Citizens Initiative - Democratic Republic of Yasutan Act

[Hyronymus]

We are well under way in this game and yet we cling to our Tribal Government Act of 4000 BC. With the promising onset of Democracy and the construction of a statue to celebrate it I propose to modernise our government.

Democratic Republic of Yasutan Act

Section I - The governmental structure
The Democratic Republic of Yasutan is run by the government, existing of:

• The Cabinet
  • The President
  • The Minister of Defense
  • The Minister of Foreign Affairs
  • The Minister of Internal Affairs
  • The Minister of Education
• The Council of Aimags
• The Judiciary

The Cabinet
The President of the Democratic Republic of Yasutan is the supreme leader of Yasutan. He has the duty to appoint a Vice-President from the pool of Ministers. He holds the final responsibility for decisions made by the government that affect the state of the nation. The President is also responsible for overseeing Elections and the Designated Player pool.
If a Vice-President is called upon the task of leading the Democratic Republic of Yasutan instead of the President, for whatever reason, all Presidential responsibilities shift to the Vice-President. The President is free to lead the nation as he sees fit but he must obey and maintain the Constitution and laws at any time.

The Ministers of the Democratic Republic of Yasutan hold Office in a Ministery. The Ministers are free to run their Ministery as they see fit as long as they obey and maintain the Constitution and laws of the Democratic Republic of Yasutan.

The Council of Aimags
The Council of Aimags comprises of the governors or their deputies from all the Aimags in the Democratic Republic of Yasutan. The Governors hold Office in a tent and may choose their policy freely. They too however are bound by the Constitution and laws of the Democratic Republic of Yasutan.

The Judiciary
The Judiciary is formed by the Chief Justice, the Judge Advocate and the Public Defender. The Judiciary can be called upon by any citizen or member of the Government. The Judiciary has the permission to investigate the legallity of Governmental procedures and polls. The Judiciary's ruling can also lead to an amendment of the Constitution.

Please read The Election Act of 4000 BC on how the members of the Cabinet, the Council of Aimags and the Judiciary are elected.


Section II - Vacancies
A position in the Cabinet or Council of Aimags is vacant when one (or more) of the following conditions is (are) met:

• No citizen was elected to the office at the conclusion of the election cycle
• The (Vice-)President, Minister or Governor resigns for whatever reason
• The (Vice-)President, Minister or Governor is absent from the game for more than 7 days without an explanation
• A Ministery or Aimag is created in the middle of a term

Governmental vacancies are filled by the President appointing a citizen to the vacant position. If there is a designated deputy for a Ministery or Aimag that citizen must be offered the vacancy first.
The procedure is different in case of a presidential vacancy. The Vice-President automatically takes over the position of the President for the remaining part of the term in which the vacancy arises. The new President may leave his ministerial duties to another citizen but is not forced to do so. A new Vice President must however be elected from the (remaining) pool of Ministers.


Section III - Impeachment
Any member of the Government, including the President, can be impeached as the result of legal actions. To start an impeachment procedure, any citizen may post a thread in the citizen forum announcing the citizen's intention to start impeachment procedures against a member of the Government. If two more citizens support the intention to start an impeachment procedure, a poll is posted to enable all citizens of the Democratic Republic of Yasutan to vote. This poll is private, single-choice, set to expire in 4 days and should contain three poll options:

• Yes
• No
• Abstain

If at least 60% of the votes are in favour of the impeachment procedure the impeachment is succesful. The citizen who posted the intention to start the impeachment procedure immediately replaces the impeached member of the Governemnt. If more than one member of the Government is targeted, the citizen may choose which position to take. The impeached citizen(s) may not be reappointed to any Govermental position for 7 days.
If the impeachment prodecure fails, the citizen starting the impeachment procedure is removed from any elected Governmental position held by that citizen and may not be appointed to any Governmental position for 7 days. This citizen may not start another impeachment procedure for the remainder of the current term either.


Section IV - Confirmation polls
Any appointment may be challenged by a confirmation poll. If a confirmation poll does not already exist for an appointment, any citizen may create such a poll. This poll must be created within 48 hours of the appointment, private, single-choice and expire in 2 days. The poll question must ask:
"Do you approve of <description of appointment>"
The poll should contain three options:

• Yes
• No
• Abstain

When the poll closes, if the majority of citizens, not including abstain, voted No, the appointment is overturned. Any other result confirms the appointment.

 

[Joe Harker]

He holds the final responsibility for decisions made by the government that affect the state of the nation.

I think any change to the government should include something like this

The Minister of Education

What would he/she do?

Don't have much time, but it sounds good!

 

[Provolution]

Fits our civics, like the idea, I will look into it later. Good work Hyro.

 

[Hyronymus]

What would he/she do?

Don't have much time, but it sounds good!

Thanks and the Minister of Education is just the Head Scientist .

 

[Provolution]

I would make 5 Aimags out of this, so we get a special number in case of ties between governors. We will also have more than enough cities for these 5 provinces. I suggest the following:

Heartland Aimag (where we started)
French Aimag (French cities we took)
German Aimag (German cities we took)
Roman Aimag (Roman cities we took)
East Coast (The Aimag we took by force and built on German ruins).

 

[Hyronymus]

It certainly makes sense too review the current aimags. Your division makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[grant2004]

I like the proposal, it's time that we modernized the language of our government, however I worry that you've added too many new offices, do we really have enough citizens to fill these positions? Perhaps the minister positions should be filled by those elected to governorships.

I'd also like to see language in this act more clearly defining the roles of the various ministers.

 

[Hyronymus]

I only added 2 new offices: the Ministery of Foreign Affairs and the Ministery of Internal Affairs. I can live with dropping the latter and let the President deal with internal affairs. The Ministery of Foreign Affairs is a must though, up to now we never kept track of the public opinion of our enemies towards us and other enemies.

 

[Provolution]

This is also about bringing up interest for the game by "creating jobs". Casual players would like to have a small area of influence to manage. I have seen this many time, both in my work, in forum games and education. If you make people something interesting and prominent, they come back to you. Collectivize them, they take you for granted and demand collective rights.

You can see this as a way of smiting tribal collectivism and replacing it with order and organization as a result of civics changes and general modernization.

 

[Provolution]

I only added 2 new offices: the Ministery of Foreign Affairs and the Ministery of Internal Affairs. I can live with dropping the latter and let the President deal with internal affairs. The Ministery of Foreign Affairs is a must though, up to now we never kept track of the public opinion of our enemies towards us and other enemies.

I think we could make these positions deputies to governors and the other way around, so that each Aimag get a governor and a minister, with the President from the Heartland Aimag (always), making the Heartland Aimag governor the VP.

 

[DaveShack]

Would all positions still be elected?

We have too few people as it is, adding 3 offices (with 5 aimags) would exceed the current candidate pool.

He holds the final responsibility for decisions made by the government that affect the state of the nation.

The citizens always hold the final power.

Is this meant to say the President can overrule decisions by the ministers?

Does "the government" include the Aimags, or not? That has always been a point of contention in the past.

 

[Provolution]

For example, the minister of defense could be "deputy" to the governor of the Aimag with the military city of coppertown. The Minister of Education could be the deputy of the Governor in the province with the most academies, universities and so on. The Minister of Foreign Affairs could be the Deputy in the Province closest to a foreign Civ and the Minister of Interior could be deputy in the aimag with the least of the other features, possibly the East Coast building new infrastructure.

The idea is to produce more research and instructions, and at the same time maintain citizens rights and have a robust chain of command that handles RL issues, broken computers, bad days and so on.

 

[xr006]

I think only the President should should be impeachable. Otherwise Section IV (advise and consent) is not needed.

 

[xr006]

..........

 

[Nobody]

i read it and some things i would change but i like the overall feel, being picky will just mean more time with our current goverment, i will vote for this law as you have written it.

 

[Hyronymus]

I think only the President should should be impeachable. Otherwise Section IV (advise and consent) is not needed.

I disagree, the impeachment procedure is, simpy put, the same as the coup procedure - only the name is different. I believe that every citizen should have the right to impeach every official because of malpractises.

Would all positions still be elected?

We have too few people as it is, adding 3 offices (with 5 aimags) would exceed the current candidate pool.


The citizens always hold the final power.

Is this meant to say the President can overrule decisions by the ministers?

Does "the government" include the Aimags, or not? That has always been a point of contention in the past.

I believe all your questions are answered in the initiative, DaveShack accept for the "President's power". I indeed thought of it as a way to overrule the ministers but on second thought that might cause too much trouble.

 

[Provolution]

I have a few ideas on this, but starting out with 5 aimags and 5 ministers including President would be a start. People would reapproach the government with the tribal junk out of the window. I may agree Tribal may have worked great for the ancient era, but now we are in the late medieval one.

Ideally, a demogame would change/adapt constitution and civics for every era we changed through, one for ancient, classic, medieval, renaissance, industrial and modern.

 

[DaveShack]

If all that changes is the name of the offices, you're overly optimistic about this enticing more people to participate. We can't even get people to do the existing jobs, much less add 3 more positions.

We need a month or two just playing the game by the existing rules, respecting the people who are here.

I'm not being negative here, just realistic. The same thing has happened about 6 times before.

 

[Provolution]

Of course, this is not perfect, but it is a major improvement to the existing system. I see the advantage of allowing citizens to step in and do the job, as some officials are simply too lazy to be worth the position.

I also think that two of the ministries can be combined with 2 governor functions, until we improve in number.

 

[xr006]

I like the idea of Heartland Aimag governor taking over for the President if the President steps down or is absent.

I think Foreign Affairs can be handled by the President. Internal affairs can be handled by the governor of Heartland Aimag.

edit: I am not against this as it stands I'm just throwing around ideas.