Jesston State Hall

The Jesston State Hall (French: ; German: ) is the bicameral legislature of the Mobian Confederation, consisting of the House of Peers (Chambre des Pairs; Kammer der Gleichaltrigen) and the House of Congress (Chambre du Congrès; Kammer des Kongresses). Each assembly conducts legislative sessions at the Jesston State Hall in their own chamber.

Each house has its own regulations and rules of procedure. However, they may occasionally meet as a single house, the Bilateral Session, convened at the chamber of the House of Congress, to revise and amend the Constitution of Mobius.

Composition
The houses of the Jesston State Hall are both elected under party-list proportional representation voting systems. This means that the seats to be filled in any given election for each party is determined by the percentage of voters who voted for said party; the main difference between the two houses is in how they are elected and the amount of seats they get. Voters are asked to vote for a party list. All citizens of Mobius (Mobian nationals at least 18 years of age) have to vote in these elections. The Constitution of Mobius specifies that the House of Congress must have 400 members, and that the House of Peers must have 143 members, 133 are Peers Temporal, and 10 are Peers Spiritual, the spiritual leaders of Mobius who are elected by seniority. The Constitution also specifies the voting system, and the necessary qualifications of those who have to vote in elections alongside universal adult suffrage and a secret ballot and guarantees that all citizens have to vote.

Generally, the election of Jesston State Hall members is dependent on the whims of the populace and political trends. This means that citizens who had voted for the Mobian Justice Party may very well vote for the People's Democratic Party if they so desire. For example, in 1992 the MJP had won a landslide majority yet in 1996 the MJP only won a third of the seats, thus meaning that it would have to form a coalition with the PDP (which had the most seats) in order to retain some sort of power, only to end up losing more seats to the growing PDP in 2000, giving the latter party a majority.

Candidates for both houses must be 18 years old or older, and be Mobian citizens. Additional requirements for candidacy for the House of Peers is to be made a member of the peerage by the monarch (typically a lord, though any member of the peerage is eligible). The Constitution doesn't state the salary and perks of a member of the Jesston State Hall, meaning that the salary and perks are determined by law. Currently, Jesston State Hall members are paid about R21,262 a month in salary. Each lawmaker is entitled to employ three secretaries with taxpayer funds, free Mobian SR tickets, and four round-trip airplane tickets and eight ferry tickets a month to enable them to travel back and forth to their home districts.

Organization and powers
Jesston State Hall meets for a single, nine-month session each year. Under special circumstances the monarch can call an additional session. While parliamentary power is relatively weak compared to other parliaments, the House of Congress can still cause a privy council to fall if an absolute majority of the legislators votes a motion of no confidence. As a result, the privy council normally is from the same political party as the Congress and must be supporting by a majority there to prevent a vote of no-confidence.

However, the monarch appoints the Prime Minister and the ministers and is under no constitutional, mandatory obligation to make those appointments from the ranks of the parliamentary majority party; this is a safe-guard specifically introduced by King Myles himself, to preemptively prevent disarray and horse-trading; in practice the prime minister and ministers do come from the majority. The monarch rather than the prime minister heads the Cabinet.

The privy council (or, when it sits in session every Wednesday, the cabinet) has a strong influence in shaping the agenda of Jesston State Hall. The privy council also can link its term to a legislative text which it proposes, and unless a motion of censure is introduced (within 24 hours after the proposal) and passed (within 48 hours of introduction – thus full procedures last at most 72 hours), the text is considered adopted without a vote. However, this procedure has been limited by the 2008 constitutional amendment. Legislative initiative rests with the House of Congress.

Legislators enjoy parliamentary immunity. Both assemblies have committees that write reports on a variety of topics. If necessary, they can establish parliamentary enquiry commissions with broad investigative power. However, the latter possibility is almost never exercised, since the majority can reject a proposition by the opposition to create an investigation commission. Also, such a commission may only be created if it does not interfere with a judiciary investigation, meaning that in order to cancel its creation, one just needs to press charges on the topic concerned by the investigation commission. Since 2008, the opposition may impose the creation of an investigation commission once a year, even against the wishes of the majority. However, they still can't lead investigations if there is a judiciary case going on already (or started after the commission was formed).

History
The Mobian Assembly was established on 8 June 1974 alongside the Mobian Provisional Union to prepare for the eventual Knothole Accords and served as its first parliament. The assembly was far more similar to the United States Congress than the French Parliament. It would be changed to a system closer to the current Jesston State Hall in 1975 before being replaced by the Jesston State Hall in 1976 after the Knothole Accords.