Constitution Draft: Discussion

[Cyc]

Looks good, DS. Can't wait to see the Judicial Branch.

I really like the way you concentrated on the Will of the People.

I've voiced my opinion on Term limits in the poll.

 

[Rik Meleet]

Good work, Dave.

I don't think it is smart to include a decision on term-limit in the constitution. At least not if this is to be the backbone of many future DG's.
The decision whether to limit terms is a poll-decision, so an opinion from a moment in time. It is not impossible that people's opinions change within a few weeks over this. That is unlike the other rules in the Constitution.
It's a bit in conflict with B2c in the sense that you'll then need to explicitely state when const B2c will and will not have priority over the "term-limit" article.
I am not sure how we even can get a forced "term-limit" law in place with this B2c. How can we get it, while keeping it out of the Const ?

 

[Alphawolf]

I don't think it is smart to include a decision on term-limit in the constitution. At least not if this is to be the backbone of many future DG's.
The decision whether to limit terms is a poll-decision, so an opinion from a moment in time. It is not impossible that people's opinions change within a few weeks over this. That is unlike the other rules in the Constitution.
It's a bit in conflict with B2c in the sense that you'll then need to explicitely state when const B2c will and will not have priority over the "term-limit" article.
I am not sure how we even can get a forced "term-limit" law in place with this B2c. How can we get it, while keeping it out of the Const ?

We aren't, the Constitution is done with when the Judicial Branch is finished. I put up the poll to get people's ideas on term limits for the Code of Laws.

-the Wolf

 

[DaveShack]

I am not sure how we even can get a forced "term-limit" law in place with this B2c. How can we get it, while keeping it out of the Const ?

B2c says each citizen has the right to be eligible for office, not the right to be eligible for a specific office.

 

[Black_Hole]

Make sure the term limit goes in the CoL if we have one... this is something that may need to be changed later on when participation goes down

 

[DaveShack]

Here is the draft for the Judiciary. This would complete the constitution draft once any public comments have been captured and show-stopper problems are fixed.

1. Judiciary
   1. The Judicial Branch will consist of the Chief Justice, Public Defender, and Judge Advocate.
   2. These three justices are tasked with upholding, clarifying and reviewing all changes to the Constitution and its supporting laws through Judicial Reviews, and upholding the rights of all citizens through Investigations.
   3. The Judiciary will carry out all its tasks in a fair, impartial, public and speedy manner.
   4. Justices are responsible for at least the following tasks.
      1. The Chief Justice shall have the additional responsibility to organize and conduct the affairs of the Judicial Branch.
      2. The Public Defender will act as council to an accused citizen, if the accused citizen wishes.
      3. The Judge Advocate will act as the prosecution.
   5. A lower form of law may specify judicial procedures and standards for the conduct of Judicial Reviews and Citizen Complaints. If the law does not define such procedures, then the responsibility for setting procedures is granted to the Judiciary, with the consent of the people.

 

[ravensfire]

DS,

Judiciary looks pretty good. The last sentance in 1.5 is going to cause problems. There's a strong implication that any procedures the CJ creates must be presented to the People for approval. That's simply too complicated. Require that they be approved by the Judiciary, and that any changes after approval be universally approved by the Judiciary.

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

DS,

Judiciary looks pretty good. The last sentance in 1.5 is going to cause problems. There's a strong implication that any procedures the CJ creates must be presented to the People for approval. That's simply too complicated. Require that they be approved by the Judiciary, and that any changes after approval be universally approved by the Judiciary.

-- Ravensfire

We have a reasonable track record with the judicial procedures, but what if we run into a case where the majority of the people strongly disagree with them? What if we get a 2/3 majority of the judiciary who want really draconian procedures, then we have to live through a month of that before it can be changed.

I'm open to alternative language which allows the people to toss out a judicial procedure if necessary. We would normally make the judicial branch immune to recall to avoid vendettas, but there does need to be a check and balance there somehow.

 

[ravensfire]

We have a reasonable track record with the judicial procedures, but what if we run into a case where the majority of the people strongly disagree with them? What if we get a 2/3 majority of the judiciary who want really draconian procedures, then we have to live through a month of that before it can be changed.

I'm open to alternative language which allows the people to toss out a judicial procedure if necessary. We would normally make the judicial branch immune to recall to avoid vendettas, but there does need to be a check and balance there somehow.

There are two main checks. First - they must follow the law. Second - the procedures support a judiciary that is fair, impartial, open and speedy.

If there's a procedure that is so abhorent to a majority of people, they can propose and pass a law that bans the procedure, or explicitly defines how something should work.

To be honest, if the people elect a Judiciary that wants draconian procedures - that's what they get. Procedures should be part of the Judiciary debate, especially if the candidate doesn't have a track record to look at.

We talking about procedures here. Keep it simple for those involved!

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

Excellent comments Donsig, thanks!

E2 needs rewording. It sounds like a citizen can't even look at the save to find out what's going on! The gist of this rule (I think) is to prohibit things like a citizen going back to an earlier save and playing *what if* by doing something different. All well and good. I just think the proposed wording
needs tweaking. Sorry I don't have time to make a suggestion as to how to change it.

Thanks, it's easier to see problems with statements like this if you're not the one who wrote it.

The intent of E2 is to prohibit utilities and other mechanisms of extracting information from the save which would provide information that is not visible inside the game. That is to say you can use the normal user interface to find out information, or you can use a utility which shows the same information which would be visible in the user interface. You can't use a save editor, or world builder, or any other technique which reveals information which is not intended to be visible to someone playing the game.

How about:

E.2. Obtaining information which would not be visible to someone playing the game, at the current point in time reflected by the current saved game or a previous saved game, by any mechanism, is prohibited. As noted in Section 1 of this Article, actions performed by an official, where performing the action is the only way to determine options, are permitted as long as the game is immediately closed following such investigation.
​

E4. Exploits?! Have we already found exploits for Civ IV? This is a tricky thing to include in the constitution. Personally I would not include it unless I could list the forbidden exploits. Perhaps this clause should be reworded to the effect that exploits deemed by future rules to be exploits are prohibited.

That's exactly what the rule currently says. If an exploit is found, and a lower form of law defines a mechanism for defining what exploits are disallowed, then said exploits may be disallowed. It has to be in the Constitution to allow the lower form of law to define what the exploits are, but the exploits can't be listed because they are not known, and we don't want to amend the constitution to make a newly found exploit illegal.

G1 and G2. I think it should take more than a majority to ratify the constitution and certainly should take more than a majority of those voting in a poll to amend it! It is also, IMHO, not a good idea at all to allow a lower rule to adress how the constitution should be changed. The process for amending the constitution should be spelled out in the constitution and once it it set that amending process has to be followed in order to change the amending process. By allowing a simple majority of those who voted in a 4 day poll or some lower rule (that could concievably be even easier to pass) to change the constitution would be like allowing the president of the US to pack the Supreme Court. Not a good idea at all.

There was a lot of feedback on G.1, most of which runs along the lines of whatever it takes to get the game started as soon as possible.

I'll point out that amendments do take more than a majority, and then take the 5th on further comments about G.2.

G.2.1 says a lower form of law may set a more stringent procedure for Constitution amendments, for example requiring 7 days debate, or a draft poll for 24 hours before a judicial review, etc. This lets the people adjust the pomp & circumstance to the balance of rule-mongers vs just play people.

Refering to the later post about the power of the people, I think it's a good idea in general. (Also, POP is a much better acronym than WOTP! ) The only problem I see is that section refers to binding polls. Just what distinguished a binding poll from a non-binding poll? We had debate back in the Civ III demogames and we found it a very sticky situation. Does one merely state in the poll that it's binding or non-binding? Use who posted the poll (elected official versus just plain citizen) as the criterion? Come up with a standard definition of a binding poll? The last option is the best we could come up with.

The idea of making a hierarchy for resolving conflicts is great but remember there can be conflicts within each item and not just betwen different items. For instance you can have two polls (make them both binding polls if you like) that conflict. It would be nice to have the resolution procedure to such a conflict spelled out as well.

The main point I'm trying to make here is that, like with the exploits in E4, if you're going to put a term like *binding poll* into the constitution then it should be defined in the constitution.

On binding vs non-binding, what I'm aiming for with a binding poll is the ability of an informed majority to make absolute decisions about game play. Majority is easy to define, but informed is not. I'm hoping to have a way to define the "informed" part in lower law so we can tweak it as necessary. With the opened by the officialcriteria for a binding poll, the people cannot directly require the official to listen to them. An official can merely ignore the request for a poll, and there is nothing the people can do short of a recall -- which is too late if the decision is for the current play session.

On the hierarchy for multiple decisions on the same topic, the last decision wins. This means no decision is ever permanent, the people can always change their mind with another decision on the same topic.

 

[DaveShack]

To get things moving without having to wait for the preamble, I will add the following to the amendments article.

1. Minor changes to the Constitution, such as correcting typographical and clerical errors, reorganization and reformatting for better readibility, and addition of text which does not impact legal definitions (such as a preamble) may be made at any time.
   • If 5 or more citizens object to a minor change within the 48 hour period commencing when the minor change is proposed, the change shall be considered an amendment and must undergo ratification as such.

Oh, BTW:
Last call for Comments!

I expect to post a ratification poll for the Constitution around 6PM MST today (0100 GMT).

 

[ravensfire]

A brief review looks good. I still have concerns about that one sentance on Judicial procedures. The implication is very strong that the procedures must be presented to the people via poll before acceptance. That's just not needed - it adds a needless level of polling. If you're going to leave that in, all other offices should have similar standards to govern how their offices function. (ex cash requests, build overrides, etc).

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

A brief review looks good. I still have concerns about that one sentance on Judicial procedures. The implication is very strong that the procedures must be presented to the people via poll before acceptance. That's just not needed - it adds a needless level of polling. If you're going to leave that in, all other offices should have similar standards to govern how their offices function. (ex cash requests, build overrides, etc).

-- Ravensfire

The people can already specify judicial procedures in law, so the additional check isn't needed. I'll take out the last clause.

Can't believe you didn't use this exact argument in the first comment. Losing a step?

 

[ravensfire]

Probably!

I'll give it a thorough look through tonight, but from everything I've seen, this is well done. Kudos to all that have worked on it!

-- Ravensfire

 

[Cyc]

DS,

Judiciary looks pretty good. The last sentance in 1.5 is going to cause problems. There's a strong implication that any procedures the CJ creates must be presented to the People for approval. That's simply too complicated. Require that they be approved by the Judiciary, and that any changes after approval be universally approved by the Judiciary.

-- Ravensfire

I agree with Ravensfire here. He is exactly right.

Don't tie the hands of the Justices with beaurocracy. The people don't need to rubber stamp the procedures the other Jurors have already approved. Many will not care, many will not understand. It's just additional redtape. Lose it.

EDIT: Never mind, I just finished reading this thread. Sorry.

 

[ravensfire]

DS - comments

B.1 - the poll on this said registration is required. Grrrr.

D.2 - add "This includes any Judicial polls concerning a citizen."

G.2 - you know my feeling about amending the Constitution. That's a fairly low standard you've got there - just 60%? Personally, Con is 50% of census, 60% majority. With no census, 75% majority.

Power to the People
1.1 replace "collective rights of the citizens" with "collective rights of all citizens"

Instead of Initiative, how about PetitionCitizens may petition a leader to initiate a poll or discussion on a relevant topic.

Judiciary
-- Looks good, with the change you mentioned

Revised sections
E.2 - looks good. Still a bit convoluted, but I couldn't think of a better way to say it!

Again, thanks to all who have contributed. Having done a few in the past, this is a hard, thankless job. Well, not totally thankless. It's a great start!

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

On required registration, I've got an edit somewhere on that.

The judicial polls being private needs to go in the judiciary section, I'll add it there.

60% was a middle ground number, between a simple majority and 2/3. It's even closer to 2/3 than 1/2. Hopefully it's a non-issue anyway since we're aiming for a Constitution which doesn't need to be amended.

The reason I used initiative was that the people don't need to ask a leader to do anything, they can post their own poll if the leader ignores the issue. Donsig had a similar comment (worded differently) about what "binding" means. The one thing I don't want to repeat is the concept that a poll can only be posted by a specific individual in order to be binding. What it does need to be is fair -- one thing I'd like to see is polling standards with actual teeth, that can invalidate a badly constructed poll. That's for the CoL to define though.

E2 is quite a quandry, and there are a couple of other sections with the same problem. We're making a forward reference to an unknown issue of not knowing exactly what to ban, but the concept of banning actions has to be there in order to allow the lower law to get specific.

Many thanks to all who have participated! Off to the word processor to pull it all together into a coherent whole.

 

[DaveShack]

Here is the final version, as edited to account for citizen comments. This is also posted in the Constitution working draft thread as a record of what was done in a more concise format.

Preamble

Some text to be inserted here, as determined by Nobody's preamble poll.

Article A - Forms of Law

1. Governing rules shall consist of this Constitution, such amendments that shall follow and lower forms of law that may be implemented.
2. No rule shall be valid that contradicts the Constitution.
   • Rules which are more specific on a given point may clarify more general points without being contradictory.
3. These rules may not contradict the rules and regulations of the Civfanatics Forums. Moderators may veto any such rules.

Article B - Citizens

1. A citizen is any member of the civFanatics forums that participates in the Democracy Game in any way. Citizens are encouraged, but not required, to post in the Citizen Registry.
   • A rule may use non-registration in the Citizen Registry as a criteria for an action to be invalid.
   • Before any action can be thus invalidated, the citizen(s) impacted by such a rule must be provided an opportunity to register, the time period of which must be no less than 48 hours after verifiable receipt by the citizen of notification that registration is required.
2. All citizens share the same fundamental rights, including but not limited to:
   • The Right to Assemble
   • The Right to Vote
   • The Right to be Eligible to hold Public Office
   • The Right to Free Speech
   • The Right to Free Movement
   • The Right to a Fair and Speedy Trial
   • The Right to Presumption of Innocense unless proven guilty
   • The Right of Representation
3. These rights may be limited by CivFanatics Center Forum Rules, which take precedence at all times.

Article C - Decision Making

1. Power of the People
   1. All decision making power within the Democracy Game is derived from the collective rights of all the citizens.
   2. The Power of the People can be delegated to officials of the game in one or more of the following ways, or in other ways which may subsequently be discovered.
      • By Mandate as evidenced in a citizen's selection to hold office via the elective process.
      • By Constituency as evidenced by citizen comments in favor of a decision, in a public discussion.
      • By Opinion Poll in the form of the results of a non-binding poll
      • By Referendum in the form of an official, binding poll which has force over the current decision only.
      • By Initiative in the form of a binding poll initiated by the citizenry, which has force over a current decision and future decisions of the same type
      • By Recall of an official and selection of a replacement via election or appointment
   3. In the event that two or more such delegations of the Power of the People are in conflict, the following hierarchy shall determine which decision has precedence.
      • An initiative has force of law and supercedes any other decision type (including an earlier initiative on the same subject) except another later initiative which repeals it.
      • Binding polls of any type have precedence over any other decision type.
      • Non-binding polls have precedence over non-polling decision types.
      • Citizen input has precedence over mandate.
      • If two or more polls or discussions occur on a matter, the last one to complete shall prevail.
      • Lower forms of law may modify parts of this hierarchy, except for the provision regarding initiative which may not be modified.
   4. A lower form of law may specify procedures and restrictions on implementing decision types, except
      • Initiative must always be allowed
      • No decision shall require more support than an amendment to the Constitution.

Article D - Elections

1. Terms of service of all elected and appointed offices shall be determined in advance of the beginning of such term, as further defined by law.
2. All Election and other polls in which specific individuals are chosen by name shall be private polls, and not public polls.
3. The candidate with the highest vote total is the winner of an election poll, regardless of whether such vote total is a majority of votes cast or not.
   • Should two or more candidates tie for the most votes, as many runoff elections shall be held as needed to resolve the election, as further defined by law.

Article E - Playing the Save

1. No person may play the save other than a Designated Player specifically tasked to do so, or an official who is required to attempt certain actions to get information about what is possible in the game.
   • If any action must be performed outside a scheduled play session, to obtain information about possible options, the game must then be immediately closed without saving, and without performing further actions.
2. Obtaining information which would not be visible to someone playing the game, at the current point in time reflected by the current saved game or a previous saved game, by any mechanism, is prohibited. As noted in Section 1.a of this Article, actions performed by an official, where performing the action is the only way to determine options, are permitted as long as the game is immediately closed following such investigation.
3. Inadvertent discovery of information shall not result in any penalty, provided no attempt is made to further disseminate the information or use it to advantage within the game.
4. Use of any exploits is prohibited. No person may manipulate the game in any way other than by normal play mechanisms, unless expressly permitted by law.
5. Lower forms of law are free to (and expected to) further define what actions are allowed and disallowed by this rule.

Article F - Judiciary

1. The Judicial Branch will consist of the Chief Justice, Public Defender, and Judge Advocate.
2. These three justices are tasked with upholding, clarifying and reviewing all changes to the Constitution and its supporting laws through Judicial Reviews, and upholding the rights of all citizens through Investigations.
3. The Judiciary will carry out all its tasks in a fair, impartial, public and speedy manner.
   • Any poll by the judiciary for which the primary subject is an individual or impacts upon an individual must be private.
4. Justices are responsible for at least the following tasks.
   • The Chief Justice shall have the additional responsibility to organize and conduct the affairs of the Judicial Branch.
   • The Public Defender will act as council to an accused citizen, if the accused citizen wishes.
   • The Judge Advocate will act as the prosecution.
5. A lower form of law may specify judicial procedures and standards for the conduct of Judicial Reviews and Citizen Complaints. If the law does not define such procedures, then the responsibility for setting procedures is granted to the Judiciary.

Article G - Ratification and Amendments

1. The Constitution shall be initially ratified by a majority (more yes votes than no votes) of votes cast in a public poll which shall be open for no fewer than 4 days.
2. The Constitution may be amended by a 60% majority of votes cast in a public poll which shall be open for no fewer than 4 days.
   • A lower form of law may specify a procedure which must be followed to amend the Constitution.
3. Minor changes to the Constitution, such as correcting typographical and clerical errors, reorganization and reformatting for better readibility, and addition of text which does not impact legal definitions (such as a preamble) may be made at any time.
   • If 5 or more citizens object to a minor change within the 48 hour period commencing when the minor change is proposed, the change shall be considered an amendment and must undergo ratification as such.

 

[tigerden27]

Article A - Forms of Law

1. Governing rules shall consist of this Constitution, such amendments that shall follow and lower forms of law that may be implemented.
2. No rule shall be valid that contradicts the Constitution.
   • Rules which are more specific on a given point may clarify more general points without being contradictory.
3. These rules may not contradict the rules and regulations of the Civfanatics Forums. Moderators may veto any such rules.

Are amendments considered part of the Constitution? I always assume this is the case. If not, then amendments really serve no purpose.

I think clarifying ...
No rule shall be valid that contradicts the Constitution.
to...
No lower form of law shall be valid that contradicts the Constitution.

Since by definition "the Constitution" can't contradict itself.

Does this make sense to anybody else?