This post by Bweezy got me thinking about the Prime Minister's powers:

So I reread the constitution. It seems that it doesn't spell out the PM's voting powers in the cabinet. The constitution does say that the PM can only cast a tie breaking vote in polls and elections but nothing is stated about their vote in the cabinet. Nor for that matter how to handle tie votes in the cabinet.

I have not heard of this being a problem to date but with six cabinet positions, ties do seem like a real possibility. I'm not suggesting any possible solutions at this time. I do wonder if anyone else thinks this could possibly be a problem in the future.

Initially, when drafting the constitution, i proposed that all cabinet members get one vote, and in case of a tie, the PM would get an additional tie breaking vote (this is normal in the Corporate world where the Chair gets a tie breaking vote in many corporate settings)

Public consultation suggested this was not popular. As such, it was decided that tie votes would result in a matter not getting majority of the votes in Cabinet, and therefore be defeated. We ended up with the following wording:

4. Cabinet shall have the right to pass laws for the region. All laws will be enacted upon achieving the support of a majority of Cabinet members. All laws may be repealed or amended by majority vote of the Cabinet. Cabinet shall not be entitled to pass or enact any law that is in conflict with the provisions of this constitution.

All Cabinet Members can vote. A majority is needed. A tie means defeat. Section 1 of article II lists the six cabinet members, including the PM, so the PM's ability to vote is in fact enshrined.

Got it - that works. Might not hurt to spell that out but it works either way.

However:

The constitution doesn't actually say that anywhere. It is fairly obvious but it's not defined.

"support of majority" in Section 4 suggests majority support, but it doesn't necessarily state that a vote is needed. That probably should be cleaned up.

That's an even better point. Boy, you are good at this legal stuff ;)

I think it's kind of fun to poke at the rules when you are not in the middle of a heated crisis. Although I bet most normal people could care less about these types of issues...

Yes. Normal people only care about having fun, and only notice issues when things go wrong.

The moral of the story is - don't let anything go wrong, so that the fun can continue unabated.

Ahhh - easier said than done grasshopper...

Actually since we are refering to a group of humans - I would suggest that it's impossible to do for an extended period of time. Thus the need for clear guidelines (and the occasional lawyer, lucky for you).

Indeed, during my time in government, many issues were dealt with without explicit formal votes. Where consensus was obvious, "majority support" was sometimes inferred from the positions Ministers had taken in the discussions, rather than a called vote. Formal votes were more likely to be called in order to bring closure to an issue where consensus was not emerging, or where it was unclear what the Ministers' positions were.

I'm not convinced that needs to change. There's a case to be made that the informal determination of "majority support" is subject to error, but I don't remember any case in which anyone's position was mis-interpreted.

I was thinking along the same lines. The protocols on how to vote in the cabinet don't seem to belong in the constitution. But there should be some documented guidelines somewhere for new members. However, I do think it should be documented in the constitution that each cabinet position gets one vote.