Repeal

Elizabeth was satisfied with the results. The only part left is stopping the House of Blue Bloods from repealing it all. Technically, she can force everyone to do as she wants and become an absolute dictator. But, such a system would depend on her; if someday she goes away, the whole system would fall apart.

She doesn't want to be king forever; she wants to let others have a chance to rule, too.

She returned to the palace, while Alex IV also returned with her, intending to observe for a while more.

…

The House of Blue Bloods building is one of the two grandest buildings in the entire kingdom. It alone is like a medium-sized city inside the Blue Bloods City. It is actually a city within a city.

It has more than 50,000 workers. Letters from all over the world would be delivered to it and will be sent out from it.

In the main hall, where nobles meet, there were around 600 people sitting on a circularly set platform. The chief of the nobles' faction, Marquis Swordland, was speaking.

"The motion from Her Majesty to remove titles of nobles from the south hereby fails by a vote of 45% opposed and 36% in favor!"

Because not all voting powers are equal, the vote is always announced as a percentage. Marquises have more voting power than counts.

This vote was always expected to fail; the most important thing about it was the percentage. As long as the percentage of supporters or abstentions doesn't exceed 40%, the house could quickly pass a resolution rebuking the king on her actions.

But now, many northern nobles have abstained, which means the house cannot vote to repeal Her Majesty's decree anytime soon.

That's because of the filibuster rules of the House of Blue Bloods.

If more than 60% of voting power votes for a quick end to the debate, they can quickly vote on the motion or resolution. If less than 60% vote for the end of the debate, the floor remains open for two months, which could be extended by another month if any noble requests it.

These laws are set in the first resolutions passed by the House of Blue Bloods and are practically unchangeable. If one wants to change it, one must repeal those resolutions, which contain many other provisions cited by many resolutions passed throughout history. It could invalidate many laws.

Honestly, the legal system of the Blue Bloods kingdom is non-functional. All laws are linked so closely that repealing any old law is impossible.

Scholars still debate whether the repeal of the succession law by Mark VI has caused other laws to become invalid.

That law was not cited much, only when the succession of new kings happened.

Every time the king changed or the noble's title transferred, they cited the old succession law, which is now repealed. Fortunately, specific laws say once a king becomes king, they can never be removed.

It means that even if, according to the new law, because of the inclusion of females, many of the former male kings are considered wrongly thronged, they are still valid kings; whoever gets officiated king becomes king and remains king. Legitimacy arguments would not work.

The same is true regarding nobles. Otherwise, it would have been a complete mess; all previous kings' actions could have been repealed by implication.

Many nobles in the hall stood up and walked out in protest, many contemptuous looks toward the northern nobles' section.

The northern nobles managed to extract a lot of compromises from Elizabeth. First, Elizabeth promised to advocate for more resources for the North. Considering how many other nobles she alienated while removing the southerners, this one may be the hardest.

She promised to appoint more northerners to important ministries, which can be done, as the House of Blue Bloods lacks the vote to reject nominations.

In general, the northerners have kind of accepted becoming her political friends. They won't always accept her, but they try hard to see the silver linings when considering her position.

The Western nobles were the most influential in government affairs, as the capital was in the West.

Many government officials were Western nobles.

…

In a room, nobles from four regions were gathered: western nobles, new southern nobles, central lands nobles, and eastern nobles.

Elizabeth removed all southern nobles despite them not even being in their fiefs when those incidents happened. She, with consultation with the House of Blue Bloods de facto leader, Marquis Swordland, immediately appointed the new southern noble titleholders to the House of Blue Bloods.

They appointed 20 people from the South, which is not much; normally, the South has at least 60 nobles in the house. But, for now, they could agree on 20.

Half were chosen by Marquis Swordland and the other half by Elizabeth.

She chose only women, as they only gained power thanks to her and were more likely to be loyal.

Marquis Swordland, on the other hand, appointed only men.

In this meeting, the ten male titleholders he appointed were present, while those appointed by Elizabeth didn't attend.

The eastern nobles were interesting. The East is not really part of the Blue Blood Kingdom anymore. It still gives it taxes, but de facto, they are independent in every other regard.

Even with that, they still send representatives to the capital of blue blood. The representatives they send are official titleholders, but they don't have true power; they are kind agents and representatives of the declared kings there.

The royal court knew this for a long time, but as long as they sent money, nobody cared. Those self-declared kings were also careful not to cross red lines; they didn't invade to occupy each other's territory and didn't try killing nobles.

The nobles there are mostly ceremonial, with the self-declared kings keeping them around while, on the other hand, stealing their power. It was a weird situation, intending to keep the blue bloods kingdom at bay.

If they provoke too much, blue bloods will attack; everyone knows it. Even though they are not at their peak, they are not declining either; even though many people declared themselves king, they still pay taxes honestly.

The central nobles were the most divided; some attended, while others did not.

Marquis Swordland said, "We are here to discuss the strategy of confronting Her Majesty."

Even though Marquis Swordland is moderate, he still is a western noble who doesn't want to lose power.

"We should not recognize this! Her Majesty does not have the power to remove nobles unilaterally," said a western noble; then, he looked at the southern nobles with contempt.

"Why are you looking at us like this? We are on your side!" one of the southern marquises stood up and shouted.

"Enough! No personal attacks! Count Eastriver, please apologize!" Marquis Swordland said.

Count Eastriver shook his head and said, "I apologize!"

"Now, let us think of a feasible way to fight back! Her Majesty is a supernatural being, and that would make everything much harder! We should use laws to restrain her. Gather all the best legal scholars and direct them to write a letter about the legality of her actions. It would be best if you could get legal professors of Blue Bloods University and Johnson University also to sign in!" said Marquis Swordland.

There is no law court in the Blue Bloods kingdom and no way to check the legality of an order; it is left to the House of Blue Bloods and the king to sort it out.

Usually, the issues get sorted out because no one wants to inflame it too much. But now, with the king relying on her personal power, the nobles don't have the pressure point of threatening not to send troops in the event of a war.

Therefore, the best way is to use soft power and public pressure.

"Would that work?" someone asked.

"It's our only option!" said Marquis Swordland.

…

Many legal scholars wrote an open letter criticizing the king for her unlawful actions. They cited all the relevant laws in detail and pointed to the king's decree being unlawful.

All older laws overrule newer laws; for a newer law to become effective, the old law must be repealed expressly. This contradicts many other places where newer laws overrule older laws.

Elizabeth passed her decree but didn't repeal any older laws. This was because repealing those laws had lots of consequences she wanted to avoid. She simply passed a new decree and ignored the old laws. Recently, with her personal power getting stronger, she has been getting much more lawless.

Elizabeth read the letter and nodded. The legal scholars were right; she must have repealed the old laws and passed a new decree.

"If I'm going to comply with all old laws, I never can truly change the world," she thought.

She has been thinking about the kingdom's legal system for a while. Now, she wants to act.

Using the letter as an inference, she wrote another letter, inviting all those legal scholars who wrote the letter to the palace to discuss reforms. She wanted to change the legal system entirely.

She has that power as a vampire.

…

Her letter caused a storm in the legal community. Laws glue everything together, so changing the system laws operate on was extremely risky and exciting!

Many have pointed out the flaws for centuries, but nothing has changed. Many legal scholars who wrote the letter responded by supporting the idea.

They wrote letters about their ideas of how it all should work. There were many different ideas, such as a constitution, a court, having a commoner's house, etc.

Elizabeth had worked with them every night and finally chose one of the systems.

She completely ignored the pleas of the House of Blue Bloods; those people always complain when they lose their power, so there is no reconciliation with them.

The legal system she chose was the one she thought was the most stable.

First, she decided to establish a constitution, which had the structure of the government spelled out.

Some countries go on and on in their constitution and give all kinds of 'rights' to their people, like the right to housing, food, etc., none of which isn't worth the paper it's written on.

A constitution isn't for those things; it must only contain the structure of the government, and that's it.

She passed a Bill of Rights about people's rights along with the Constitution. It was very limited, only very basic rights, like the right not to be killed, except if authorized by the king or nobles.

She would expand it later, but now, that was all she could get.

There was a court in the new system, one which could invalidate laws passed by the king or the House of Blue Bloods but not laws passed by the approval of both the king and the House of Blue Bloods.

All laws would take effect three days after they are written unless signed by the king and voted on by a 2/3 vote of the House of Blue Bloods.

 The membership of the House of Blue Bloods also changed.

To be a member, one must be elected; membership is still limited to nobles, but commoners have the right to vote.

This provision outraged all nobles, even northerners. The situation became dangerous, as nobles said they would not recognize it.

Elizabeth still didn't listen. She took her pen and signed a new decree spelling out the new system.

With one stroke, she repealed every resolution and decree passed before and instituted the new constitutional system.

The House of Blue Bloods immediately overruled it, but Elizabeth said it doesn't have the power to overrule it.

The house's power to overrule also came from a resolution that Elizabeth repealed.

For the next few days, the capital operated as if it were two different countries. The rest of the country ignored Elizabeth and continued to work with old laws.