Interim High Council (The Deadly Assassin)
- You may be looking for the interim High Council composed of Romana, Darkel and Matthias.
An interim High Council was formed (AUDIO: Mindbomb) when Chancellor Goth and the Fourth Doctor both put themselves forwards as candidates in the presidential election after the assassination of President Pandad IV. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
History
According to the Constitution of the Time Lords, when the High Council was disbanded for an imminent election for the post of Lord President, the candidates themselves formed the interim Council. (AUDIO: Mindbomb)
Pandad IV was assassinated on Presidential Resignation Day before he could name his successor. This caused a constitutional crisis and neccesitated that an election be held in the next forty-eight hours. Chancellor Goth of Pandad's final High Council and favourite to ascend to the presidency quickly called the elections and declared that the assassin must be tried and executed prior to this as a result of the tradition for new Presidents to pardon political prisoners.
The Fourth Doctor, who had just returned to Gallifrey, was suspected of the crime with his charges quickly being brought to trial. To avoid the death sentence, the Doctor invoked Article 17 of the Constitution as a "guarantee of liberty" which meant he was now standing alongside Goth in the election as a candidate.
The Doctor went about proving his innocence, first convincing Castellan Spandrell and Coordinator Engin that he was not to blame. The Doctor entered the Matrix and eventually discovered that Goth was the true assassin, under the influence of the Decayed Master. He had done it because the President revealed to him that he intended to name Cardinal Borusa as his successor. Goth died shortly afterwards, effectively disbanding the interim Council and leaving the Doctor as President-elect, heralding the beginning of the Fourth Doctor's High Council. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) As a result of the lack of other candidates, the Doctor eventually became the President proper by default. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time, A Brief History of Time Lords)
In the Doctor's absence, Borusa led Gallifrey as Chancellor and Acting President. (TV: The Invasion of Time; A Brief History of Time Lords) The Fifth Doctor later discovered that his fourth incarnation's tenure had been stricken from the record. (AUDIO: Time in Office) The version of events kept in the Bureau of Ancient Records held that Pandad had intended to name Goth as his successor and that Goth had killed the Master but had lost his life in the ensuing firefight. It also completely ignored both the Fourth Doctor's involvement in events and his Presidency, claiming that Borusa became Chancellor and Acting President "by popular acclaim" until he could be confirmed as President by an election after Goth's death. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
