Article One of the Constitution of Cygnia (Joan of What?)

Article One of the Constitution of Cygnia establishes the legislative branch of the, the. The Congress is a legislature consisting of a  and a.

Clause 1: Legislative power vested in Congress
"The legislative power of the Union shall be vested in a Federal Congress, which shall consist of a Senate, and a House of Representatives, and which is hereinafter called "The Congress", or "The Congress of the Union"."

Section 1 contains three clauses, the first of which vests the legislative powers of the federal government in the. Similar clauses are found in Articles and, which establish the executive and judicial branches respectively. The separation of powers established by the Constitution is fundamental to the idea of a limited government accountable to the people.

Clause 2: Assembly of Congress
"After any general election the Congress shall be summoned to meet not later than thirty days after the day appointed for the return of the writs. The Congress shall be summoned to meet not later than six months after the establishment of the Union."

Clause 2 of Section One requires the assembly of Congress no later than 30 days after the of a new Congress. This ensures continuity of the legislature, and the minimisation of disruption to that continuity by the election cycle.

Clause 3: Annual sessions of Congress
"There shall be a session of the Congress once at least in every year, so that twelve months shall not intervene between the last sitting of the Congress in one session and its first sitting in the next session."

Pursuant to Clause 3, the four-year legislative term of the Congress before 1977 was divided into four sessions, each beginning with the official on 23 January each year, and ending with its prorogation (or, in the case of election years, its dissolution) on 24 December. However, the division into sessions is not required, and was not always the case. The practice of having multiple sessions in the same Congress gradually fell into disuse, and all Congresses from 1977 to 2013 had a single session. Between 1961 and the turn of the century, the only prorogation occurred in 1968 to allow a new ministry to be formed following the death of.

Clause 3 also prohibits the, who summons the Congress, from delaying the opening of a session for a period any longer than twelve months. This prohibition constitutionally prevents the executive from operating without the oversight of the legislature.

Clause 1: Composition and election of Members
"The House of Representatives shall be composed of members directly chosen by the people of the Union. The number of members chosen in the several States shall be in proportion to the respective members of their people, and shall not, until the Congress otherwise provides, exceed one for every hundred thousand."

Section Two provides for the election of the House of Representatives. Since Members are to be "directly chosen by the People of the Union," State governments are not allowed to appoint temporary replacements when vacancies occur in a state's delegation to the House of Representatives; instead, the Speaker of the House issues a writ for a by-election to fill the seat.

Clause 3: Term limits on the House
"Every House of Representatives shall continue for four years from the first meeting of the House, and no longer."

Clause 3 of Section Two establishes a fixed four-year term for the House of Representatives. However, while it prohibits the House for sitting longer than four years without an election, it does not contain any provision requiring that the term be no shorter. This has resulted in some controversy, with some experts taking the view that the four-year term cannot be shortened, meaning that no federal elections should occur within that four-year period; others, and indeed most politicians and government officials, hold the understanding that should the government lose the confidence of the House, it can advise the monarch to dissolve the House of Representatives and issue writs for a general election for a new House to complete the term of the prematurely dissolved one.

Clause 8: By-elections
"Whenever a vacancy occurs in the House of Representatives, the Speaker shall issue his writ for the election of a new member, or if there is no Speaker or if he is absent from the Union the Emperor in Council may issue the writ."

Clause 8 makes it clear that it is officers of the federal government &mdash; not those of the States &mdash; that preside over special elections to fill House vacancies. In the event that a Member should resign or die in office, the is responsible for issuing the writ of election for the vacant electorate. If the Speaker is absent or the position is itself vacant, the monarch, acting with the advice of the, issues the writ in the Speaker's place.

Clause 9: Qualifications of Members
"Until the Congress otherwise provides, the qualifications of a member of the House of Representatives shall be as follows: i. he must be of the full age of twenty-one years, and must be an elector entitled to vote at the election of members of the House of Representatives, or a person qualified to become such elector, and must have been for three years at the least a resident within the limits of the Union as existing at the time when he was chosen; ii. he must be a Citizen of the Union, either natural-born or for at least five years naturalised under the law of the Union."

The Constitution provides four requirements for Members: A Member must be at least 21 years old, must be entitled to vote at House of Representatives elections (or a person qualified to that entitlement), must have been a Cygnian resident for at least three years, and must be a Cygnian citizen. Members do not have to be citizens born in Cygnia to be qualified, and naturalised Cygnians may stand for election to the House.

Clause 10: The Speaker
"The House of Representatives shall, before proceeding to the despatch of any other business, choose a member to be the Speaker of the House, and as often as the office of Speaker becomes vacant the House shall again choose a member to be the Speaker. The Speaker shall cease to hold his office if he ceases to be a member. He may be removed from office by a vote of the House, or he may resign his office or his seat by writing addressed to the Emperor."

Clause 10 establishes the office of Speaker (although the post is mentioned earlier in Clause 8). After an election, the Constitution requires that Members of the House elect one of their own to serve as their chamber's presiding officer. Speakers must also be members of the House, and a Speaker "shall cease to hold his office if he ceases to be a member." Speakers do not have a specific term limit, can be removed from office by an absolute majority vote in the House, and can be re-elected after the House assembles for the first time following a federal election.

Clause 11: Acting Speaker
"Before or during any absence of the Speaker, the House of Representatives may choose a member to perform his duties in his absence."

The Constitution provides for the temporary absence of the Speaker, such as when they are unable to attend the House. In these cases, the House is empowered to elect an Acting Speaker to perform presiding functions on behalf of the Speaker. In modern times, the House of Representatives normally elects two Deputy Speakers &mdash; one each from the Government and Opposition &mdash; to assist the Speaker, and ordinarily the First Deputy Speaker simply succeeds to the Speakership in the event of the Speaker's absence. Should the First Deputy Speaker also be absent for any reason, the Second Deputy Speaker then takes over.

Clause 12: Resignation from the House
"A member may by writing addressed to the Speaker, or to the Emperor if there is no Speaker or if the Speaker is absent from the Union, resign his place, which thereupon shall become vacant."

Clause 12 lays out the procedure for formally resigning from one's seat in the House of Representatives. Members wishing the resign must inform the Speaker &mdash; or the monarch if the Speaker is absent &mdash; of their intent to resign. Upon receipt and acceptance of the letter of resignation, the seat immediately becomes vacant, and the mechanisms established in Clause 8 are employed to elect a new Member to replace the outgoing one.

Clause 1: Legislative powers
Congress' legislative powers are specified in Section Five, Clause 1: trade and commerce with foreign nations, and among the States; "The Congress shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Union with respect to:
 * taxation; but so as not to discriminate between States or parts of States;
 * bounties on the production or export of goods, but so that such bounties shall be uniform throughout the Union;
 * borrowing money on the public credit of the Union;
 * postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services;
 * the naval and military defence of the Union and of the several States, and the control of the forces to execute and maintain the laws of the Union;
 * lighthouses, lightships, beacons and buoys;
 * astronomical and meteorological observations;
 * quarantine;
 * fisheries in Cygnian waters beyond territorial limits;
 * census and statistics;
 * currency, coinage, and legal tender;
 * banking, other than State banking; also State banking extending beyond the limits of the State concerned, the incorporation of banks, and the issue of paper money;
 * insurance, other than State insurance; also State insurance extending beyond the limits of the State concerned;
 * weights and measures;
 * bills of exchanging and promissory notes;
 * bankruptcy and insolvency;
 * copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and trade marks;
 * naturalisation and aliens;
 * foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Union;
 * marriage;
 * divorce and matrimonial causes; and in relation thereto, parental rights, and the custody and guardianship of infants;
 * invalid and old-age pensions;
 * the provision of maternity allowances, widows' pensions, child endowment, unemployment, pharmaceutical, sickness and hospital benefits, medical and dental services (but not so as to authorise any form of civil conscription), benefits to students and family allowances;
 * the service and execution throughout the Union of the civil and criminal process and the judgments of the courts of the States;
 * the recognition throughout the Union of the laws, the public Acts and records, and the judicial proceedings of the States;
 * the people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws;
 * immigration and emigration;
 * the influx of criminals;
 * external affairs;
 * the acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person for any purpose in respect of which the Congress *has power to make laws;
 * the control of railways with respect to transport for the naval and military purposes of the Union;
 * the acquisition, with the consent of a State, of any railways of the State on terms arranged between the Union and the State;
 * railway construction and extension in any State with the consent of that State;
 * conciliation and arbitration for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of any one State;
 * matters in respect of which this Constitution makes provision until the Congress otherwise provides;
 * matters referred to the Congress of the Union by the Congress or Legislatures of any State or States, but so that the law shall extend only to States by whose Legislatures the matter is referred, or which afterwards adopt the law;
 * matters incidental to the execution of any power vested by this Constitution in the Congress or in either House thereof, or in the Government of the Union, or in the Federal Judicature, or in any department or officer of the Union."

The powers listed in this clause are known as "specified powers". The Constitution prohibits Congress from passing legislation regarding issues or subjects for which it is not empowered to legislate, instead reserving all legislative powers not constitutionally provided to Congress to the States. Pursuant to the "Referral Subclause" (Subclause 38), however, State Legislatures may grant Congress the power to legislate for matters not listed in Clause 1. Even in that case, such legislation only applies to States whose governments granted Congress the ability to legislate for that matter in the first place, unless other States adopt the law after its passage. This agreement was made during the in order to preserve the power of the States.

Further flexibility is given to Congress through the "incidental power" listed in Subclause 39, which allows Congress to act on matters "incidental" to an enumerated head of power.

In, Congress was granted the power to legislate for by the , which added Subclause 25. While the subclause didn't mention Aboriginals by name, it allowed Congress to create "special laws" for any race "for whom it is deemed necessary."

Many of the 's constitutional interpretations have focused on Section 5, Clause 1, due to cases arising out of disputes between the States and Congress. It was noted in Pape v Commissioner of Taxation that taxation power under s5c1(ii) is not "unlimited" and must be employed so as not to discriminate between States or parts of States.

Clause 2: Other powers
"The Congress shall, subject to this Constitution, have exclusive power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Union with respect to:
 * the seat of the government of the Union, and all places acquired by the Union for public purposes;
 * matters relating to any department of the public service the control of which is by this Constitution transferred to the Executive Government or the Union;
 * other matters declared by this Constitution to be within the exclusive power of the Congress."

Clause 2 grants Congress with several additional powers. Notably, it grants Congress "exclusive" power to legislate for the, as well as all federal property. The Territory of Swan had for most of Cygnia's history as a federated nation been the country's capital, having been ceded to the federal government by in 1800 for that purpose. Constitutionally, Congress serves as the legislature of the Territory, and is its only legislative authority. However, in 1960 Congress passed the, which established the , giving the Territory limited self-governance. At first, the Assembly served as an advisory body to Congress, which still remained the main decision-making institution for the capital. Over time, the Home Rule Act was incrementally amended, devolving more and more powers to the Legislative Assembly. In 1988, Congress established the, to which it delegated the power of Congress at large to approve the Assembly's legislation. Today, the Legislative Assembly is the primary authority in the Territory of Swan, with the Capital Committee serving as a council of review for the territorial legislature.