Pacific Council: The Committee Approval Requirement for Impeachment Amendment

Title: This amendment is entitled "The Committee Approval Requirement for Impeachment Amendment"

Section 2: Impeachment
1. In the same manner as the proposition of a Bill, Articles of Impeachment may be proposed against any executive or judicial officer of the federal government. Impeachment proceedings shall be initiated only when at least three Senators have publicly announced their support of the Articles.

2. All impeachment proceedings will first take place before a Senate hearing having a membership determined by Senate rules and shall last for a period of seven days. During this time, membership as determined above may ask questions to all people involved in the case and review the Articles of Impeachment. All people quested during the hearing will provide their testimonies under oath. If a witness is found to have lied whilst bound by the oath, perjury may be charged against them. Once the hearing is complete, the membership as determined above will vote whether or not the full Senate shall be empanelled as a grand jury to consider the articles, as established below.

3 2. Upon ~~completion of the hearing and the recommendation to proceed having been adopted at the end of that process,~~ the introduction of articles of impeachment with the stated support of three Senators, the Senate shall be impaneled as a grand jury to consider these Articles of Impeachment; In considering these Articles, the Chief Justice shall preside, unless it is his own impeachment, in which case the President of the Senate shall preside. A 60% majority vote of the Senate under quorum rules will be necessary to impeach the Officer and subsequently initiate a public poll to try the impeachment, while an 80% vote of the Senate under quorum rules shall not require a public poll to be tried.

4 3. In the event that less than 80% but at least a 60% majority of the Senate votes to impeach, The People shall have sole power to try such impeachments. The Chief Justice shall administer a public poll to try the impeachment, unless it is the Chief Justice who shall have been impeached, in which case the Senate President pro tempore shall administer the public poll. The public poll shall be held for seventy-two hours and shall require the consent of a majority voting to convict. Citizens shall make their vote publicly known in the form of a post.

5 4. Upon conviction by the People, or by 80% of the Senate voting in the affirmative the officer shall be removed from office immediately. Any person convicted upon impeachment shall be disqualified from holding any office under the Republic of Atlasia for a time period explicitly specified in the Articles of Impeachment.

I have no interest in encoding the committee system into the Constitution, but despite the name, this amendment does not seem to require committee approval for impeachment. It does do away with the farcical and meaningless committee hearings that are currently required whenever articles of impeachment are introduced, and consequently I'm inclined to support it.

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