Proposed constitution for DG2

[DaveShack]

Here's my proposal, based on the last constitution. I think the formatting may have gotten lost in the pasting. I've there are no major objections I'd like to poll this for ratification soon.

Here it is with some formatting.

Preamble

We, the sovereign citizens of [nation name], united by a common interest in our Civilization, guided by our desire for equality and justice, strengthened by our mutual respect, and reminded of our universal rights and responsibilities, do establish and promulgate this Constitution for our beloved nation.

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, law or standard shall be valid that contradicts the Constitution or 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. Membership in the user group specific to this democracy game is required in order for a citizen to vote.
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 Innocence 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. 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 Initiative in the form of a completed forum poll initiated by any citizen.
   • By Mandate in the form of game play instructions posted in the forum by a duly elected official with legal authority in the area covered by said instructions.
   • By Constituency in the form of citizen comments in favor of a decision, in a forum discussion.
   • By Designated Player Action in the form of actions made (and logged) during game play.
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.
   • Mandate supercedes any other decision type (including an earlier mandate on the same subject) except an initiative or another later initiative.
   • Constituency supercedes only designated player actions.
   • Designated Player Action does not supercede any other type of decision.
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.
   1. 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 and timely manner.
4. Any poll by the judiciary for which the primary subject is an individual or impacts upon an individual must be private.
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 two-thirds majority of votes cast in a poll which shall be open for no fewer than 4 days. A two-thirds majority is one where at least twice as many votes are cast for ratification as are cast against it.
2. The Constitution may be amended by a three-fifths majority of votes cast in a poll which shall be open for no fewer than 4 days. A three-fifths majority is one where at least one and a half as many votes are cast for an amendment as are cast against it.

 

[Chieftess]

Looks like a good place to start, donsig. Too bad I won't be able to vote to ratify it.

You can now!

(I thought Rik was checking on it half the time. )

 

[DaveShack]

Except now we're in the new forum and that was for the old one.

Everyone needs to re-register -- time to try out that shiny new "announce" button.

 

[Bertie]

Donsig, very good Constitution. Some thoughts that are somewhat off-the-cuff (in other words, I reserve the right to change my mind; please persuade me to do so):

Article B-3 is redundant (this concept is covered in the last sentence of Article A-2)

All of Article C is a little confused. Specifically, it hurts my lips to read C-2 & C-3. Could any of this be in a “lower form of law” AKA Code of Laws? Alternatively, why don’t we just make every citizen a member of the Senate and make all elected officials report to the Senate? This would clarify the point that the “Will of the People” is Supreme and might be a more workable solution all around.

Or maybe not. Anyway, I think we should be a Direct Democracy (which doesn’t preclude elected offices) and this might solve this problem. Or again, maybe not.

E-4 is unclear. What’s an “exploit?” Is cottage spam an exploit? I’d remove this clause (and I think E-5 is redundant).

Article F – I’d remove this entirely. Part of the Build as you Go exercise is, I thought, to allow events to motivate the creation of law. I know your experience in previous DemoGames has alerted you to some of the legal pitfalls that face us if we proceed fecklessly without a proper, detailed Constitution; but I suspect an awful lot of people who will play this game haven’t yet faced first-hand the horrors of an imprecise and incomplete Judiciary. Don’t spoil our fun. Let us screw up and discover what sort of Judiciary we need.

 

[DaveShack]

On E.4, here is the exploit list from GOTM. Seems like a good starting point to me.

 

[Octavian X]

Article F – I’d remove this entirely. Part of the Build as you Go exercise is, I thought, to allow events to motivate the creation of law. I know your experience in previous DemoGames has alerted you to some of the legal pitfalls that face us if we proceed fecklessly without a proper, detailed Constitution; but I suspect an awful lot of people who will play this game haven’t yet faced first-hand the horrors of an imprecise and incomplete Judiciary. Don’t spoil our fun. Let us screw up and discover what sort of Judiciary we need.

I'll second that. A clean slate, especially for our most controversial branch of government, would be an excellent way to go.

 

[Cyc]

The purpose of the build as you go exercise was to allow events to motivate the creation of Offices or Official positions, not our laws. It would be the laws that guide us in the creation of these new positions.

Oct, I believe removing the Judicial Branch from the Constitution would do more than give us a clean slate, whatever that means, it would remove an essential part of the game. We need the Judiciary for checks and balances. (just call it the Judicial bank )

 

[DaveShack]

Just consider what the alternative might be if we didn't have a Judiciary and there were a lot of conflicts.

Then again it could be a good thing, there are a few more shiny buttons on the forum that I haven't had a chance to press yet.

 

[ice2k4]

The purpose of the build as you go exercise was to allow events to motivate the creation of Offices or Official positions, not our laws. It would be the laws that guide us in the creation of these new positions.

Oct, I believe removing the Judicial Branch from the Constitution would do more than give us a clean slate, whatever that means, it would remove an essential part of the game. We need the Judiciary for checks and balances. (just call it the Judicial bank )

Also as crazy as it may seem, some people actually enjoy the judicial part of the demogame.

Also, I see the general consensus is to use the build as you go rules, but we haven't officially polled it or even used a mock poll just to be sure.

 

[dutchfire]

Oct, I believe removing the Judicial Branch from the Constitution would do more than give us a clean slate, whatever that means, it would remove an essential part of the game. We need the Judiciary for checks and balances. (just call it the Judicial bank )

It wouldn't remove it, it would just put it in the easily changable "Code of Laws", and they would be created after the game starts, just like the other officials in the "build as you go exercise"

 

[Cyc]

It wouldn't remove it, it would just put it in the easily changable "Code of Laws", and they would be created after the game starts, just like the other officials in the "build as you go exercise"

You may be right dutchfire. But in that case we would probably have to remove Paragraph E.1 also. I mean the DP and other officials would of course be included in the easily changable "Code of Laws".

 

[Octavian X]

The goal of the build-as-you-go system, at least as I understand it, is to encourage innovation. Why not subject the judiciary to this process? The current setup has been in place forever (that one time where we moved to the three-justice system w/o JA or PD excepted)! We should let ourselves (and our new citizens) think outside the judicial box, so that we can find a better solution.

At the very least, we should drop Article F.1, so the structure of the court can be adjusted easily.

 

[Bertie]

The purpose of the build as you go exercise was to allow events to motivate the creation of Offices or Official positions, not our laws. It would be the laws that guide us in the creation of these new positions.

Actually, isn’t the build as you go system both to facilitate the creation of offices and the writing of many of our laws? The Constitution establishes the basic principles that will guide us as we do both of these, but it isn’t meant to be the complete and only set of laws (see section A-2).

I am not at all advocating that we do away with the Judiciary. Rather, I agree with dutchfire that the definitions and duties of all offices should appear in the same place – the Code of Laws.

Alternatively, because we know we’re going to end up creating the offices of President, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Domestic Affairs, Minister of Defense, and Minster of Justice (or Chief Justice), we could write these offices into the Constitution but not their descriptions. During the first term we’d expect those officials to take the lead in developing the scope and duties of their respective offices (of course with the advice and consent of the citizens). Both officials and citizens would work to identify and define additional offices that might be needed. For example, the President might push for a Designated Player pool; the Chief Justice for additional justices; the Minister of Domestic Affairs might request governors; and so on.

In fact candidates for the first term might campaign in part on what sort of vision they have for their office. For example, ravensfire IN THIS POST puts forth a pretty interesting case for the sort of judiciary he’d like to see. I’d nominate him for Chief Justice to hear more about this; and I’d like to see him run against a proponent of the more traditional judiciary we’ve had in the DG so we could get a good, detailed discussion of the pros and cons of each system.

 

[donsig]

I am not at all advocating that we do away with the Judiciary. Rather, I agree with dutchfire that the definitions and duties of all offices should appear in the same place – the Code of Laws.

I have nothing against removing the judiciary from the constitution though I would advise against it. Someone will have to try to resolve conflicts between polls, officials, citizens, etc. I think it's much better to have a body anchored in the constitution (and thus on a more solid foundation) than whatever is created using the build as we go approach. I would also caution everyone that build as we go rules does not necessarily mean we'll have a Code of Laws. (I certainly hope we can avoid such a monstrosity.) We will most likely wind up with a series of initiatives, the bookkeeping of which will be interesting to see.

 

[DaveShack]

Would it make sense to poll the contested articles separately, and the uncontested ones as a unit? That might be as few as 2 polls, one for the Judiciary and one for the rest. If we do it this way and there are no significant objections, we can get started on ratifications.

 

[Cyc]

Actually, isn’t the build as you go system both to facilitate the creation of offices and the writing of many of our laws? The Constitution establishes the basic principles that will guide us as we do both of these, but it isn’t meant to be the complete and only set of laws (see section A-2).

No, actually Bertie, if you read the first post in the "Build As You Go" thread, it states that the purpose of the concept is to create needed and timely Offices. You made the second post in that thread, so I'm sure you read the first one. You did bring up a prior post made by you stating that although you probably wouldn't participate in this game, you did want to suggest how we should handle our Constitution.

I am not at all advocating that we do away with the Judiciary. Rather, I agree with dutchfire that the definitions and duties of all offices should appear in the same place – the Code of Laws.

Alternatively, because we know we’re going to end up creating the offices of President, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Domestic Affairs, Minister of Defense, and Minster of Justice (or Chief Justice), we could write these offices into the Constitution but not their descriptions. During the first term we’d expect those officials to take the lead in developing the scope and duties of their respective offices (of course with the advice and consent of the citizens). Both officials and citizens would work to identify and define additional offices that might be needed. For example, the President might push for a Designated Player pool; the Chief Justice for additional justices; the Minister of Domestic Affairs might request governors; and so on.

Well, this is a nice idea, but... You want to state in the Constitution how the game is played and progresses. Unfortuntely, you'll have a hard time doing this without some sort of job description for the President or DP or both. You would have to put something in stating the process an individual (Official) would take to advance the game. This would be called, for lack of a better term, a job definition or description. So there goes listing Officials with no description.

In fact candidates for the first term might campaign in part on what sort of vision they have for their office. For example, ravensfire IN THIS POST puts forth a pretty interesting case for the sort of judiciary he’d like to see. I’d nominate him for Chief Justice to hear more about this; and I’d like to see him run against a proponent of the more traditional judiciary we’ve had in the DG so we could get a good, detailed discussion of the pros and cons of each system.

Yes that was a good post by Ravensfire, and I have voted for RF many times. But his post stated everything that a three person Judiciary does already. In fact, he states that the CJ would go to other individuals for advice and counsel (uh, gee. Like many 2 other Justices?) There is nothing new in that post. Except for the fact that he wants to corral the power divided among three persons and gift it to one individual.

 

[donsig]

Would it make sense to poll the contested articles separately, and the uncontested ones as a unit? That might be as few as 2 polls, one for the Judiciary and one for the rest. If we do it this way and there are no significant objections, we can get started on ratifications.

I don't think we should do that. Build as you go is fine for the rest of things but not for the constitution. It is designed as a unit and we should not try adopting it piecemeal.

I don't think there is much that's contested anyway. The redundancies can stay since they serve to strengthen what is said in the document. The judiciary seems to be the only questionable part. If someone were to make a proposal very similar to mine without a judiciary then I would vote for it. My proposal remain my proposal - with a constitutionally based judiciary. Rather than muck around why don't we just poll my proposal for ratification? It requires a two-thirds majority for ratification. (which I'd be happy to change back to my original proposal of three-fourths). Those who don't want a judiciary can simply vote no and we can then try another proposal.

 

[dutchfire]

We could just take the judiciary article out, and put it in the first draft of a code of laws, and have the mock polls simultaniously.

 

[DaveShack]

If someone were to make a proposal very similar to mine without a judiciary then I would vote for it.

That's a very good attitude, thanks.

My proposal remain my proposal - with a constitutionally based judiciary. Rather than muck around why don't we just poll my proposal for ratification? It requires a two-thirds majority for ratification. (which I'd be happy to change back to my original proposal of three-fourths). Those who don't want a judiciary can simply vote no and we can then try another proposal.

I'd say your proposal so you get the honor of polling it. How long do you plan to make it? IMO more than a week would probably be a mistake, but it's your poll. I would like to have an announcement so that all potential citizens can arrive in time to vote.

 

[DaveShack]

We could just take the judiciary article out, and put it in the first draft of a code of laws, and have the mock polls simultaniously.

Except we don't have a CoL draft right now, do we?