I for one am against the military addition, our lack of a organized military has been what has kept us our of the Bullshit that happens to our brethren in this game,
and it would of course make us into the next villians,
I think you’re heading in the right direction FPS. I’m fairly busy this week but I’m glad to see the progress.
Infinite Loop wrote:I for one am against the military addition, our lack of a organized military has been what has kept us our of the Bullshit that happens to our brethren in this game,
and it would of course make us into the next villians,
I’m with you, but what about an EPDI like civil force? More of a police force then a military group…sort of like the militias that towns used to have, back in the day.
that is more agreeable but we would have to keep it smallish.
Infinite Loop wrote:that is more agreeable but we would have to keep it smallish.
At this point, I’m pretty sure it’d just be Pack…
As other circumstances have demonstrated, I think that the defense of the region would likely involve a variety of regions. Maintaing the connections that are required for this and making sure trusted nations know what to do in case of an invasion could really take care of our needs it seems.
Whistles
:ph43r:
Er…Wachovia, could you be a bit more specific? What other regions would be involved in our defense? And…um…why would other regions be in on our defense, anyway? Just out of curiosity, before I either support you, or start flaming you (jk, of course).
when the Ep was in threat of invasion from the ADN about three months ago,
we had about twenty regions offering aid two of which were regions controlled by Moderators.
Nice. So we could just make ourselves a coalition of the willing? But we’d have to remember Poland…
Although I know we already have a constitution in the making, I was quite bored, and decided to write up my own…heh. Anyways, this is what I envision in a constitution for our region, and I have incorporated into everything we have discussed and agreed on, including the delegational veto. Please, keep the criticism constructional. Note also that much of this is taken from Codex’s copy, so I especially thank him, as he has done much for this draft.
The Constitution of the East Pacific
Preamble: We the people of the East Pacific, in effort to ensure the freedom of ourselves, our comrades, and our constitutients; in an effort to provide order to the people; in desire to provide fair laws to protect the residents of this region; do hereby gather to establish this constitution.
Chapter One: Decleration of Civil Rights and Freedoms
1.0The government of the East Pacific shall take no action to limit or remove the rights of any citizen of the East Pacific.
Citizens
1.1: This constitution does hereby classify any person living in the East Pacific, or any other area under the control of the East Pacific, that has ratified this charter, as a citizen, no matter their age, sex, or race.
1.1.1: This constitution does hereby guarentee the following rights to any person classified as a citizen.
1.1.1.1: Citizens shall have the right to total free speech in all territories and areas under the control of the government of the East Pacific, no matter their message or belief, without undue prosecution by state.
1.1.1.1.1: Citizens shall have the right to establish any news service, or publish any news stories, in any way they see fit, without undue persecution or prosecution by the government.
1.1.1.2: Citizens shall have the right to practice any religion they see fit, without persecution, or undue prosecution by the state.
1.1.1.3: Citizens shall have the right to enter and exit the East Pacific as they see fit, so long as they have not broken any law in doing so.
1.1.1.4: Citizens shall have the right to a fair trial, no matter their crime, punishment, or guilt.
1.1.1.5: Citizens shall have the right to appeal the decision reached during a fair trial, no matter their crime, punishment, or guilt.
1.1.1.6: Citizens shall have the right to vote, or run, for elected positions within the East pacific.
1.1.1.6.1: Citizens shall have the right to cast a vote for, or run for, the position of General Secretary.
1.1.1.6.2: Citizens shall have the right to cast a vote for, or run for, the position of Supreme Court Justice.
1.1.1.6.3: Citizens shall have the right to cast a vote for, or run for, the position of Cheif Supreme Court Justice.
1.1.1.6.4: Citizens shall have the right to cast a vote for, or run for, the position of Grand Assembly Representative.
1.1.1.7: Citizens shall have the right to remain in the East Pacific for as long as they see fit, unless they have been found guilty of a charge appropriate for exile.
1.1.1.8: Citizens shall have the right to vote on the position of the delegate on United Nations matters.
1.1.1.9: Citizens shall have the right to vote on amendments to this document.
Chapter Two: Government
2.0: The Government of the East Pacific shall be divided into three departments: Judicial, Legislative, and Executive.
Executive
2.1.0: This constitution grants supreme authority in the office of the delegate, so long as this authority does not disqualify another portion of this constitution.
2.1.1: This constitution grants the office of the delegate sole executor of this document, and of any ammendments or other laws he is thereby charged with.
2.1.2: The Delegate shall act as the representative for the region to the United Nations.
2.1.2.1: Such power as is granted to the delegate as representative to the United Nations shall be used to further the interests of the nations of the East Pacific; he does agree to abide by the will of the nations in this matter, as shall be expressed by popular vote of the ratified nations of the East Pacific.
2.1.3: The delegate shall appoint advisors as he sees fit, and may designate to them any such powers as are granted to him under this charter.
2.1.3.1: The delegate shall appoint a Praetor of Defense, who will be charged with the defense of the region from foreign, and domestic attack.
2.1.3.2: The delegate shall appoint an Intelligence Director, who will be charged with keeping the delegate informed of incidents both foreign and domestic.
2.1.3.3: The delegate shall appoint a Senior Regional Attorney, who will be charged with the prosecution of criminals, and the appointment of other attorneys to help out with prosecution.
2.1.4: The delegate shall be elected by popular vote of the people of the East Pacific.
2.1.4.1: The delegate shall, after election, continue to serve in the position of delegate until which time as his life ends or until which time as he resigns.
2.1.5: This constitution hereby invests administrative authority in the office of the General Secretary.*1
2.1.5.1: The General Secretary shall be charged with the administration of all elections.
2.1.5.2: The General Secretary shall be charged with the administration of the government whilst the delegate is unavailabe to do so.
2.1.5.3: The General Secretary shall be charged with keeping records of all past, present, and planned activities, positions, and personell.
2.1.6.: The General Secretary shall be elected via a popular vote by the citizens of the East Pacific.
2.1.6.1: This election shall be administered by the delegate.
2.1.6.2: Another election for this position shall take place once every three months.
2.1.7: The General Secretary shall, in the case of the untimely death of the delegate, take over as the delegate, until which time as a popular vote for a new delegate can be taken.
2.1.7.1: In the case of this event, the General Secretary shall be granted full powers of the delegate, excepting clause 2.1.5.1.
2.1.8: The General Secretary shall remain in his office for his three month term excepting the case of his resignation, deposement, or impeachment.
2.1.9: In the case of the untimely death, resignation, or impeachment of the General Secretary, the Lord of the Assembly shall serve out the rest of his term.
Legislative
2.2.0: This charter does hereby vest legislative authority with the Grand Assembly, and does charge them with the preservation and maintenance of this constitution, and with the establishment of any laws necessary for its enforcement and as may be required for the well being of the region.
2.2.1: The Grand Assembly shall be made up of Reprsentatives, who will be accepted into the Assembly by way of popular vote of the citizens.
2.2.1.1: Representatives shall be charged with drafting and voting on legislature which shall in some way benefit the region, or preserve this document, as stated in 2.2.0.
2.2.1.2: Representatives shall be charged with representing their constituents to the best of their ability.
2.2.2: Representatives may be removed from the Grand Assembly if 2/3 of the Grand Assembly agree to impeach him or her.
2.2.3: The Assembly shall make laws by the popular vote of the Representatives. 2.2.3.1: All laws must subsequently be approved by the delegate, who shall maintain power of veto.
2.2.4: The Assembly is charged to make no law contrary to the word or will of this constitution, such as shall be interpreted by the judicial branch.
2.2.5: Being aware of the possibility of change, this constitution does empower the Assembly to make amendments to the constitution itself; such amendments must pass by a margin of 80% of the active members of the Assembly. Such amendments must be further approved by the delegate, and finally by popular vote of all citizens.
2.2.6: The Grand Assembly shall appoint, by way of a popular vote of the Representatives, a Speaker of the Assembly.
2.2.6.1: The Speaker of the Assembly will be charged with presenting Laws and Amendments to the Delegate.
2.2.6.2: The Speaker of the Assembly shall be charged with presenting Amendments to the public at large for approval, with the General Secretary administrating the popular vote.
2.2.6.3: The Speaker of the Assembly shall be charged with representing the Grand Assembly to the Supreme Court.
2.2.6.4: The Speaker of the Assembly shall be charged with representing the Grand Assembly to the people.
2.2.6.5: The Speaker of the Assembly shall remain in power until the time of his death, resignment, or impeachment by 2/3 of the Grand Assembly.
2.2.7: The Grand Assembly shall appoint, by way of a popular vote of the Representatives, a Senator of the Assembly.
2.2.7.1: The Senator shall be charged with assisting the Speaker of the Assembly with his duties, in whatever way the Speaker sees fit.
2.2.7.2: The Senator shall be charged with replacing the Speaker of the Assembly in the case of his impeachment, resignation, untimely death, or requirement to take over as General Secretary.
2.2.7.3: The Senator shall remain in his position until the time of his death, resignation, or impeachment by 2/3 of the assembly.
2.2.7.4: In the case of his impeachment, the senator will remain a representative, and a new senator elected by way of popular vote.
Judicial
2.3.0: This charter does hereby appoint as Judicial Branch a Supreme Court, and does charge them as sole interpreters of this charter, and of any subsequent laws passed by the legislative branch
2.3.1: The Supreme Court is empowered to make rulings on the actions of the delegate as executor of this charter, and to support them or declare them void, in which case they may instruct the delegate to repeal such actions.
2.3.2: The Supreme Court is empowered, at the request of the Speaker of the Assembly, or at the request of a member removed temporarily by the Speaker, or at their own choosing, to pass judgement on the actions of a member of the Assembly, and if necessary to order their indefinite removal from the Assembly and any further punishments as the High Court shall deem expedient.
2.3.3: The Supreme Court shall further make rulings on the actions of any nation within the East Pacific, and if judging them to be in contravention to this charter or the laws of the East Pacific, may order such punishment as they deem necessary.
2.3.4: Trials in the Supreme shall be held in open session, and the proceedings shall be visible to all ratified members of the East Pacific.
2.3.5: The Supreme Court shall be privy to any and all knowledge as is required by them to correctly interpret this charter and subsequent laws, which shall be provided to them by the delegate and by the Assembly at their request.
2.3.6: The delegate or Speaker of the Assembly may, in the interests of regional security, request to the presiding judge that a closed session by held, whereby the judge may permit that the session or certain parts of it be held in private.
2.3.7: The Supreme Court shall be composed of citizens, and that are not members of the Grand Assembly. They shall be elected by popular vote of the people, and will continue in their position until the time of their death.
2.3.8: The number of nations on the High Court must always be odd, and shall never exceed seven. In the event of incapacitation of a member of the Supreme Court, the delegate is charged to appoint a replacement with all due haste, until which time as the General Secretary may begin an election.
2.3.9: The Supreme Court shall be administered by a Cheif Justice, who will be a regular justice appointed by the delegate.
2.3.10: Any decision made by a single judge in a regular trial may be appealed. At this time, a new trial, involving the entirety of the Supreme Court, shall be held.
Chapter 3: Adoption of this Charter
3.0.0: This charter shall be considered adopted upon approval by the delegate, and by popular vote of the incumbent senate, and by popular vote of the nations of the East Pacific.
3.0.1: Having passed popular vote of the nations, the Senate may decide when it is expedient that this charter comes into effect. At this time, the Conferational Constitution will cease to hold power.
3.1.0: Upon adoption by the region, each individual may at their own discretion ratify the charter by formal declaration within the East Pacific Forum, at which time they shall be deemed citizens, and shall be subject to the rights and privileges ascribed to such by this charter.
3.2.0: This charter may be voided by a popular vote of the people, a vote of the senate, approval of the delegate, and approval of the Supreme Court.
Ratifications:
The Socialist Federation of Free Pacific States
*1: This includes EP Site Admin status.
Well, thats all I could think of, and thereby, that is the constitution. Of course, we’ll need a legal code, a trial code, an EPIA Charter, and oaths for all the positions there, but besides that…well, assuming you all like it, were set. For the time being thoguh, I g2g…wow…I can’t beleive I spent two hours of my saturday typing that…talking about a loser…
OK, will read this through in more detail later. A couple of initial points, however:
FPS wrote:2.2.7: The Grand Assembly shall appoint, by way of a popular vote of the Representatives, a Senator of the Assembly.
2.2.7.1: The Senator shall be charged with assisting the Speaker of the Assembly with his duties, in whatever way the Speaker sees fit.
2.2.7.2: The Senator shall be charged with replacing the Speaker of the Assembly in the case of his impeachment, resignation, untimely death, or requirement to take over as General Secretary.
2.2.7.3: The Senator shall remain in his position until the time of his death, resignation, or impeachment by 2/3 of the assembly.
2.2.7.4: In the case of his impeachment, the senator will remain a representative, and a new senator elected by way of popular vote.
This entire section, and the position, seems somewhat pointless. The entire ‘Citizens’ section likewise, and would also misinterpret the nature of the body that this document (Whatever you want to call it) is establishing. OOC, there is no such entity as a ‘citizen’. IC, this is not a nation we’re establishing. Its nearest RL equivalent would be, in my opinion, the EU. Citizens in the EU do not have the right to vote for EU motions. They can elect MEPs, but all real administration is done at the governmental level.
Emphasis on popular vote is, in my opinion, too much. Popular vote should be used to elect officials and nothing else. I’m certainly against the investiture of Judges by popular vote. There is no merit at all in having people vote for judges.
Will comment further later. Need to do some work
First off, in retrospect, I see that the use for a senator is…quite unexistant. I’d mainly been creating the position in order to allow for someone else in the Senate to feel special.
Secondly, as for elected vs. appointed judges…since the judges will be in for life, I doubt that they’ll be politically motivated to take actions by the voters consent…through this, I was simply trying to give the people more control over the judicial department, but of course, delegational appointment would be alright.
Thirdly…I’m totally lost on whether or not this is an IC or OOC thing. I’d assumed OOC, hence my designation of people as people, not nations, in the begining. By the end, I’d started to think that it might be more IC, so I put in the part about national ratifications…all I can say here is that it needs to be edited, and that we need to discuss what type of treaty this is…IC, OOC, or a trying for combination…which I hope not, since I’ll probably never understand it in that case.
Any other comments/criticisms? I wrote this to get talking started again, and I don’t care if its just “The entire thing sucks, lets rewrite”…so long as its something .
Oh, and finally, I know I shouldn’t have specified what offices the delegate shall make…I was using those positions more as examples then an actual part of the constitution, and had been planning on removing them anyway b4 final draft. I simply didn’t see any other way to stick an example in there, without another footnote…and as I hate using footnotes, even 1 is a lot, for me.
I’ll need some time to read back over the two documents now.
I need to reread the articles again too.
I appreciate both attempts so far to flesh this out. Significant work has obviously gone into both. At present, I lean toward’s Codex’s draft, primarily because it recognizes more of who we are now in relation to the delegate and doesn’t spell out as many details of roles. You all know my position. I don’t think in most cases there should be a difference between IC and OOC govt. It just makes for messy boards and general confussion to newcomers.
I would suggest that we consider taking some of FPS’ statements about citizens (about free passage in and out of the region for example) and incorporate them. In the end, Codex’s document covers many of these things but briefly stating a few more rights wouldn’t hurt. Among those rights I’d suggest we need to establish a clause for those facing trial, allowing them the right to be present at their trial and to have a public defender if they so desire.
Among the responsibilities, I think it would be wise to place something about speaking with decorum. We have rarely prevented a person from attacking us here but we do edit posts or remove ones that are flames or spam.
I might also suggest removing 2.2.0 about not making war in the region. It’s never been enforcable and we always break it in roleplay so it seems a waste. We already have laws the instruct a nation not to attack the region and laws on proper decorum could take care of flaming.
“save when, at the discretion of the delegate or duly appointed representatives, a nation is determined to be acting deliberately to cause a public nuisance” - this was my attempt at putting a mitigating clause in with regard to, effectively, spam. Although I do like your way of putting it, so might be worth rephrasing.
A lot of the things about citizens in FPS’s draft… as I commeted earlier, I think they are taking the wrong direction with this, and getting the IC/OOC boundary very confused. As you say, there shouldn’t need to be that much of a divide between the two, since this is a regional, rather than national, constitution. It serves to form relations between nations, rather than people, and since nations are the discrete entities OOC as well, this should fit perfectly. The Assembly of Lords, the High Court are more like the UN General Assembly and Security Council than they are like a Congress and Court… hence the membership of them is national, not personal. If we want to go IC, then the people appointed to represent their nations in those roles can be defined - but this is done by the member nation, and not by the region.
Likewise, I think it needs to be pointed out that the High Court is passing judgement on nations, rather than people. Having said that, some clause to specify the nation can provide representation/be represented at the trial would be a good idea.
With regard to the individual rights of citizens… I am opposed to it, generally. This is a treaty establishment between nations; it does not establish any laws in member countries, which would be impossible within the NS framework. A lot of the rights in the Articles of Confederation, and within FPS’s new constitutional draft, simply wouldn’t work. For example, the right to fair trial. This isn’t something that could/should be established at the regional level. Hence, I am against incorporating something like that into the Charter.
However, I think a modified version of FPS’s ‘1.1.1.3: Citizens shall have the right to enter and exit the East Pacific as they see fit, so long as they have not broken any law in doing so’ is a necessary addition; but with regard to nations, and what they must do when they leave the region (resign posts) etc.
2.2.0: Good point. What do other people think about this?
I think we’re on the same page with the nations/citizens thoughts Codex. What I meant to say, as I woke up, was that some of the rights like that to enter and exit freely could be applied to a nation instead with some benefit.
Just a couple things.
- I’d made my draft with the assumption that it was entirely OOC, as in, we see people as people, not as nations. Looking back, I can now see that most here were for a constitution both for IC and OOC. If we do continue with this idea, then my draft, quite blatantly, is useless, excepting having put some new ideas out there to be debated, having changed a couple names/things people have talked about, and the creation of a couple new positions. Pretty much, only my general ideas are of use, if even, they’ll still require some changing though.
- Well, I’d hate to suggest more documents, but perhaps it would be best to have more then just the constitution. Possibly a moderator’s OOC lawbook, a court guidebook or something like that, an EPIA charter, etc, etc.
- I have to agree on the 2.2.0 thing…if were going to have this apply to IC as well as OOC, outlawing war would not only be stupid, but useless, and a law disobeyed more then speeding is in the US.
That’s all…I’d like to add an apology for my recent forum absensce…between the school play, the end of the quarter, the coming of GTA: San Andreas, and sudden activity in many of my clubs, as well as internet problems…it’s just been hard to get here and post.
yes PLEASE make war legal 