DGVI Approval Poll - Citizen's Rights

[Chieftess]

Article A.  All Civfanatics Forum users who register in the Citizen 
            Registry are citizens of our country. Citizens have the 
            right to assemble, the right to free movement, the right 
            to free speech, the right to a fair and speedy trial, the
	    right to representation, the right to name units (within
	    the naming convention), the right to seek to redress of
	    grievances and the right to vote.

Since this was the general concensus (the specifics of 'right to a speedy trial' will be handled elsewhere), this is an approval poll.

 

[Noldodan]

Public polling on the constitution? That's as bad as public election polling...

 

[greenman1234]

stop saying this is a bad public electioon

 

[Black_Hole]

Public polling on the constitution? That's as bad as public election polling...

its always been this way

 

[TimBentley]

I voted yes, but there is a grammatical error. It should say "to seek to redress grievances" or "to seek redress of grievances."

 

[Chieftess]

We'll deal with the grammar issues when we write up the rules. (now if I could just figure out what "redress of grievances" means. You should know I'm a legalese klutz. ).

 

[GoodGame]

Idea: Perhaps we shouldn't evolve a constitution until the Age of Enlightment. Maybe tribal council will due until oligarchy?

Under Feudalism, will the the governors be competitive Feudal lords, only united against the Infidel/Saracen?

 

[YNCS]

If we're being nitpicky, there should be a comma after "grievances."

 

[Furiey]

I'm a little confused as to why the right to name units (within the naming convention) has made it to the constitution, but the right to name cities hasn't. Seems to me if one is in there the other should be too.

 

[Cyc]

I'm a little confused as to why the right to name units (within the naming convention) has made it to the constitution, but the right to name cities hasn't. Seems to me if one is in there the other should be too.

I thought the same thing also, Furiey. At first I thought that the people that wanted the naming of cities based on rank left city naming out because they didn't want to be forced to allow everyone a equal chance. But then I realized that they will probably say that there will be a hell of a lot more units than there will be cities, so there won't be a shortage in that regard (they won't feel any political pressure to include a *statement about how the law only stands when there are enough cities to go around). No additional wording is neccessary here, as we'll never run out of units.

EDIT: The *statement wouldn't mean that, sorry. It would say that it would come into effect as new cities were created or captured. Something to the effect of "Each citizen is entitled to name a city, so long as there is an eligible city available as that citizen becomes qualified persuant to procedure." Blah, Blah, Blah.

 

[eyrei]

Though I haven't been involved much in the drafting of this constitution, I will weigh in on one issue (I know it is late, but I had no internet connection for the last week). The 'right to seek to redress of grievances' is part of the reason there is so much bickering and bad blood. It implies a personal injury, when the only issue should be whether a person violated the rules. I strongly urge you to remove this from the citizens' rights section and add a law that says that any citizen may ask that a investigation be made into whether someone violated the rules, and that officials will be held accountable for their violations if found guilty.

 

[Black_Hole]

Though I haven't been involved much in the drafting of this constitution, I will weigh in on one issue (I know it is late, but I had no internet connection for the last week). The 'right to seek to redress of grievances' is part of the reason there is so much bickering and bad blood. It implies a personal injury, when the only issue should be whether a person violated the rules. I strongly urge you to remove this from the citizens' rights section and add a law that says that any citizen may ask that a investigation be made into whether someone violated the rules, and that officials will be held accountable for their violations if found guilty.

excellent point, this current wording would make CCs like CC#2 legal...

 

[ravensfire]

eyrei,

Forgive the tardiness in my response. The "redress of grievances" is there basically to say that citizen can call out leaders that don't follow the rules. It's not intended to allow citizen A to get citizen B in court because B called A a 'ninny'. To be honest - that's something you (and the other moderators) are best suited for.

How about "... the right to hold leaders accountable for their actions,... "? Would that work?

Anything that clarifies the point that's being made is a good thing.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Black_Hole]

eyrei,

Forgive the tardiness in my response. The "redress of grievances" is there basically to say that citizen can call out leaders that don't follow the rules. It's not intended to allow citizen A to get citizen B in court because B called A a 'ninny'. To be honest - that's something you (and the other moderators) are best suited for.

How about "... the right to hold leaders accountable for their actions,... "? Would that work?

Anything that clarifies the point that's being made is a good thing.

-- Ravensfire

does this mean citizens can break the laws?

 

[Cyc]

does this mean citizens can break the laws?

Well, actually, the laws are made to direct the Government (although rights of Citizens are included). I don't really remember a PI or CC against a Citizen unless that Citizen was an Official of some kind and did something that broke a Law/Rule covering the capacity of the Office.

BTW we should make the above change using eyrei's word Official, not Leader as Ravensfire uses. Official covers ground that Leader may or may not cover.

 

[Ashburnham]

Can citizens break the law? It seems to me that all our laws are directed towards making sure those in office operate fairly. What could an ordinary citizen possibly get CC'ed for?

 

[ravensfire]

Actually, Cyc, I can. Ummm, DG4, I think, a new citizen played ahead in the save and posted comments about what was coming up. CT spotted it quickly, purged the thread and notified me. I think it was DG4 as we worked out a remedy for it that corrected the problem.

Quite intersestingly enough, in the actual game we made a slight change that completely invalidated the entire post - we avoided a potentially nasty war.

Back to the issue. eyrei is essentially asking us to move this to some other area. How about into the Judiciary? Task the Judiciary with "investigating all complaints as requested by a citizen and hold accountable those responsible for violating the laws of $COUNTRY_NAME".

I just don't know. PI's and CC's are ugly and nasty. I've seen only a few of late get resolved quickly and quietly. I've seen accusations of fraud leveled at people. I've seen just plain mean-spirited character assassinations that continued on for months afterwards. We've got a system of rules, and people that work within those rules. We aren't perfect, and run into conflicts with those rules. Some place we're going to have the clause about requesting investigations, or filing complaints. The door is open, sometimes good things come in, other times bad things. Heck - (and I'm sorry for singling him out) look at CG. Early in DG4 he had a CC filed for skipping instructions. Ever since then, he's been a very solid official. The process can, and does, work.

eyrei, we can certainly move it, and the Judiciary article would be a decent place for it. Do you think that would help? I just don't know.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Rik Meleet]

Can citizens break the law? It seems to me that all our laws are directed towards making sure those in office operate fairly. What could an ordinary citizen possibly get CC'ed for?

playing the save ...

 

[Cyc]

Yes, you're right. There are grey areas elsewhere too.

As far as what eyrei has requested though, Ravensfire, he is not asking us to move the wording to some better location, he is asking us to remove the wording and replace it with alternate wording.

I'm thinking this is a primal right of each Citizen. In the real world, Investigative reporting on the government is a very need service to the public. In the Demogame, CCs are a citizen's right to keep the Government from extending it's authority over the guidelines granted to it by the Constitution. This should remain here.

 

[DaveShack]

When we changed this wording in DG4 there was a nice long discussion about it. Memory is the 2nd thing to go when you get old, and I can't quite remember what the original wording was nor why we changed it.

Spoiler what's the first thing to go when you get old? :

I can't remember