Official: Constitutional (non-)ratification: Take Two

[Maniac]

As the previous constitutional proposal was one vote short to be ratified, here is an alternative proposal, with as only difference that the preamble has been replaced by GeneralTacticus' version. Nothing else has been changed because, except for the no-to-preamble voters and Jamski who had the rather unsolvable complaint that the constitution was too long, no other NO voter has mentioned the reason for his or her vote.

Same as before. Yeah, Nay or Banana, with five days voting time.

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CONSTITUTION

OF

THE UNION OF HUMAN HIVE REPUBLICS

Adopted at the Ninth Session of
the Supreme Soviet of the UHHR
First Convocation
On Mission Date 2101.06.01

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Preamble

We, as representatives of the people of the Union of Human Hive Republics, do hereby proclaim in this document the basic principles of civilization upon the new world of Chiron. We proclaim ourselves the inheritors of human destiny, charged with leading our people towards a better future, away from the ruin that is Earth, and we proclaim to all that we shall build a new society here, a society led by the best and brightest in the interests of all.



I. The Party Structure

We, participants of the Alpha Centauri Police State Game, are all full members of the Central Committee of the The Party of the Union of Human Hive Republics. This Committee is responsible for discussing policy alternatives. They also elect the executive government officials - the Council of Ministers, Central Committee Secretariat and the republican Secretariat - responsible for carrying out the policies decided upon. A step up on the party hierarchy is the Politburo. The Politburo consists of the most influential members of the Party. The Chairman of the Politburo is the General Secretary. This person is the highest authority within The Party. These positions will now be explained in more detail.

General Secretary

Unlike members of the executive government, the General Secretary is chosen once shortly after Planetfall and will remain in his or her position until he or she resigns or is impeached.
Tasks and functions:

• Post nomination and election threads when necessary, keep track of coups, and keep the goverment thread updated.
• Try to find replacements if a government official becomes inactive, and no deputy is available.
• Be moderator of the "AC-Police State Game" forum.
• Guardian of the constitution, and mother-hen of the game in general.
• Chairman of the politburo. The General Secretary has the right to appoint and remove the members of the party's Politburo.

Politburo

The members of the Politburo are appointed by the General Secretary, the Chairman of the Politburo. The Politburo can at most consist out of nine members. Criteria for selection are political influence, activity rate (especially on turnchats) and representation of the most important political tendencies. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers is an automatic member of the Politburo though.
Tasks and functions:

• In case of a constitutional issue, the judges for the Supreme Court will be volunteers of the Politburo.
• A majority of the Politburo can veto any decision of an executive government official.

II. Executive Government Structure

The Council of Ministers, the Central Committee Secretariat and the Secretariats of the Union Republics make up the executive government. Government officials are elected in the area they oversee, and they have the task of informing and advising the people on our situation. They are required to conduct polls in order to interpret the Central Committee’s will. They are then to carry out that will, by giving their orders to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

All Secretaries are allowed to advise and consult with each other. They are also granted the right to petition for changes or actions from other Secretaries that may be critical to the their department. Ultimately, however, it is the Secretary in charge of his or her department that has the final say in how things are handled.

Secretaries must poll all major decisions, such as deciding what science advance to pursue, whether to change our social engineering settings, or whether to construct a secret project. However, they can act on minor decisions without consulting the Central Committee, such as what to do in the event of a mindworm attack, or every little former order.

The Chairman and Secretaries are advised to appoint a Deputy Chairman or Deputy Secretary who can give orders if they are absent. This is to allow the smooth flow of the game in case they are temporarily absent.

Chairman of the Council of Ministers

Tasks and functions:

• Play the game.
• Follow the orders of the Secretaries on their field of expertise.
• Post turnthreads, turn save files and chatlogs on the forum.
• May take emergency decisions when the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of a certain republic or department are absent and have not given orders.

Secretary for Science and Social Engineering

Tasks and functions:

• Order the technology to research next.
• Order changes to the Social Engineering settings.
• Control the movement and use of alien artifacts.

Secretary for Factional Defense

Tasks and functions:

• Control the movement and use of miltary units.
• Control the movement and use of covert ops units.
• Design new military & covert ops units, disband old military & covert ops units and upgrade current military & covert ops units.

Secretary for Foreign Affairs

Tasks and functions:

• Determine the general foreign policy of our faction.
• Control diplomatic talks with other factions.
• Represent our faction in the Planetary Council.

Secretary for Economic Policies

Tasks and functions:

• Map out the borders and bases of the Union Republics in our faction.
• May veto orders of First Secretaries.
• Set the energy allocations.
• Move colony pods and determine future base locations.
• Poll base names and landmark names.

First Secretaries of Union Republics

Tasks and functions within their republic:

• Control the movement and use of formers and crawlers supported by their republic's bases.
• Set production orders and build queues of their bases.
• May hurry production and order former and crawler upgrades.
• Move their bases' workers.

III. Political Rights and Organization

Amendments:

Amendments to the Constitution can be submitted by any member of the Central Committee. First in a form of a thread where exact lines can be discussed and after that in a poll. An amendment is passed and made official by a 2/3 or greater YEA vote on the amendment's inclusion.

Limits on office accumulation:

Officials can be divided in five groups:
1. General Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers
2. Politburo members and Judges
3. All-union Secretaries
4. First Secretaries of Union Republics
5. Deputies of executive government officials
It is not allowed to run for two positions in the same group. Nor is it allowed to combine a position in group one with a position in group three, four or five. All other combinations are allowed.
An official can infinitely stay in charge until s/he resigns or is couped.

Coups and Resignations:

Every member of the Central Committee can start a coup to overthrow any government or party official at any time. The challenger to take over the position must start a thread with "Coup Attempt" and the position they are attempting to take over as thread title. Then everyone who wishes to declares their support for either the incumbant or the challenger in that thread. After 5 days, the General Secretary (or the Chairman if the position being contested is the General Secretary) tallies the votes, and declares the winner. Voting is as follows:

• Central Committee Members not holding any other position - 1 vote
• First Secretaries of Republics - 2 votes
• All-union Secretaries - 3 votes
• Politburo Members - 3 votes
• Chairman of the Council of Ministers - 4 votes
• General Secretary - 5 votes

The person that holds the position being contended receives two extra votes, as s/he has extra influence over that department, being that s/he legitimately controls the defenses and employees of that department.

If a person holds multiple positions, that person gets the votes for all (since s/he controls the defenses and employees of all of those departments, and s/he has the same influence as if multiple people held those positions). Split votes are not allowed: one must vote for one candidate.

If one fails in his/her attempt to dispose of someone, that person not launch another coup on any position for a period of one turnchat, and if the person succeeds then no one else may launch a coup against the person for a period of one turnchat. However if the coup fails, someone else may launch another coup against that same position as soon as the first coup finishes. There may be many coups for different positions going on at once, however if there is a coup for a position, it would break the 'one turnchat' rule to launch another while it is ongoing. It is possible however for a third person to enter a currently running coup as a third candidate. If such happens, the coup still times out at the same point, and the first votes cannot be changed as people have already committed their influence.

If a coup is tied after five days, the incumbant holds his/her position.

During a coup attempt to overthrow the General Secretary, the General Secretary is not allowed to change the composition, remove current or add new members to of the Politburo. S/he is neither allowed to affect coup threads with his/her mod powers until general permission is given.

Every government or party official may resign from office. The Deputy or Chairman will take over the duties until a replacement is found.

Playing ahead:

No person is allowed to play ahead for any reason.
Checking what technologies can be researched when the current research is "None" and negotiating with AI factions on a parallel turn is not considered playing ahead.



IV. Poll Regulations


There will be four types of polls:

• Election
• Official
• Social Engineering (a special case of an official poll)
• Unofficial

Elections:

They may only be started by the General Secretary. They must have “Election” in the subject line. They are purely decision-making polls.

Poll:

• Office in question
• ONLY names candidates
• Abstain option
• Write-in-option
• 3 days open

First post:

• ONLY names candidates
• Link to a discussion thread when present
• Expire date

Official:

They may only be started by a government official. They must have “Official” in the subject line, and must be used as information gathering or decision making.

Poll:

• Abstain option
• Write-in-option
• Minimum of 2 days
• Maximum of 7 days
• Clear and not biased question and answers

First post:

• Further explanation of the questions and answers
• Link to discussion thread (if any)
• Expire date
• Stated: information gathering or decision making

Time Frame:

• No poll may be posted on a particular issue more than once in the period between two turnchats, excepting polls which have been declared invalid.
• The above rule will apply even if a new decision on a particular issue which has already been decided is part of a poll on something else; for example, a poll on a borehole being built on a particular square, if, within the specified period, the people have voted against it, could not be worked into a general terraforming poll.
• In cases where a previous poll is tied, new polls are permitted on the issue, but may only include the options that tied, along with the 'Abstain' or 'Xenonabana' option.
• If a turnchat does not occur within 7 days (168 hours) of the previous poll closing, it is considered to have occurred for the purposes of this amendment, as the opinion of the people may have changed significantly by this time.

Social Engineering:

They may only be started by the Secretary for Science and Social Engineering. They are purely decision-making polls.
All polls to change social engineering settings should be in this format:

Poll:

• Single choice
• Only names options (Must include current setting)
• Abstain option
• Write-in-option
• Open for 3 days minimum

First post:

• Further explanation of question (if needed)
• Only names options
• Link to discussion thread, if present
• Expire date

If this poll gives a clear majority (50+%) to one option, then that option is put into place. If not then there is to be a ‘head to head’ poll in this format:

Poll:

• Name the two highest scoring options from above poll (if two are equal second, the Secretary for Science and Social Engineering can choose which one goes through)
• Abstain option
• Write-in-option
• Open for 3 days minimum

First post:

• Further explanation of question (if needed)
• Only names options
• Link to discussion thread
• Expire date

The time frame rules for official polls also count for all Social Engineering polls.

Unofficial:

They may be started by all members of the faction. They are purely information gathering polls. No special rules apply to these polls - they are unofficial after all. However to increase the probability the unofficial poll results would be taken under consideration, the poll starter is recommended to follow the rules for official polls.

No-confidence votes:

Besides the word “abstain” for a general disagreement or no-confidence vote, the words “Banana”, “Xenobanana” or the dancing banana smilie are also allowed. This then follows the time-honoured precedent where a banana vote signifies disagreement with all choices on offer, or, to put it more negatively, a no-confidence vote in the poll or candidate being voted on. Please also note that in an election poll the Banana option must have more votes than a candidate for the Banana to be elected. The combination of Banana plus Write-in votes surpassing the amount of votes for a candidate is no sufficient reason not to be elected.



V. The Supreme Court


1. Purpose:

The Court is constituted to rule upon: contested disputes involving legal interpretation, validity of polls, violations of the Constitution, or any other legal dispute involving the game.

2. Construct of the Court:

a. Size of Court:
Judges are chosen out of the Politburo, which at maximum consists out of nine members.

b. Terms in office:
There is no limit to the number of terms a Judge may serve. Each Politburo member can serve as Judge as long as he remains a Politburo members.

c. Procurator:
At the beginning of each case, the Politburo is to select a 'Procurator', who will be responsible for ensuring that a report is published for each decision made by the court, showing the rationale behind the decision. If the report is not provided, this may be grounds for an appeal. The Procurator will also preside over any hearings before the Supreme Court.

d. Rules for selection
A Politburo member can not volunteer to judge over a case when that member is involved in the case.

3. Case Structure:

a. Quorum:
At least three Judges must be involved in any ruling that is made. If only three justices are involved and they cannot agree, a non-voting Judge must step in to break the deadlock.

b. Rulings:
All rulings are immediately official and final except where appeals are granted.

c. Appeals:
Appeals may be granted if there are grounds to believe that the constitution has not been applied properly. Any citizen directly involved in the case may make an application for an appeal. If a majority of the Politburo decides to grant the appeal, a new trial will be created to examine the case. In that case, the current verdict is placed on hold until after the appeal process.

d. Injunctions:
The Court cannot stop the game to make a decision without a 2/3 vote amongst the people. In case of an emergency due to timing of a turnchat and poll of the populace, the Court may halt the game for 24 hours, but only by unanimous vote of the Court and only if a specific case has been presented to them that must be decided prior to the turnchat. In the emergency case, the Court would immediately have to present a 24 hour poll to the people for their approval of the Injunction. If not approved by the time of the poll's closure, the game immediately resumes where it was before.

e. Case Presentation:
The Court cannot act on any issue until a citizen of the nation brings forth an Issue to the Court. Issues to the Court should be posted publicly and must involve a dispute that the court is empowered to rule upon.

[Nubclear]

I am revolutionary and right-thinking. I, of course, vote YEA.

Hopefully the counter-revolutionaries will be spared from execution and vote YEA as well.

[Drogue]

Voted YEA. My problem with the last one is now fixed

[Octavian X]

YEA here, too.

And, one of these days, I'll summarize our coup system for addition to the document.

[Jamski]

Well it is shorter now... perhaps we could cut the supreme court bit to "The Chairman is always right" and make it even shorter...

YEA anyway, or YAY, as MoO3 would say.

-Jam

[Maniac]

And, one of these days, I'll summarize our coup system for addition to the document.

Don't worry. It has already been added under "Chapter III: Coups and Resignations".

[Octavian X]

Well, that just goes to show you how attentive I am, and how easy it is to get me to blindly vote 'yes.'