Vote No on the Referendum! A scathing critique and a call to action.

This opinion piece is written independently of the rest of the supreme court.

A couple days ago, our president introduced The Division of Powers amendment. An omnibus amendment, which I believe is perhaps the most dangerous form of law in our democracy.

See, when an omnibus bill is passed, and contains a foul smelling piece of unconstitutional trash, it is well within the powers of the Judiciary to strike it down. Such a thing is impossible with an Omnibus amendment, as amendments to the constitution can never be unconstitutional, and as such never be struck down by the court for any reason but procedural issues (Which this amendment has, and we will get into later)

This means, that should an Omnibus amendment contain a piece of legislative garbage, offensive to any person with functioning common sense, and should it be overshadowed and ignored by the legislature due to all the lazy tricks of omnibuses to surround rotten amendments with reasonable ones so they may pass, there is little the court can do about it.

Now, does this amendment contain such rotten fruit? Yes. And allow me to show it to you.

I must admit. The vast majority of this amendment is a rather reasonable, I'd even say downright good if I may be so crass. However, it is undone by it's hubris, and by one section within it. Section III, judicial endorsements.

This section makes it so NO ONE can endorse a judicial candidate. Literally no one. Not politicians, not other judicial candidates, not former or current judges, and certainly not you reading this.

This amendment would make it so that, regardless of being politically active in any way or form, no one will be able to openly state who they would like to be a judge for their country.

Is this not madness? Why even bother having judicial elections if you won't allow people to state who they like and who they dislike? After all, votes themselves are a form of "individual endorsements" which are prohibited by this proposed amendment.

This amendment is spitting in the mouth of democracy and free speech. Of YOUR democracy and free speech! Do you like saying who you want to be in charge of the scared duty of upholding justice in our country? Would you like to express yourself and perhaps convince your friends to vote like mindedly so the person YOU believe is bets will get elected? Do you want to be part of a functioning democracy where the populace controls the officials they vote for?

To hell with you! That's what this amendment says! you will vote blind, deaf, and dumb! You will not see what people like about them, you will not say what YOU like about them! And neither will they! They will be as blind to the will of the public as the public will be to itself.

Thankfully, it seems enough legislators had the wisdom to notice this absurdity, and the amendment did not receive the necessary 66% to pass. Does this dissuade our president? Of course not!

He has just now released a referendum in an act of disgusting desperation, hoping the masses will save his precious amendment from the decision of the Parliament.

Little does he know this referendum will not pass his amendment. Beyond my belief that the people of our counyare better than entertaining such stupidity, a referendum can not be made to pass an amendment.

It says in the constitution "...If this referendum passes with 50% plus one vote, it becomes law and cannot be vetoed by any government official." Law. Not amendment.

Now, this may seem like nitpicking constitutional ambiguity, but believe me, it is far from that. The difference between amendments and ordinary bills is an important part of the constitution. And it is high lighted that amendments need to pass more tests than normal bills, for one through requiring a two thirds majority instead of a simple one (Which allow me to remind you, the amendment proposed did not receive).

So, I ask you. If the constitution goes into such great lengths to show that it should be significantly harder to pass an amendment than a law, why should it be the same process and same difficulty through referendum?

It isn't. Referendums can not pass amendments. They can pass laws, which amendments clearly aren't.

Despite what I said now, I want to make it clear that I don't want this to fall on the docket in the first place. As such, I am encouraging you, for all the reasons stated here and more, to vote NO on the referendum which has been posted. Hopefully we can end this travesty of an amendment once and for all.