Amendments to Citizenship Act and Public Official Disclosure Act

Codex Memorial Garden The Magisterium
1

I am proposing an amendment to the Citizenship Act and the Public Official Disclosure Act (renamed the Public Disclosure Act) to require all Citizen Applicants file a public disclosure form as a prerequisite for citizenship, and to require existing citizens who have not completed a public disclosure form to do so within 30 days of the enactment of this proposal.

This proposal is necessary for security, as under the current law any potential spy does not need to disclose anything to be able to vote in elections for Archon and Delegate, and executive staffers need not disclose their affiliations.

This proposal will require all citizens, without exception, to file a public disclosure form.

This proposal will accomplish this by allowing citizens to be removed during the course of a citizenship audit if, in accordance with the Public Disclosure Act, the citizen does not have a valid public disclosure form. It is important to note that citizens are still given a seven-day grace period after receiving notice, in which to comply. The required notice has been enhanced, in addition to the pre-existing requirement that notice be given via telegrams, a new mandate that, whenever possible, the citizen must be contacted off-site has been introduced: the Public Disclosure Act used to say “may,” but now it says “must.”

Importantly, this proposal provides a 30-day transition period for citizens to come into compliance with the new requirement.

Considering all these factors, this proposal strikes the right balance between regional openness and regional security.

It may be simpler to combine the acts. I am open to this idea.

First off, here are the changes to the Public Official Disclosure Act (again, renamed the Public Disclosure Act):

SECTION I: CITATION

  1. This Act shall be known and cited as the “Public Official Disclosure Act.”

Section II. DEFINITIONS

1. “Public Officials” include:
1.1. The Delegate; and
1.2. All Magisters, Arbiters, Viziers, Ministers, Deputy Ministers; and
1.3. Any other position designed to be a Public Official in legislation or Executive Orders.

21. “Positions of Interest” include:
21.1. All governmental positions currently held in other regions; and
21.2. All governmental positions held within the last twelve (12) months in other regions; and
21.3. All citizenship in other regions; and
21.4. All leadership or membership in cross-regional organisations; and
21.5. All foreign titles received.

32. “Conflicts of Interest” are any situation in which a Public Official’s impartiality may be called into question due to a Position of Interest.

4. “Exception Approvers” are the Delegate, the Provost of the Magisterium, the Grand Vizier of the Praesidium, and the Viceroy of the Conclave.

53. “Compliance Officers” include the Eastern Pacific Police Service and any Vizier who chooses to act as a Compliance Officer.

4. “Citizen Applicant” means any individual who has submitted, and currently has pending, an application for citizenship before the Citizenship Committee.

5. “Disclosure Fraud” means the intentional falsification, withholding, or manipulation of information in a public disclosure form with the intent to deceive the East Pacific.

Section III. PROVISIONS

  1. All Public OfficialsEvery Citizenship Applicant areis required to create a public disclosure form in the Public Disclosure Forms subforum, as a prerequisite for admission to the Citizenry. This form must disclose any aliases or Positions of Interest.

  2. All Public Officialscitizens must comply with these provisions within seven (7) days of any change to their positions within the East Pacific, aliases, or Positions of Interest.:
    2.1. Applying for, taking, or accepting their position(s); or
    2.2. Any change to their positions, aliases, or Positions of Interest.

  3. Compliance Officers are charged with creating, maintaining, and pinning a standardised template for all public disclosure forms. This template must include a way of clearly identifying current aliases and positions of interest.

Section IV. EXCEPTIONS

  1. Relationships that are unrelated to governmental associations do not have to be disclosed.

2. An alias or a Position of Interest may be withheld if approval is obtained from at least two (2) Exception Approvers.
2.1. To obtain approval, the Public Official must disclose the alias or Position of Interest being withheld to every Exception Approver.
2.2. If approval is obtained, the Public Official must notify every Exception Approver of who has provided the approval, and the Public Official must insert the statement, “ADDITIONAL POSTIONS OR ALIASES HAVE NOT BEEN DISCLOSED BY THE AUTHORITY OF [INSERT APPROVING EXCEPTION APPROVERS]”, into their public disclosure form.

3. Exception Approvers must hold all disclosures made to them under this section of the Act in the strictest of confidence, regardless of whether they provide approval.

Section V. FAILURE TO DISCLOSE

  1. Compliance Officers are charged with monitoring compliance with this Act.

  2. If a Public Officialcitizen appears to be out of compliance with this Act, a Compliance Officer will contact one of their valid Citizenship nations.
    2.1. This notification must be done via telegram; and
    2.2. MayMust additionally be done through other private communication methods if the Public Officialcitizen can reliably receive the notice.
    2.3. The Public Officialcitizen will have seven (7) days from the date they were given notice to apply for an exemption or to come into full complyliance with this Act. No action may be taken by the Office, as defined in the Citizenship Act, or by the East Pacific against that citizen regarding their failure to comply during this grace period.

3. Failure to come into full compliance with this Act after the expiration of the aforementioned seven (7)‑day grace period shall result in that citizen’s citizenship being automatically revoked, as provided in the Citizenship Act.

34. Failure to comply with this Act may result in a trial before the Conclave for an indictable offence, when it can be proven that the individual committed an act of intentional Disclosure Fraud. Sentencing should not exceed banishment for one two years from The East Pacific.

Section VI. TRANSITORY PROVISIONS

1. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act or the Citizenship Act, every citizen admitted to the Citizenry prior to the enactment of the amendment creating Section VI of this Act, who does not have a Public Disclosure Form, shall have thirty (30) days from the enactment of that amendment to come into full compliance with this Act.

2. Any Citizenship Applicant whose application is pending at the time of the enactment of the amendment creating Section VI of this Act shall be required to file a public disclosure form in accordance with this Act.

Changes to the Citizenship Act:

SECTION III: NATURALIZATION

  1. Residents seeking to become Citizens must:
    1.1. State within their application their Resident nation, which must be a member of the World Assembly (WA), and post said application in the medium designated by the Office,
    1.2. Respond in confirmation to a telegram sent to their nation from a Citizenship Official, and
    1.3. File a public disclosure form in accordance with the Public Disclosure Act; and
    1.34. Have their application accepted by the Office.
  2. All applications must list a valid WA Resident nation operated by their respective applicants. Applications not meeting these criteria shall be denied.
  3. A Citizenship Official shall notify a Resident, via an in-game telegram, on whether their application for Citizenship was accepted or denied.
  4. The Office may deny any Citizenship application for reasons of regional security concerns, incomplete application, failure to satisfy disclosure requirements, provision of falsified information and/or ejection from the WA. Said denial may be appealed to the Conclave within two weeks of denial.
    4.1. The Praesidium may vote to overrule the Office’s decision to grant Citizenship for reasons of regional security provided the decision is made within two weeks of the citizenship being granted.
    4.2. If a telegram from the Citizenship Office is not replied to within fourteen days, the associated citizenship application shall automatically expire, in which case a new citizenship application must be submitted in order to be accepted.
  5. Upon becoming a Citizen, a Resident is required to maintain continuous residency and World Assembly status with the Citizen nation they stated their application (“recorded Citizen nation”).
  6. In the event a Citizen wishes to change what nation the Office has noted as their recorded Citizen nation, they shall request the Office, within the designated Thread, to change one of their recorded nations to a new nation they own. A telegram from the new nation shall be sent to a Citizenship Official.
    6.1. A Citizenship Official shall notify a Citizen, via an in-game telegram, once their request for a change is granted by the Office in the Thread.
  7. Active soldiers of the Eastern Pacific Sovereign Army (“EPSA”) as verified by the Overseeing Officer must return WA status to their citizen nation whenever they are not actively deployed in a foreign region on the orders of the EPSA. The Overseeing Officer shall keep records of all deployments for the Citizenship Office to review for the enforcement of this clause. EPSA soldiers may maintain private WA status nations over an extended period of time provided the Viziers are made aware of the operation and the deployed nation in question.
  8. The provisions of this section, except 3.4, shall not apply if an applicant with permanent World Assembly status in a foreign region is approved by a majority vote of the Praesidium. Citizens approved in this way must maintain continuous World Assembly status in the foreign nation they list and continuous residency in a nation of The East Pacific named in their application as well.
    8.1. Citizens approved in this way may change their recorded Resident or recorded WA nation through the same process by which WA Citizens may change their Citizen nation under clause 3.6.

SECTION IV: CITIZENSHIP AUDIT

  1. The Office shall use the Thread to track and document the following: a Citizenship shall be invalid 12 hours after
    1.1. Failure to maintain residency with their recorded Resident nation,
    1.2. Failure to maintain WA membership in their recorded WA nation.
    1.3. Failure to comply with the process detailed in Section 3.6. within the aforementioned 12-hour timeframe
    1.4. Failure to maintain a valid public disclosure form, following the expiration of any valid grace period, as provided by the Public Disclosure Act.
  2. If the Citizen returns their recorded Resident nation to the region or their WA membership to their recorded WA nation and issues a notification of such return within the Thread before the 12 hour period established in Section 4.1 expires, their Citizenship shall remain valid.
    2.1 The Citizen may also keep their Citizenship valid if they successfully change their recorded Resident nation or recorded WA nation to another nation with valid citizenship or WA membership within the same 12 hour period, following Section 3 procedures.
  3. Exceptions to Section 4.1 and its subsections may be established by additional law. Any Citizen may reapply for Citizenship upon removal.
  4. Any Resident may renounce their Citizenship by notifying the Office in the Thread.

This is just the first draft. Your feedback is welcome.

2

While I support this - its quite a standard practice for other regions to make citizens fill out a list of questions,

I do take issue with codifying the 7 day limits and transitionary periods into law. Those should be the purview of the cit office to decide and hand out guidance, rather than placing into into law