Bep Legislative Government

Bepland, while typically treated as a coherent state, draws many distinctions between national and various levels of local government. This text concerns itself with the national-level, primarily legislative branches government.

The national legislative government is divided into two main institutions; we will dub these the advisory government (NAG), and the regulatory government (NRG).

Role of the National Advisory Government
In theöry, the National Advisory Government serves only a lower-ranking legislative function, setting default laws that can then be overridden by local government's legislation. For example, the NAG manages food quality regulations, but because regional government can override practically any NAG national mandates, many consumable items illegal by default are instead authorized and managed on a regional level. Local government is however required to be explicit about it when default laws are overridden; it is a common meme that local specialties are only truly local when they're marked as illegal by default (as opposed to when they're not marked, because the NAG doesn't say anything for or against them). Surströmming comes to mind as a dish that would definitely be illegal to sell under default law, but might be permitted by a local government.

The Advisory Government's authority is non-negligible within local government decisions, but because it can be overridden and often is, it does not hold direct legislative power. With an exception! The high cost of maintaining independent regional institutions for certain national-level functions means there are unwritten rules that all regional government follows the NAG's default laws and other commands in certain fields. This gives the NAG prescriptive andor executive powers over functions such as crisis management, and most infrastucture (crucially the postal system, which among other things also deals with low-level crime).

How the advisory government wields power over national issues in a certain region varies by both region and issue: The indirect legistlative-executive solution is the most common, as it's essentially just local government going "yep, if the Advisory Government has Advice, and we'll take it unconditionally for certain functions". The direct executive solution is less common, occurring mostly in very densely populated areas, where short, direct chains of command are preferable so as to reduce processing load and time. This is sometimes controversial, as it formally gives the advisory government its own executive power, instead of letting it borrow from local governments' executive power so long as they're willing to coöperate.
 * The NAG may have indirect legislative-executive power, meaning the local government employs and generally manages its staff, but has systems in place for the NAG to override local directives,
 * The NAG may have direct executive power, meaning staff is directly managed by a branch of the NAG at all times.

tldr: The National Advisory Government has locally-reversible legislative authority in general, and in/direct executive authority in certain nationally relevant fields.

& yes, the main reason bepland isn't a federation is that I want to avoid the abbreviation FAG.

Role of the National Regulatory Government
The National Regulatory Government (NRG) serves a much less interesting role, in that it holds direct legislative power, and not much else. The Regulatory Government's legislative power can almost never be overturned by local government, and usually applies on a national level; they make absolutive laws. This means the NRG only really makes Big Important Decisions on its own. Its secondary function is to reinforce the Advisory Government's legitimacy, in that it can technically step in and deny local government decisions to override default law. Such a manoeuvre replaces a default law with an absolutive law, and is called an intervention. Note that the absolutive law doesn't have to be the exact same as the default law was, but will necessarily be similar.

It is a diminutive institution in comparison to the NAG, and only holds a few, distributed offices; a majority of the NRG's budget goes to travel expenses, as they maintain a number of national-government envoys, often without branch offices or legations to stay in. For many high-ranking employees in various legislative instances, "retiring" to a life as a NRG assisting-lawyer envoy is often seen as an ideal way to top off their career with some sightseeing. This occasionally causes problems with unqualified employees who feel entitled to an envoy position through seniority alone. The prominence of nepotism as a social factor varies greatly between legal instances, leading to some conflict; owing in part to high maintenance costs, the NRG holds its high-ranking staff to more stringent standards than most of the instances that people want to transfer there from.

Local government wanting to pass controversial overrides of the Advisory Government's default laws are generally dissuaded from making the leap by the fact that the NRG could intervene and kill any chance of that override being possible anywhere in the country for a long time. Interventions don't happen terribly often, but often enough that local government has to act with some reservation against (esp. separatist) radical overrides. The chance of NRG interventions serves to make local legislature a bit more coherent on a national level, without directly forcing it to all derive from one body; if an override is allowed in one region, the NRG won't intervene for something similar in another region lest it paint itself as hypocritical; and overrides/changes have to be somewhat acceptable to the country's general mood to avoid risking being intervened with, even if they're uncontroversial locally.

The NRG has to tread a fine line as the reinforcing body of the advisory government, because too many interventions takes power away from the NAG and could be taken as a provocation. Confer how interventions are not obligated to enforce the default law, and can make any number of addenda or alterations. Intervention is thus generally inadvisable for the NRG, because the NAG runs many of the national executive functions that the NRG relies on for its own national laws to be enforced (usu. indirectly, in collaboration with local government that also doesn't take well to being intervened with).

tldr: The National Regulatory Government has irreversible legislative authority which is uses for Important Things of National Importance. It also balances local governments' power to radically override the advisory government, while itself being checked by the advisory government which wins more if local government follows its default laws voluntarily.

Internal organization
In both legislative(+) institutions, there are two separate departments. One Department of Councils, who wield legislative power, and one Department of Commissions, which hold commissions and miscellaneous staff. The role of the Commissions Dept. is to assist and complement the councilors, and in the National Advisory Government's case also to manage and run its subordinate executive institutions (food regulation offices, postal system, etc). The commissions themselves are a sort of secretariat, tasked with figuring out how to implement laws after the councilors have decided what those laws should be. This process also ensures that all laws come with a clear reason to exist, the legitimacy of which can then later be reëvaluated.

The councilors are elected by the general populous, while commissions and staff are hired in primarily by other commissions and staff. Commissions typically consist of professionals within various fields, being or being accompanied by lawyers; and the miscellaneous staff is a varied group ranging from cleaning personnel on the legislative institutions' property to postal system employees under the NAG's direct-executive authority. The NRG's Commissions Dept. keeps an especially significant number of logistical staff for its diminutive size, while the NAG keeps a notable number of law enforcement given its task of enforcing some laws sometimes.

Commissions Dept.s contain three primary branches: administrative management, which deals with managing both commissions and miscellaneous staff; commissions, which are brought in on limited-time terms by administrative management or other commissions to have ultimate authority on the implementation of laws; and miscellaneous staff, which is hired by administrative management either as the administrative management sees fit, or as is requested by any commission (e.g. a commission on railway regulations might need some sod to carry their measuring tapes for a week). The Commissions Dept.s are primarily independent of the council(s), but also feature representatives, who are there to voice concerns about how the administrative management runs things, but do not hold much power of their own. Councilors may in principle hire people to any position in the Commissions Dept.s, but can only fire/depose of representatives they hired themselves; and in practice, they also only hire representatives and necessary miscellaneous staff to avoid accusations.

There is frequently back-and-forth between the councils and the commissions, sometimes completely stalling the realization of laws because the commissions can't figure out a viable way to make the councilors' decisions coherent and enforceable for the judiciary and (other) executive branches. Councils can in principle override their commissions' administrative management, but this is rare as it is particularly stupid to implement laws without the support of people who manage the logistics of law implementation. Back-and-forths between the council(s) and the commissions is much more frequent in the Regulatory Government than in the Advisory Government, because the Advisory Government essentially just makes guidelines while the Regulatory Government is supposed to put out very precise and important laws.

Councilors, commissions, and lawyers permanently hired as miscellaneous staff to help either of the aforementioned, may be appointed temporarily or permanently to the position of envoy. This just means they've been appointed as representatives of their instance within the NRG/NAG, and get to zip around doing work in places that aren't the main offices.

While the councilors wield ultimate power, is in everyone's interest that laws be resolved within the legislative institutions. This is both because it ensures the institutions' self-interest by limiting the interpretive freedom (thus power) of the judiciary and (other) executive branches, and because councils make themselves politically very undesirable if they destroy their own institution, leading to the replacement of the elected officials. Dismantling a the institution would only lead to the council being replaced and its successors reinstating the council-commission system the way they want it.