| Tyvenia's Alternate Proposed Constitution | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 17 2015, 09:40 PM (180 Views) | |
| Tyvenia | Jan 17 2015, 09:40 PM Post #1 |
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Preamble: <<I’ll let someone else write it>> I. Member Nations – Any Nation which has been granted citizenship by the Executive Branch, or by vote of the Senate, or by opinion of the Judiciary, shall be considered a Member Nation. a. All member nations, except the President-Elect may vote for Senators. b. Member Nations shall have the right to petition the President or his Cabinet, the Senate, or the Founder for redress of grievances. c. Member Nations are endowed with Rights that shall not be superseded by any branch of the government. d. Upon the ratification of this document, it shall be amended, as described below, to include UCON’s setting, canon and background. It shall then be amended by a vote of the Member Nations Nine Rights that the Member Nations wish to have enumerated. e. Regardless of any other rights, enumerated or otherwise, all Member Nations shall have the protection of Due Process and hearing before any branch of government, and may appeal to the Judiciary for relief. f. These rights are to be construed liberally, and with presumptive favor toward Member Nations, and their Due Process Rights. g. At any time, and for any reason, any Member Nation shall be allowed to present legislation for the consideration by the Senate, and may petition either the Founder or the President for a statement of support at those votes. II. Branches of Government a. Founder – The duties of the Founder are enumerated and limited: i. It shall be the Founder’s role to manage the administrative functions as required by NationStates. ii. It shall provide the Executive Branch with feedback, perspective and support. iii. From time-to-time to the Founder may introduce legislation to be voted upon by the Senate. iv. To appoint a new Founder as the need may necessitate, with approval from the President and the Senate. v. To work with the President to determine the appropriate number of Senators. vi. The Founder may temporarily suspend any player, and request the Senate begin an expulsion vote. b. President – The duties of the President are enumerated and limited: i. The President shall be elected by a direct plurality of the Member Nations. ii. The President shall give a brief description of the goals for the term upon taking office. iii. The President shall give a brief description of the successes and failures of the term upon leaving office. iv. The President may appoint Cabinet members at the start of his term. v. The President may propose new Cabinet-Level positions to the Senate. vi. To propose to the Founder, the appropriate number of Senators for the term. vii. From time-to-time propose legislation, as requested by the Member Nations. viii. To execute the Senate’s lawfully-passed legislation. ix. The President may temporarily suspend any player, and request the Senate begin an expulsion vote. c. Senate – The duties of the Senate are enumerated and limited: i. The Senate shall be elected “at-large”. ii. The Senate shall determine rules on RP, and may seek guidance from the other branches prior to voting. iii. The Senate has the duty of final approval of policy for its term. iv. The Senate shall debate and vote on proposed legislation. v. No legislation may be proposed by sitting Senators. vi. The Senate shall consider any legislation proposed by the Founder, the President, or the Member Nations by petition. vii. The Senate, in coordination with the President, shall determine the Cabinet-level offices. viii. The Senate must hold an expulsion vote at the request of either the Founder or the President, and may expel any Member Nation for violation of the rules. d. Judiciary – There shall be a Judiciary to act as the final arbiter of disputes. i. The Senate shall appoint one Chief Judge, whose term shall last three months, and must be nonsynchronous with the other office elections. ii. If there is a dispute, the Chief Judge shall appoint two other arbiters to join him in ruling on any dispute brought before him. The final vote of the panel shall be the final ruling in the dispute. iii. If the Chief Judge has a conflict of interest, he shall recuse himself, and one appointment from each of the Founder, the President, and the Senate shall serve as the judiciary panel for that dispute. iv. The Chief Judge may add additional arbiters to settle the dispute if requested by any other branch of government. v. Additional members of the judiciary, or additional courts, may be determined by the Senate. vi. The Senate may, by simple majority vote, determine whether or not the Chief Judge is permitted to continue in RP for the term of his election, based on the circumstances. vii. No member of the Judiciary may serve on any other branch of service. viii. No member of the Judiciary may serve consecutive terms on the same Court. ix. The Judiciary may, after an appropriate hearing, due process and careful consideration, reinstate or overturn any suspended or expelled player. It may also affirm such result. III. Elections – The process of elections shall be held in the following order a. Each non-Judicial election cycle shall be four months, and shall begin with the election of President. b. The Founder shall nominate all candidates who wish to run for the office of President. c. The Member Nations shall vote for President, winner will be the person with the most votes. d. The President and Founder shall determine the number of Senators for the term within three days. e. The Member Nations, except for the President, shall vote on the candidates for Senate. This election shall occur within one week of the President’s election. f. The Senate and President shall work together to decide on the number and description of duties of Cabinet Members, within three days from the election of the Senate. g. The President shall appoint, without affirmation from the Senate, his Cabinet. h. The election term ends four months from the President’s election and restarts this procedure. IV. Amendment Process – From time-to-time it may be necessary to amend this Constitution. This shall be done in accordance with the following process. a. The First Amendment shall determine the basic background and ruleset for UCON. b. The second nine Amendments shall take place immediately upon ratification of the Constitution. Each Amendment shall be one enumerated right, as determined by the founding Member Nations. c. After these initial enumerated rights, any Member Nation, except the Chief Judge, may propose an amendment. Former Chief Judges may propose amendments. d. It shall be the Senate’s duty to hold an initial vote on whether to move the proposed amendment before the Member Nations. Failure to reach a simple majority in the Senate shall kill the proposed amendment. e. If the proposed amendment moves into a vote before the Member Nations, at least 51% of the Member Nations must actively vote, for a proposed amendment to be adopted. Of those voting, 75% of Member Nations must vote in favor of its adoption. f. To repeal an Amendment, either 75% of the Senate must vote in favor of repeal and that action must be affirmed by the President and the Founder, or the Amendment process described in subsections (b)-(d) must be followed. g. No more than one amendment shall be presented per real-life month. V. Ratification of this constitution shall be considered successful after a 2/3 vote by those voting in the ratification election. Ratification shall occur immediately. If ratification does not reach 2/3 within one week of the election’s start date, it shall be considered failed. If it fails to reach 2/3s a second time, it shall be considered a dead document and substantial changes must be made prior to its reintroduction before UCON. |
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| Tyvenia | Jan 17 2015, 09:51 PM Post #2 |
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It lost my formatting.
Edited by Tyvenia, Jan 19 2015, 03:54 PM.
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| Tyvenia | Jan 19 2015, 05:03 PM Post #3 |
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I wanted to take a bit to address why I wrote my draft in the manner that I did. First, my, as well as both Prime's and Macari's drafts begin with a statement of positive rights of Member Nations. Mine differs in that is a brief enumeration of rights. My reasoning behind this is relatively simple: an extensive list of rights implies that the list is complete and finite. Even when, as they both do, Prime's and Macari's lists of rights includes the provision that they are not limited to the given list, the impression that necessarily forms is that such unwritten, implied rights are lesser in scope than they actually should be. While the actual numbers between the three existing drafts are not terribly dissimilar, the rights I list are almost entirely related to the right of Due Process, and not substantive liberty or freedom rights. Again, my reasoning is simple, if appropriate Due Process rights exist for every Member Nation then no barriers to true liberty are ever permanent. This is a superior methodology for handling rights in a game with relatively small population because it has a greater potential to alleviate disagreements between Member Nations, as well as between Member Nations and the branches of government. The question should rarely be "Did that person have the right to do that?", it should instead be, "Did that person get a fair chance to justify their violations?". Realizing that the standard is for RL constitutions is to enumerate rights to help alleviate government oppression, I added a provision for a bill of rights to accomplish that similar accomplishment within UCON. However, substantive positive rights mean nothing without the opportunity for due process. The discussions we have had over the last several days that led to the formation UCON were at their most basic, disputes about Due Process rights and fair criticism of government, not individual rights. Second, to actually limit governmental abuse, it is far more expedient to list what they are able and unable to do. I did my best to balance the typical form of government, using a hybrid system that is most like a presidential system, with some parliamentary flavor. By prescribing to the Founder and the President the right to determine the number of Senators, but largely divesting them of the ability to pass or even approve of Senatorial legislation (i.e. there is no inherent veto power), the Executives (Founder and President) do exercise some ability to act with immediacy, but with no ability to enforce those actions without approval from the Senate. In a similar check, it is the authority of the Senate to approve of cabinet positions, with the duty to consult the President before doing so. Furthermore, the Senators cannot bring up legislation to pass. That must be done by a referendums by Member Nations, or by one of the Executives. So the Senate cannot act without the will of either the "citizens" or UCON, or without Executive approval. Finally, only the Executives may suspend players, but only the Senate may vote to actually expel anyone permanently. All of this relates to the Due Process via the checks-and-balances system. To cap the systemic government rules off, I envisioned a Chief Judge, sitting at a different term of office with few official duties, and no power of his own without an invocation coming from another person. That is, the Judge is only empowered to act once he has been asked to. He cannot start a hearing or trial or inquiry on his own, but because his say is final in any deliberative action it remains an authoritative, but largely unpowerful position. The third thing I shall address is the amendment procedure. Because I rightly opened it up to any Member Nation proposing an amendment, I also built in a screening process. The Senatorial requirement for votes to reach 51% is to ensure that there is at least a modicum of support from the leadership on the matter. I also considered allowing the Executives to be included in the vote and require 51% from the entire sitting government. I decided against it, but have not totally ruled out the possibility of returning to that. If we were to enact it that way, it would be imperative to note that a negative vote from either or both of them would not act as a veto, but merely a decrease to the total percentage voting. The real test of an amendment process is to make it intentionally difficult for popular opinion to hijack the constitution. The goal of a constitution should, at least in part, be to provide stability. I envision most issues to be addressed in the manner of the regular lawmaking processes, and not constitutional amendments. Maintaining high requirements on passage of amendments allows us to do just that and maintain most laws and rules to a simple majority vote to enact, but also to repeal. In conclusion, my draft differs significantly from Prime's and Macari's because it protects Member Nations in a more comprehensive way, without dictating what can and cannot be considered proper behavior. I set out to limit and careful prescribe the ability of the government without severely hampering their ability to do their work. My draft does not create constitutionally mandated cabinet roles because the President and the Senate shall work together for that. I do not require a vice president, nor an election commissioner because those are more appropriately handled by legislation and fostered agreement amongst the branches. In the end, my draft doesn't claim to preserve rights of individual Member Nations, it empowers them to elect those who are most capable and to hold those officers accountable to their promises. Thank you for your consideration. Edited by Tyvenia, Jan 19 2015, 05:11 PM.
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| Herargon | Jan 20 2015, 11:34 PM Post #4 |
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Isn't this what Athretvari did? And the president also is able to do so. Maybe we should clarify when the players may be suspended. If they did not obey to a rule? |
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