Emergency powers with automatic expiry

Emergency powers rule with automatic expiry

Purpose

Floods, epidemics, attacks and the collapse of key services may require faster decisions than ordinary procedures allow. History also shows that emergency powers are among the commonest routes to permanent concentration of power. This rule therefore grants limited powers for a limited time and makes them expire automatically: inaction ends the emergency, and only a fresh positive decision can extend it.

Article 1. Declaration

1. The council may declare a state of emergency by a two-thirds majority of its members when an event seriously threatens life, health, essential services or the resource base of the polity, and ordinary procedures cannot respond in time.
2. The declaration states the facts relied on, the area affected, the powers invoked from the schedule and the measures planned. It is published immediately.
3. If the council cannot meet, the chair and two other council members may declare an emergency for no more than 72 hours, which lapses unless the council confirms it.

Article 2. Duration and extension

1. A declaration expires automatically after 30 days.
2. The assembly may extend it for further periods of 30 days each, by a majority of its members for the first extension and by a two-thirds majority for each later extension.
3. The assembly may end the emergency at any time by a simple majority.

Article 3. Permitted measures

During an emergency the council may, to the extent strictly necessary: requisition common assets and, with compensation, private ones; direct the use of common facilities; restrict movement in a defined area; reallocate up to 10% of the annual budget; and take decisions otherwise reserved to the assembly, except those listed in Article 4.

Article 4. Prohibited measures

No emergency measure may: amend the charter; postpone an election by more than six months; dissolve the assembly or any court, ombudsman or audit body; suspend the right to leave the polity; authorise detention without review by an independent body within 48 hours; restrict any entrenched right other than freedom of movement and assembly in the affected area; or punish speech criticising the emergency.

Article 5. Sunset of individual measures

1. Every measure taken under this rule states its own expiry date, which may not be later than the expiry of the declaration.
2. When the emergency ends, every measure ends with it. A measure that should continue must be adopted afresh under ordinary procedures.
3. The total time during which emergency powers have been in force in any period of three years may not exceed 180 days. Beyond that, the assembly may extend only by a three-quarters majority, and the extension is put to a mandatory referendum within 60 days.

Article 6. Review

1. Any member affected by an emergency measure may ask the independent review body to decide whether it is authorised, necessary and proportionate. The review body decides urgent cases within seven days.
2. The council reports to the assembly in writing at least every 14 days during an emergency, listing every measure, its legal basis and its cost.
3. The ombudsman and the auditor keep full access to all bodies during an emergency.

Article 7. After the emergency

1. Within six months of the end of an emergency, a commission that includes members drawn by lot reviews the declaration, the measures taken and their effects, and publishes its findings.
2. Persons whose property was requisitioned or whose livelihood was suspended are compensated under a published scale.
3. The commission may recommend changes to the schedule of powers; the assembly must debate them within three months.