order to eliminate redundant or unnecessary laws and regulations, combine the various laws into formal statutes that have been approved by Parliament, and generally streamline Amigard legislation.
Much of the new legislation proposed was struck down including a proposal by Holly Lynard, a representative of the Iraq Diocese and member of the Amigard Catholic Nationalist Party (ACNP), that would have placed increased tariffs on trade with “Non-Christian” nations. The proposal would have placed significant tariffs on goods originating from countries that had adopted a formal religion that was not Christian based. The measure was defeated 55-51 with all of the yea votes stemming from the ACNP and members of the Theocratic Puritan Party (TPP) while the thirty three members of the Republican Reform Party (RRP), the eighteen members of the Amigard Progressive Party (APP), along with the four unaffiliated members voted against.
Parliament did pass a bill introduced by ANCP member, Imran Binyamin that amended the current statutes relating to resisting arrest and obstructing a peace officer/clergy member. The bill changed the severity of resisting arrest from a class 2 to a class 1 misdemeanor and added verbal non-compliance to the current obstruction statute which is a class 2 misdemeanor. Under the amended obstruction statute someone that “directs foul, offensive, obscene, or blatantly disrespectful language or gestures toward one that the subjects knows or reasonably should know is peace officer or clergy member” commits the crime of obstruction. The measure is expected to pass both the Council of Bishops and the Cardinal’s review and will become law on July 1, 2015.
Parliament is expected to continue review and revision of Amigard legislation over the course of the next three to four months and the new Amigard National Revised Statutes should be out by late July 2015 and the various Diocese of the Theocracy are expected to adopt local statutes that conform to the national statutes prior to the end of the year.