The Party Envoy: Role and Duties

The Consensus Envoy, Party Envoy, or Envoy shall be understood to mean “Party leader” or “leader of the Party” as the Envoy will be registered with the Electoral Commission as such. However, the “Party Envoy” is an officer of the Party who functions as a non-executive representative of the will of the Membership, and they shall have no power to create Party or Assembly policy or processes.

They shall nonetheless in no way have their rights as a Member of the Party abridged, nor their duties in any other held role diminished.

It is reaffirmed that the actual leader of the Harmony Party is the consensus of the Membership. Therefore the Party Envoy holds the position of “leader” in symbolic trust of the Membership.

The Envoy is primarily responsible for being the public face of the Party. They must coordinate with any Media Officer, the Media Secretary, the Media Working Group, and the Society for Presentation of Policy to help provide a singular face to the efforts of all of the preceding.

Secondarily, the Party Envoy acts as Secretary of the Society of Speakers. The Society of Speakers is a special body, which shall be composed of either Secretaries or Deputy Secretaries of the Policy Societies. Each Policy Society will send one Secretary or Deputy Secretary. Each member of the Society of Speakers is a “Speaker”, and is assigned the duty of speaking on their Policy Society’s remit.

The Envoy is also responsible for:

  • cultivating good working relationships with members of the media, and with members of other political parties and organisations.
  • media appearances.
  • presenting policy and supporting and participating in the production of media accordingly.

At all times the Envoy is constrained to speak within the understood established Consensus of the Party. Should they breach this duty, they may be immediately recalled. This may occur either by:

  • a vote of the Party Membership following the unanimous request of the Secretaries of Resolution. The Secretaries of Resolution must both individually and collectively provide reasoned arguments for their decision and these must be provided to the Party Membership in good time ahead of the vote.
  • a vote of the Party Membership following a petition of at least 30% of the Party Membership; the petition must be presented to the Secretarial Committee, or, if there is any conflict of interest (in the opinion of anyone on the Committee or of the submitters of the petition), to the Secretaries of Resolution.

If the Party Envoy is in post for 1,095 days, they must seek re-election or stand down.

If the Party Envoy should decide to stand down, or for any other reason there is no Party Envoy in post, then the Secretarial Committee shall:

  • either automatically designate the first Deputy Secretary of the Policy Society as the Interim Party Envoy,
  • or, if no such Deputy Secretary is in post, designate the Party General Secretary as Interim Party Envoy, unless there is either no Party General Secretary or they decline the position;
  • should the Party General Secretary decline the position of Interim Party Envoy, the most senior elected member of the Harmony Party – defined as holding office for the longest time – shall be appointed Interim Party Envoy;
  • if there are no Members in elected office, then the seniormost Deputy Speaker of the Media Working Group shall be appointed Interim Party Envoy;
  • should there be no Deputy Speaker of the Media Working Group, then the seniormost Deputy Speaker of the Policy Society shall be appointed Interim Party Envoy;
  • should there be no Deputy Speaker of the Policy Society, then the Deputy Speaker of the Society for Presentation of Policy shall be appointed Interim Party Envoy;
  • should there be no Deputy Speaker of the Society for Presentation of Policy, then the Secretary of the Media Working Group, or the Media Officer, in that order, shall be appointed Interim Party Envoy.

In any case the Secretarial Committee shall execute an election for the office within three months of the prior Envoy standing down. Should no candidates be forthcoming, the election should be delayed until at least two candidates step forward.