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Government:

Delegate: Wabbitslayah
Officer: Frattastan (Foreign Affairs)
Officer: Marilyn Manson Freaks (Outreach)
Officer: PowerPAOK (Media)
Officer: Relfa (Culture)

Other Officials:

Speaker: Vulturret
RRA High Commander: Frattastan
RRA Commander: Guy
RRA Commander: Wopruthien
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Constitutional draft
Topic Started: Feb 12 2011, 01:10 AM (1,222 Views)
Spartan Termopylae
The Fool on the Hill
How can people prove their judgement if it's not put to the test? Perhaps add a stipulation that any nominee must have held office before? But if someone's not ambitious, then they should not be in the Council, because the Council should have ambition for the region. And theres nowt wrong with young members aspiring to positions. Far as the region's concerned, I'm a young member. But if the ambitious young nations can't aspire to one of the upper echelons of government, which the Council sounds to be, then it will just turn into an old boys club. Is that what we want?
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sedge
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The Council of 3 isn't supposed to be particularly active - it literally just decides on citizenship applications. It's not part of the government, it doesn't make laws, and it can be overruled by the Assembly (the legislative body).

Ambitious new members should be proving themselves in a position which can make a difference to the region - so helping out Officers, or by actually becoming an Officer. If you look at the moment, there's only one person in the region who could really be considered to be doing an Officer's job - myself. That'd mean 3 other vacancies for people to prove themselves in a role with real power, along with the chance to help existing officers.
Edited by sedge, Feb 24 2011, 12:35 AM.
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Spartan Termopylae
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Have the officers and their responsibilities been defined yet? I don't remember seeing it. (I'm not picking a fight there, I'm just curious, and I've not seen it. I could be wrong there) By that I mean....their specific titles and the like


Edit: Plus, I'm mostly trying to come up with ways to overcome objections to things in order to help all this along. Could be I'm proving a hinderance to it all, too, which could be awkward
Edited by Spartan Termopylae, Feb 24 2011, 12:40 AM.
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Nah, I'm glad there's someone arguing about this :)

The role of the Officers (7a) is: "Officers of the region are responsible for carrying out the governmental functions of the region."

It's deliberately vague, partly to stop the constitution being eye-bleedingly long, and also to allow the Officers (and the Delegate, who heads the government) the freedom to expand and contract the functions of the government as they choose. There aren't specific titles - that is up to the delegate to decide.
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Spartan Termopylae
The Fool on the Hill
Ah, deliberate vaguearies (I don't care it's spelled wrong, it's one in the freakin' morning. Give or take). They're on a sort of contract basis then? Tasks that are done as and when needed, then when there is no longer any need for the office to be held by an officer, said post is disbanded?
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Something like that - as the delegate assigns roles, it allows them freedom & flexibility, especially when campaigning - having officers doing different things is a good way of differentiating oneself from other candidates.
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Spartan Termopylae
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Ah, OK. That makes sense. I still think that a rotation with fixed terms is a way to overcome at leats part of an objection to the Council's existance, though
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Naivetry
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Feb 23 2011, 11:53 PM
Is it really that long? Given that we wouldn't really need any other rules, I don't think it's that bad. It sets out how thing work - which parts of it are unnecessary?
It's not so much a question of the contents as phrasing and organization. I'd like to reword the section on the challenge system especially and try to collapse the two different sections on it (Delegate vs. Officers) into one. I'll post up a revised draft later today after I teach.

EDIT: Or I'll catch up on the rest of the forum instead... still getting used to this concept of sleep. I'll try again tomorrow. [/edit]

Quote:
 
Someone (or some group of people) have to be empowered to make a judgement on citizenship applications, particularly as sometimes there'll be intel issues to discuss when considering them. I like the Council of Three, but would be open to having it more democratic - for example by having replacements elected rather than appointed.

This is the thing, though - as I see it, the only reason we would ever deny someone citizenship once they'd met the basic requirements (nation in region and forum account) would be for security concerns - correct me if I'm wrong, there, because that's the assumption that's driving my whole argument. If I'm right, that means we would always need at least one member with IP vision, unless in practice we had forum admins reporting to the Co3 and in essence controlling that portion of the Co3's decision, which would just be a mess to legislate. I'd rather have citizenship automatically granted upon meeting the requirements and posting a statement of intent, unless the nation in question failed to pass a security check. Phrased that way, it allows us either to default to a security check by the admins, or for an additional/alternative body to be created by legislation if we feel the need to formalize it later (e.g., the Officer in charge of Intel operations plus two elected citizens, or something like that). As with the Co3, we could require the reasons for a denial of citizenship to be posted, with a vote from the Assembly required either to confirm the denial of citizenship, or to override the decision of the security check people (I don't care which).

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Higher majority requirements or a quorum? I could accept them so long as the bar wasn't set so high that it was impossible to pass anything.

Quorums are a nightmare when you're dealing with NS - too many people float in and out in terms of activity. Higher majority requirements wouldn't hurt, but they wouldn't help, either. You can't use democracy to protect people against the hazards of democracy.

I'm just thinking - it's as easy to invade a legislature as it is to invade a region. We can either choose to allow that avenue of change, or we can make it harder somehow. As a last suggestion (because I do not want to add the complication of a separate judiciary into this mix), possibly a unanimous vote of the Officers + Delegate could veto legislation. That is, the decision of a representative democracy could overturn the decision of the direct democracy. That's the last suggestion I'll make on the topic, because I see the appeal in a GCR of simply allowing the majority to rule unquestioned, come what may.
Edited by Naivetry, Feb 25 2011, 05:53 AM.
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Sorry I haven't replied to your points yet - I read them, and put of replying... and kept doing so. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow? I really do want to see us agree on a constitution...
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Quote:
 
I'm just thinking - it's as easy to invade a legislature as it is to invade a region. We can either choose to allow that avenue of change, or we can make it harder somehow.


Those kinds of situations are hard to prevent with regulations - as anything secure enough to stop it happening will likely act as a massive barrier to new members getting involved. It's part of the reason for keeping the Council of Three - it can make those kinds of subjective decisions, and deny applications if it thinks there's an 'invasion' of the Assembly going on.

As for quorums, I was thinking of something minor - like a minimum of 5 votes cast in total, so we don't have people trying to pass stuff when everyone else is away on holiday.

The 75% requirement for constitutional amendments already gives minorities a significant protection.

Anyhow, I'm still willing to change Article 3, Clause B so that the Assembly chooses replacement Co3 members.
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Naivetry
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Yeah, I just don't like the Co3 thing as the body that does the checking.

And I really, really want to make this as short as humanly possible without making it ineffective. So, working on draft now.
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The Constitution of The Rejected Realms
Article 1: Preamble
  • A: This Constitution defines the government and citizenship of The Rejected Realms. No laws or treaties may contradict this document, and all citizens of the region are required to comply with the provisions set out in it.
  • B: The Rejected Realms (TRR) is the NationStates region http://www.nationstates.net/region=the_rejected_realms.
  • C: The forums of The Rejected Realms are http://s8.zetaboards.com/The_RR_and_RRA.
  • D: The Rejected Realms Army (RRA) shares the same forums, but operates independently of the government of TRR.

Article 2: Citizenship
  • A: Citizenship may be granted to any person who has both a nation within [region]The Rejected Realms[/region] (or in service to the RRA elsewhere) and an account on TRR's forums.
  • B: All citizenship applications are subject to a security check by forum administrators. Citizenship applications are automatically approved if no security concerns are found.
  • C: Citizenship may be denied or retracted by forum administrators for reasons of regional security. This decision may be appealed to the Assembly as set out in Article 3.

Article 3: The Assembly
  • A: The Assembly consists of all citizens of The Rejected Realms.
  • B: The Assembly is responsible for voting on laws, treaties, constitutional amendments, electing Officers and the WA Delegate, and acting as a court of appeal.
  • C: Votes in the Assembly are visible to all citizens, and last for seven days.
  • D: Laws, treaties and appeals require a simple majority vote to pass. Amendments to the Constitution require a 75% majority vote to pass.
  • E: Contested elections are decided by a plurality vote. In case of a tie between a current official and another candidate, the current official retains the position. If there is no current official involved in the tie, the remaining Officers are responsible for breaking the tie. If a vote by the remaining Officers also results in a tie, the Delegate is responsible for breaking that tie.
  • F: Uncontested elections for Officer must be confirmed by a simple majority vote.

Article 4: The WA Delegate
  • A: The WA Delegate of the region is the Head of Government.
  • B: The Delegate may change the regional World Factbook Entry and act on WA proposals and resolutions as they see fit.
  • C: The Delegate assigns roles to the Officers of the region.

Article 5: Officers
  • A: Officers of the region are responsible for carrying out the governmental functions of the region.
  • B: Up to four Officers may exist at any one time. Vacant positions will be filled before current Officers are replaced.

Article 6: The Challenge System
  • A: Any citizen who wishes to become an Officer or the Delegate may challenge for the position. A challenge for Delegate requires the support of two other citizens. A challenge for Officer requires the support of one other citizen. This requirement is waived for officials seeking reelection.
  • B: Elections begin once a challenge is submitted. No new citizenship applications will be processed until elections are completed.
  • C: Any citizen who also wishes to submit a challenge may do so during the first week of elections in the case of a challenge for Delegate, or during the first three days of elections in the case of a challenge for Officer. No further challenges will be accepted during the elections after this period.
  • D: Once the challenge period is over, a period of campaigning equal to the length of that challenge period will follow, during which candidates are encouraged to lobby citizens for their votes.
  • E: Once the campaign period is over, the Assembly will vote to elect the Officer or Delegate, as set out in Article 3. Candidates may continue to campaign during voting.
  • F: Newly-elected officials may not be challenged for one month after the close of elections.
Edited by Naivetry, Mar 6 2011, 06:13 AM.
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Naivetry
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Well, it fits on two screens. :P Mostly I tweaked the wording and combined the former Article 6 and 8 in order to get it down to this length, but there are a couple of major changes that need feedback and quite possibly some argument.

1) Replaced the Co3 with forum administrators running a security check.
2) Stuck the section on the RRA into the preamble; there's no reason to spend an entire article talking about an organization which explicitly does not fall under the scope of this constitution, I figure.
3) Refined the tie-breaking mechanism for elections.
4) Described the vote for contested elections as a plurality vote, 'cause that's what it is... but if that's too technical or unfamiliar a term, I'd be happy to switch it back.

Thoughts?
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It's mainly fine.

Quote:
 
B: Elections begin once a challenge is submitted. No new citizenship applications will be processed until elections are completed.

That should apply to delegate elections only, as otherwise we may find ourselves not processing applications half the time.

Also, do we need something for when the delegate steps down?

Not entirely happy about having the administrators being responsible for deciding on citizenship applications - it seems contradictory to your complaint that the Co3 "puts 3 big, intimidating bouncers in front of the door marked citizenship", but I could accept it if others would prefer things that way.

Finally, what about putting a basic quorum in for votes, as outlined a few posts above?
Edited by sedge, Mar 6 2011, 05:25 PM.
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Naivetry
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Mm, k. I'll tweak it to say,

Quote:
 
B: Elections begin once a challenge is submitted. If the elections are for the position of Delegate, no new citizenship applications will be processed until elections are completed.


Heh. Nonsense - the Delegate isn't allowed to step down! :P Once you're in the chair, you're stuck for seven years! ...Yeah, it would probably be a good idea to have something in mind. Not sure what, though. Automatic elections make the most sense, probably, but that could get complicated.

My reasoning behind having the forum administrators check applications is that it's really just a matter of regional security, and I think putting the forum administrators (or someone else with IP vision) in charge should make that clear. Forum administrators are like referees - they're not supposed to be on anyone's team. They're just a fact of forum life, kind of the way Founders are in a democratic UCR, there to make sure things keep running smoothly and safely and everyone plays nice. They're not political in the same way that a Co3 would have to be.

I suppose we could put in a quorum. My major objection to them is the difficulty of finding the balance between an effective guarantee of representation and potentially crippling the government. 5 is low enough to avoid bringing the government to a halt in periods of low activity, but a quorum of 5 means it would take 3 people voting yes in order to pass laws or treaties instead of the 1 or 2 people it would take without a quorum... and I'm not sure that's enough of a difference to make it worthwhile. Maybe add it in a separate piece of legislation if it becomes an issue?
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