[Sanctaria]

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[floatleft]VOL. C .. Num. 36,451[/floatleft]WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 03, 2018[floatright]1 SANCTARIAN POUND[/floatright]

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FEDERALISATION REFERENDUM TO BE HELD ON NOVEMBER 10
by GWEN COPLEY, Political Correspondent

Sanctus - Secretary for Devolution & Governmental Affairs, Ben Jackson, today announced that he had signed the order for the referendum on federalisation to occur on Saturday, November 10. The move comes after both the House of Deputies and the Senate today passed what has become known as the "Great Devolution Bill" with wide cross-party support. The name of the bill, of course, greatly undervalues the content and should the referendum be passed, it will be the biggest overhaul of the Sanctarian Constitution since it came into effect in 1974, with many commentators saying a new constitution should have been written instead of the piecemeal edits to a whole host of different sections.

Last minute adjustments in the legislation include the scrapping of the proposal that a sunset provision will be inserted in the constitution that would remove the necessity to replace any retiring/resigning members of the House of Deputies to bring down the numbers. Further amendments include specific details in the constitution surrounding the composition of State parliaments, their titles, and the limits of their powers; non-city states will be required to be bicameral, with a State Assembly as the lower house, and a State Council as the upper house. The city states will have a Governing Mayor, combining the offices of a head of state and head of government that the non-city states have, however any other cities across the nation in all other states must rename their city councils to boards of supervisors to avoid confusion with the City Councils that will exist in Sanctus, Corpus, and Haven.

The Parliament of Sanctaria will continue to have supremacy in law, but will allow states to legislate on most matters, excluding defence, foreign affairs, some tax and financial measures, and matters that require federal involvement, such as national curricula in education, and national minimum wage laws. Conflicts between state law and federal law shall be arbitrated by the Supreme Court in all other cases, with the idea that it will either uphold the supremacy of federal law where it deems it is constitutionally appropriate, and rule in favour of the states' rights to create their own legislation where the constitution doesn't not forbid it to do so.

Also included in the the bill are provisions that state government departments are to be called "Ministries" and while each state's head of government will be called the Premier, members of the state cabinets are to be called "Ministers".

Polling currently has the referendum passing at a 62% Yes rate, but this is seen as slightly soft by some commentators.