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Days later Suzy sat in the council and listened to the proposals that various people were offering for the formation of their government. The arguments were going around and around. No one seemed to understand that they had a queen and that Jill Wilson was her and she was asking them to form the management system for the day to day running of the planet. Some of the proposals went from installing a particular noble as the monarch, to having no system and everything in between. Finally losing patience with the entire group Suzy left the council one morning and sat on the dock watching the burgeoning river traffic flow up and down the river trying to clear her head a bit. It was there that captain McNally found her.
“Good morning Mrs. Gabriel,” the captain said handing her a cup of coffee. The Deliverance had made another trip down river to pick up some medical supplies for the Outpost Clinic. “I saw you sitting here and thought I would join you.”
“Hi Captain,” Suzy took the coffee. “Thank you.”
“I’ve heard you been having some problems,” the captain said.
“Yeah! No one wants to listen.” The thirty year old woman complained, “The Contras are fighting the Royalist, the Royalists are fighting the newbies, it’s a mess!”
“No one’s taken charge,” the captain commented, “There doesn’t seem to be one voice trying to unite them.”
Suzy looked at the captain, “Yes the speaker doesn’t seem to have a back bone. He’s afraid to be too pushy because he doesn’t want to lose his position. He doesn’t get it! We are to be short lived, create a government and go home. It’s happening like it was in the Republic.”
“Then someone needs to read the riot act to them.” The captain said.
Suzy nodded, and said “Thank you skipper. I think I know what I have to do.”
Suzy finished her coffee handed the cup to the captain and walked back to the assembly. She entered a small auditorium where the five hundred members of the assembly were meeting, and spoke with the secretary of the assembly to put her on the speakers list. She found out that it wouldn’t be until the next day that she would be able to speak. That suited her. It gave her some time to talk to some people, and write her speech.
“Gentle Souls of the Home Council,” she began the next day, “I ask that you listen to me for a while, and as you listen to me ask yourself are we getting the job done we have been asked by our friends, families and fellow citizens to do. To form a government; one that helps Miss Wilson govern our new world. The planet she is allowing us to build our new homes on. We are not here to decide who will be queen. We have one Jill Wilson.
“I have sat in this assembly for over a week,” She spoke, “and listened to your proposals. Most if not all seem to ignore the facts I have just mentioned. Nothing has gotten done. We have argued and talked and argued, but nothing has gotten done. I know some of you have the belief that we can take weeks to make this happen, others feel we should import from Trena our former home world’s governmental structure just to be done with it. We don’t have time to argue this! The people who have put their trust in us want us to get this done. We are not on Trena anymore my honored colleagues! We are on Home! A world given to us by Marshal Wilson’s daughter! We don’t own this world, the Marshal’s family does. They haven’t given it to us they are just letting us live on it. So Queen Jill has asked us to come up with a way to govern a world that has no government.
“Some of you have forgotten the nobility of Trena have no standing here on Home. That their nobility dies except possibly their title when the asteroids kill Trena. But they are not alone in having no standing. In fact none of us have standing except for the very special title of representative to the Home Constitutional Council. As such when we form the government that Queen Jill has asked us to form, our roles will be over. Many of us may be asked to be part of the new government we will form. None of us know. But we can’t be concerned with our future appointments or positions in the government. Our job is to create a government and go home. Not to spend weeks and months to do this job.
“Last night I met with several of you to go over some ideas I had about the government. Although not all of you agreed with my thoughts and what I presented, many of you thought it might be worth a shot.” Suzy pressed a button on the console and the assembly saw the constitution that had been forming in her mind since her conversation on the Deliverance.
“We come from many worlds, From the Earth Empire, From the Thonian Realm, the Theocracy, the Republic, and of course our own home world of Trena.” She spoke softly, “All of these worlds have both good and bad political systems. My own native world, the world I emigrated from to Trena is a democracy. Yet I find a Constitutional Monarchy more stable. It has both the stability of a long standing monarch, and yet by electing people to a parliament we can reign in the power of a monarchy who has stepped beyond its bounds. What I propose is this,” she spoke with passion.
“I think a constitutional monarchy is what would work for us. The monarch would be the head of state; but not the head of government. Similar to what we have now, this monarch would be the ruler of our world and would have the power to call parliament into session, have the right to overrule the parliament when it takes us into an unprovoked war, or when it raises taxes too high, or enters into a treaty that is not in the interest of the Kingdom. The Monarch will be the commander in chief of the armed forces. Many of the same powers Queen Agatha currently enjoys.
“I have mentioned a parliament. This parliament will be made up of two houses. A house of commons where common everyday citizens would be elected to a term of ten years. Once they served their ten years they could never be reelected to the House of Commons. Every five years half of the House of Commons would be elected. They would represent 200,000 souls. And this would include artificial intelligences, as well as flesh and bone people like us. The second house would be a senate or House of Lords. To be inducted into the House of Lords, the monarch would nominate someone and at first the House of Commons would approve them. Then as time goes on, the House of Lords would nominate their own to the monarch, who would have veto power over the appointment, and the House of Lords would have the right to overturn the veto by a super majority. They would after a few years have the right to reject the monarch’s nominations by a super majority. The Monarch would always be able to nominate someone to the House of Lords.
“From both of these houses would be formed the ministries of government. The prime minister would be elected from these two bodies, but could be rejected by the monarch. If parliament feels the monarch is wrong they can by super majority vote the prime minister in. If the monarch still thought the nominee was wrong, then the Planetary Bench would try the case and then all the justices would have to vote either in favor of one side or the other. It has to be unanimous. All of the prime ministers cabinet would need to be nominated by the prime minister and approved by the House of Lords, and then presented to the monarch for their approval. If the monarch disapproves of a minister, then the entire parliament must vote by a super majority to override the veto.
“I know it seem like I am putting a lot of power in the monarch, but not really as this forces the monarch and the parliament to work together.”
Suzy took a sip of water to let some of what she was saying sink in. She was watching the reactions of her peers. She was a long way from selling it. But people were starting to read the details on their displays. Now she went on to the third part of her government.
“Now to balance off the Parliament and the Monarchy, a judiciary will be established. This judiciary will be modeled after the Crown Bench on Trena, and the Empire. All capital cases will go before the Queen’s Bench, a bench will be established in all districts. The House of Commons will nominate judges for their home districts. The House of Lords will approve the nomination with the monarch having the final say. With a standard super majority to override her veto! From this group of judges the Queen will nominate judges for the a
ppeals bench, and the Planetary Bench. The Monarch will preside over the Planetary Bench, which is the court of last appeal for all capital cases, and constitutional cases, except when constitutional cases involving the monarch. To ensure fair trials, and access to equal justice, no private attorney’s or counsel will be permitted for criminal cases. All attorneys will be in a pool that will trade off cases between defense and prosecution. Both sides will be able to call on witnesses and pay them out of the monarch purse.”
She paused again before finishing her presentation, “This is my proposal. It has taken the best of the royalist world, the best of the democracy world, and a bit from here and there. It is by no means perfect, and we will need to spend long hours to make this become reality. I will yield the remainder of my time to the representative from Ellis.”
The representative from Ellis stood up and began speaking he was an old hand from Trena’s House of Commons, an independent that was respected by both sides.
“The representative from Outpost 1 has spent long hours putting this together, and like her I believe it is not a perfect document,” the man continued, “but it is better than anything we have come up with so far. I move that we table all other proposals and debate the gentle soul from Outpost 1’s proposal.”
“Second the motion,” the representative from Near Port the next town up river stood.
The speaker asked, “A motion has been made and seconded to table all proposals except for that of the representative form Outpost 1. If there is no objection I call the vote.”
He waited a few minutes then said, “All in favor of tabling all other proposal say yea.”
To Suzy’s surprise it passed. A couple of days later to her surprise and with only minor changes, her proposal was approved. The one detail she had clearly forgotten was to allow the people of Home to colonize other worlds. She had not thought of a bill of rights, but the representatives had. It included a provision that sentient people were not possessions and could not be owned on Home. This also included Artificial Intelligences. She thought that was very astute. There were provisions about search and seizure, and self-incrimination. The right to appeal directly to monarch on capital cases was a guaranteed right. That capital punishment, when it was applied, was not to include execution, unless a crime against the people of Home, or Humanity occurred. She thought that overtime the constitution would be amended and that had been something that she had not put in her original draft.
“May I address this assembly,” A voice from the back of the assembly called.
“Yes,” the speaker replied.
“We have approved our constitution and we will set a date for our House of Commons to be elected. But now we have to take this proposal to Miss Wilson and get her approval. I believe we also have to somehow formally acknowledge her as our monarch.” the representative from Westport a small port town on the west coast spoke up. “How shall we do this?”
Suzy who was now the speaker of the assembly spoke up, “Yes, Jill Wilson is our monarch. Yet somehow we need to reinforce this.”
“What if she refuses to listen to us,” Someone asked. “It is possible that she has her own idea of how to rule Home.”
“I don’t know,” Suzy replied, “But she asked us to form this council and come up with the government for Home.”
Another stood up to be recognized. Suzy recognized him.
“That is something we will have to deal with after we advise Miss Wilson what we have done here.” The speaker said, “Until we do, we are only speculating what her response will be. One thing I think we need to do is to formally accept Miss Wilson as our queen. I therefore move that this assembly confirm that Jill Wilson to become our very first queen.”
“Is there a second?” Suzy asked.
“I second the motion,” Someone called.
“All in favor of the motion say aye!” Suzy asked.
The room thundered with ayes.
“Very well then, let it be known that on this day the Home Council does hereby acknowledge Jill Wilson as our monarch, and accepts the constitution as proposed.” Suzy spoke from the podium and crashed down the gavel, “Unless there is any other business I hereby close this council.”
There were no objections, and Suzy closed the assembly, “I now close this assembly with the hope that our people will find peace and happiness on Home.”
After the document had been prepared for publication Suzy went to the main office of the community affairs office of the evacuation command. There she formally presented the document to the Evacuation command. The man looked it over and said, “Thank you. When do you leave for Trena to present it to Miss Wilson?”
“Isn’t that your job?” Suzy asked.
“No Ma’am,” the gentlemen said, he had been a member of the Trena Emergency Management office. “This is now a political thing, not an operational activity. That means civilians need to present it to Miss Wilson. That means you.”
She turned to the representative from Ellis who said, “As speaker of the assembly it is your job to take the constitution to Trena and present it to the Queen Jill, and Queen Aggie. It is your creation you should be the one to take it to Trena.” Suzy sighed all she wanted to do was to get back up river to her kids.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 223