Shalampax Speaks

A few days ago I told you that Shalampax’s Parliament was stymied because the ceremonial gavel that, by law, must be used to call Parliament to order at the start of a new session was thrown out by the cleaning staff while Parliament was recessed. I’m happy to say that the impasse has been broken.

One reader, who goes by the name of David, suggested that we hypnotize our parliamentarians and get them to hold a session of Parliament without the ceremonial gaveling. They could then pass a law that revoked the previous law requiring the ceremonial gavel. David suggested that, despite this being illegal because the ceremonial gavel would not be used to start the session, most Shalampaxians wouldn’t care.

This sounded like a good idea. David was right. Most Shalampaxians don’t care about much of anything, particularly anything that goes on in our Parliament. However, we encountered a problem when we tried to implement this plan.

Our politicians are probably unique in this regard, but they are already dazed, confused and, worse, they suffer from severe Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). As a result, they couldn’t pay attention to anyone long enough to be hypnotized.

Thanks anyway, David. You tried and I know you had our best interests at heart.

Fortunately, Manexposinghimself, our Prime Minister, stumbled on a solution. He was about to, as is his habit, blow his nose with a piece of a copy of Shalampax’s Constitution when he saw a section there that no on had noticed before. Our Constitution explicitly allows the Prime Minister of the day, on his or her sole authority, to make a temporary appointment to our Supreme Court if a position is open when parliament is not sitting.

The appointment must be confirmed or revoked by Parliament within a month of it going back into session. And the temporary appointment can fill only a vacant position. It cannot be used to replace a sitting judge.

This latter condition, the need to have an open position, was no problem. No one has ever served on our Supreme Court. We have very few laws and Shalampaxians are far to lazy to break the ones we do have. (But we revel in breaking other countries’ fraud laws.) So there has never been any need for much of justice system here.

The problem for Manexposinghimself was finding someone willing to accept the position. Just as Shalampaxians are far too lazy to break our few laws, we’re also far to lazy to serve on our Supreme Court.

Manexposinghimself thought that Brokentoaster, a Member of Parliament, would make the perfect candidate. True, Brokentoaster is a known embezzler, but he is far less competent at embezzling than any other Shalampaxian, so he’d be perfect as a Justice.

Needless to say, Brokentoaster was hesitant, but he accepted the Supreme Court appointment after Manexposinghimself promised that, as soon as Parliament resumed sitting and the Members of Parliament were fast asleep, Manexposinghimself would introduce a motion revoking Brokentoaster’s judgeship. Because Manexposinghimself and Brokentoaster would be the only Members of Parliament awake when the motion was introduced, it was bound to pass.

With Brokentoaster installed as a Supreme Court judge, he immediately, in a unanimous, zero-to-one ruling, declared that the law requiring the use of the ceremonial gavel, and only the ceremonial gavel, to summon Parliament to order contravenes Shalampax’s Constitution.

With that law struck down, the members returned to their seats in Parliament. To start the session, Manexposinghimself took off one of his shoes and used it to gavel the session to order. Before beginning their naps, the other Members of Parliament honored a former U.S. President by removing their shoes and throwing them at Manexposinghimself.

And, with that, the Shalampax political system is secure once more. Paahlm help us.

Government gavel, impasse, parliament, recess, session